Rungs of the Red Rectangle
13.05.2004

A distinctive X-shape and ladder-like rungs appear in this Hubble Space Telescope image of the intriguing Red Rectangle Nebula. The dusty cosmic cloud was originally identified as a strong source of infrared radiation and is now believed to contain icy dust grains and hydrocarbon molecules formed in the cool outflow from an aging central star.

Massive Stars Resolved in the Carina Nebula
1.12.2008

How massive can stars be? Big, hefty stars live short violent lives that can profoundly affect their environments. Isolating a massive star can be problematic, however, since what seems to be a single bright star might actually turn out to be several stars close together.

A Solar Eclipse from the Moon
7.04.2014

Has a solar eclipse ever been seen from the Moon? Yes, first in 1967 -- but it may happen again next week. The robotic Surveyor 3 mission took thousands of wide angle television images of the Earth in 1967, a few of which captured the Earth moving in front of the Sun.

Cheering a Total Solar Eclipse
15.03.2016

What would you do if you saw the Sun disappear? Quite possibly: cheer. That's what many exuberant sky watchers did across Indonesia during a total eclipse of the Sun last week. There and then, the land and sky went dark during the day as our Sun disappeared for a few minutes behind our Moon.

A Venus Flyby
25.02.2021

On a mission to explore the inner heliosphere and solar corona, on July 11, 2020 the Wide-field Imager on board NASA's Parker Solar Probe captured this stunning view of the nightside of Venus at distance of about 12,400 kilometers (7,693 miles).

APOD: 2026 May 12 Б The Conjunction of Comet R3 PanSTARRS and the Orion Nebula
12.05.2026

TodayБs composite image features something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue! Comet R3 PanSTARRS, streaking across the right of the image, likely originated from the Oort Cloud, meaning it is an old Solar System relic from billions of years ago.

Zodiacal Light Panorama
5.04.2012

Sweeping from the eastern to western horizon, this 360 degree panorama follows the band of zodiacal light along the solar system's ecliptic plane. Dust scattering sunlight produces the faint zodiacal glow that spans...

Pickering s Triangle in the Veil
17.09.2015

Chaotic in appearance, these filaments of shocked, glowing gas break across planet Earth's sky toward the constellation of Cygnus, as part of the Veil Nebula. The Veil Nebula itself is a large supernova remnant, an expanding cloud born of the death explosion of a massive star.

Williamina Fleming s Triangular Wisp
10.11.2017

Chaotic in appearance, these tangled filaments of shocked, glowing gas are spread across planet Earth's sky toward the constellation of Cygnus as part of the Veil Nebula. The Veil Nebula itself is a large supernova remnant, an expanding cloud born of the death explosion of a massive star.

The South Pole of Mars
13.12.2001

The south pole of Mars is the bright area near the center of the detailed, subtly shaded color image above. Recorded in September of this year by the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) spacecraft, the picture shows a region surrounding the 400 kilometer wide martian polar cap in the midst of southern hemisphere spring.