1006 AD: Supernova in the Sky
28.03.2003

A new star, likely the brightest supernova in recorded human history, appeared in planet Earth's sky in the year 1006 AD. The expanding debris cloud from the stellar explosion is still visible to modern astronomers, but what did the supernova look like in 1006?

Endeavour in the Moon
20.11.2008

Glaring near the top of the frame, the shuttle orbiter Endeavour rockets into the night on the STS-126 mission. Endeavour left planet Earth on November 14 from Launch Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, making the 27th flight to the International Space Station.

A Raging Storm System on Saturn
26.12.2011

It is one of the largest and longest lived storms ever recorded in our Solar System. First seen late last year, the above cloud formation in the northern hemisphere of Saturn started larger than the Earth and soon spread completely around the planet.

All the Water on Europa
24.05.2012

How much of Jupiter's moon Europa is made of water? A lot, actually. Based on the Galileo probe data acquired during its exploration of the Jovian system from 1995 to 2003, Europa posses a deep, global ocean of liquid water beneath a layer of surface ice.

M33: Triangulum Galaxy
17.09.2016

The small, northern constellation Triangulum harbors this magnificent face-on spiral galaxy, M33. Its popular names include the Pinwheel Galaxy or just the Triangulum Galaxy. M33 is over 50,000 light-years in diameter, third largest in the Local Group of galaxies after the Andromeda Galaxy (M31), and our own Milky Way.

Seagull to Sirius
15.12.2016

This broad, beautiful mosaic spans almost 20 degrees across planet Earth's sky. The nebula-rich region lies near the edge of the Orion-Eridanus supperbubble, filled with looping, expanding shells of gas and dust embedded in molecular clouds near the plane of the Milky Way Galaxy.

Earth and Moon
4.12.2017

On rare occasions, the Earth and Moon are photographed together. One of most spectacular times this occurred was 25 years ago this month when the Jupiter-bound Galileo spacecraft zoomed past our home planetary system. Then, robotic Galileo watched from about 15-times the Earth-Moon separation as our only natural satellite glided past our home world.

Highlights of the North Winter Sky
5.12.2018

What can you see in the night sky this season? The featured graphic gives a few highlights for Earth's northern hemisphere. Viewed as a clock face centered at the bottom, early (northern) winter sky events fan out toward the left, while late winter events are projected toward the right.

Solstice to Solstice Solargraph Timelapse
21.12.2019

The 2019 December Solstice, on the first day of winter in planet Earth's northern hemisphere and summer in the south, is at 4:19 Universal Time December 22. That's December 21 for North America, though. Celebrate with a timelapse animation of the Sun's seasonal progression through the sky.

Lyrid Meteors from the Constellation Lyra
12.05.2020

Where are all of these meteors coming from? In terms of direction on the sky, the pointed answer is the constellation of Small Harp (Lyra). That is why the famous meteor shower that peaks every April is known as the Lyrids -- the meteors all appear to came from a radiant toward Lyra.