Cassinis Grand Finale Tour at Saturn
25.01.2017

Cassini is being prepared to dive into Saturn. The robotic spacecraft that has been orbiting and exploring Saturn for over a decade will end its mission in September with a spectacular atmospheric plunge. Pictured here is a diagram of Cassini's remaining orbits, each taking about one week.

North America and the Pelican
1.12.2017

Fans of our fair planet might recognize the outlines of these cosmic clouds. On the left, bright emission outlined by dark, obscuring dust lanes seems to trace a continental shape, lending the popular name North America Nebula to the emission region cataloged as NGC 7000.

A Harvest Moon
13.09.2019

Famed in festival, story, and song the best known full moon is the Harvest Moon. For northern hemisphere dwellers that's a traditional name of the closest full moon to the September equinox. In most North America time zones this year's Harvest Moon will officially rise on Friday, September 13.

Comet NEOWISE over the Swiss Alps
15.07.2020

Comet NEOWISE has been wowing photographers around much of the world during dawn and dusk, at the margins of day and night. For the most northern residents of planet Earth, however, the comet circles the North Star and never sets.

Comet C 2017 K2 (PanSTARRS)
30.06.2022

Imaged on June 20 2022, comet C/2017 K2 (PanSTARRS) shares this wide telescopic field of view with open star cluster IC 4665 and bright star Beta Ophiuchi, near a starry edge of the Milky Way.

Orion and the Ocean of Storms
7.12.2023

On December 5, 2022, a camera on board the uncrewed Orion spacecraft captured this view as Orion approached its return powered flyby of the Moon. Beyond one of Orion's extended solar arrays lies dark, smooth, terrain along the western edge of the Oceanus Procellarum.

APOD: 2024 January 28 Б Pluto in True Color
28.01.2024

What color is Pluto, really? It took some effort to figure out. Even given all of the images sent back to Earth when the robotic New Horizons spacecraft sped past Pluto in 2015, processing these multi-spectral frames to approximate what the human eye would see was challenging.

APOD: 2025 March 3 Б Blue Ghost on the Moon
3.03.2025

There's a new lander on the Moon. Yesterday Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost executed the first-ever successful commercial lunar landing. During its planned 60-day mission, Blue Ghost will deploy several NASA-commissioned scientific instruments, including PlanetVac which captures lunar dust after creating a small whirlwind of gas.

Unusual Flashes Toward Globular Cluster M22
3.07.2001

What is causing the unusual flashes behind globular cluster M22? This teaming ball of stars is the brightest globular cluster visible in Earth's northern hemisphere. M22, shown in full in the inset, spans about 50 light years away and lies 8500 light-years toward the constellation of Sagittarius.

THEMIS of Mars
2.11.2001

Not an ancient Greek goddess, THEMIS is modern acronese for THermal EMission Imaging System. Above is this remarkable instrument's premier infrared image of Mars, from the newly orbiting Mars Odyssey spacecraft. Taken...