APOD: 2025 May 9 Б IXPE Explores a Black Hole Jet
9.05.2025

How do black holes create X-rays? Answering this long-standing question was significantly advanced recently with data taken by NASAБs IXPE satellite. X-rays cannot exit a black hole, but they can be created in the energetic environment nearby, in particular by a jet of particles moving outward.

APOD: 2025 June 19 Б NGC 3521: Galaxy in a Bubble
19.06.2025

Gorgeous spiral galaxy NGC 3521 is a mere 35 million light-years away, toward the northern springtime constellation Leo. Relatively bright in planet Earth's sky, NGC 3521 is easily visible in small telescopes but often overlooked by amateur imagers in favor of other Leo spiral galaxies, like M66 and M65.

APOD: 2025 September 14 Б Planets of the Solar System: Tilts and Spins
14.09.2025

How does your favorite planet spin? Does it spin rapidly around a nearly vertical axis, or horizontally, or backwards? The featured video animates NASA images of all eight planets in our Solar System to show them spinning side-by-side for an easy comparison.

APOD: 2023 March 15 Б Jupiter and Venus Converge over Germany
15.03.2023

This was a sky to show the kids. Early this month the two brightest planets in the night sky, Jupiter and Venus, appeared to converge. At their closest, the two planets were separated by only about the angular width of the full moon.

APOD: 2024 May 29 Б Stairway to the Milky Way
29.05.2024

What happens if you ascend this stairway to the Milky Way? Before answering that, let's understand the beautiful sky you will see. Most eye-catching is the grand arch of the Milky Way Galaxy...

APOD: 2025 April 15 Б Planetary Nebula NGC 1514 from Webb
15.04.2025

What happens when a star runs out of nuclear fuel? For stars like our Sun, the center condenses into a white dwarf while the outer atmosphere is expelled into space to appear as a planetary nebula.

APOD: 2006 October 1- Earth at Night
1.10.2006

This is what the Earth looks like at night. Can you find your favorite country or city? Surprisingly, city lights make this task quite possible. Human-made lights highlight particularly developed or populated areas of the Earth's surface, including the seaboards of Europe, the eastern United States, and Japan.

APOD: 2023 February 5 Б Enceladus by Saturnshine
5.02.2023

This moon is shining by the light of its planet. Specifically, a large portion of Enceladus pictured here is illuminated primarily by sunlight first reflected from the planet Saturn. The result is that the normally snow-white moon appears in the gold color of Saturn's cloud tops.

APOD: 2023 February 27 Б Zodiacal Ray with Venus and Jupiter
27.02.2023

What's causing that unusual ray of light extending from the horizon? Dust orbiting the Sun. At certain times of the year, a band of sun-reflecting dust from the inner Solar System appears prominently after sunset or before sunrise and is called zodiacal light.

APOD: 2023 April 26 Б The Moon through the Arc de Triomphe
26.04.2023

Was this a lucky shot? Although many amazing photographs are taken by someone who just happenedбto be in the right place at the right time, this image took skill and careful planning. First...