Aurora over Maine
17.09.2014

It has been a good week for auroras. Earlier this month active sunspot region 2158 rotated into view and unleashed a series of flares and plasma ejections into the Solar System during its journey across the Sun's disk.

M13: The Great Globular Cluster in Hercules
11.05.2017

In 1716, English astronomer Edmond Halley noted, "This is but a little Patch, but it shews itself to the naked Eye, when the Sky is serene and the Moon absent." Of course...

Haumea of the Outer Solar System
16.10.2017

One of the strangest objects in the outer Solar System has recently been found to have a ring. The object, named Haumea, is the fifth designated dwarf planet after Pluto, Ceres, Eris, and Makemake. Haumea's oblong shape makes it quite unusual.

Aurora over Clouds
29.05.2021

Auroras usually occur high above the clouds. The auroral glow is created when fast-moving particles ejected from the Sun impact the Earth's magnetosphere, from which charged particles spiral along the Earth's magnetic field to strike atoms and molecules high in the Earth's atmosphere.

APOD: 2023 September 3 Б Comet Schwassmann Wachmann 3 Fragments
2.09.2023

Periodic comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 has broken up at least twice. A cosmic souffle of ice and dust left over from the early solar system, this comet was first seen to split into several large pieces during the close-in part of its orbit in 1995.

APOD: 2026 March 19 Б Launch Plume: SpaceX Jellyfish
18.03.2026

Even if you live with your head in the clouds, you wonБt find a jellyfish like this one very often. The featured image shows a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launch from Cape Canaveral in Florida on March 4.

A Sky Filled with Leonids
4.12.2001

In the early morning hours of November 19, amateur Chen Huang-Ming caught a sky filled with astronomical wonders. With his fisheye camera set up on Ho-Huan Mountain in Taiwan for a half-hour exposure, he started the above image a local time of 2:33 am.

The Milky Way's Center
14.03.1997

Although the Earth is round, our Galaxy appears truly flat. This was shown in dramatic fashion by the COsmic Background Explorer (COBE) satellite which produced this premier view of the central region of our own Milky Way Galaxy in infrared light in1990.

3C58: Pulsar Power
22.12.2004

Light from a star that exploded some ten thousand light-years away first reached our fair planet in the year 1181. Now known as supernova remnant 3C58, the region seen in this false-color image glows in x-rays, powered by a rapidly spinning neutron star or pulsar - the dense remains of the collapsed stellar core.

Lulin and Saturn near Opposition
26.02.2009

Tracking through the constellation Leo on February 23rd, bright planet Saturn and Comet Lulin were both near opposition -- opposite the Sun in planet Earth's sky. They also passed within only 2 degrees of each other creating a dramatic celestial photo-op.