Aurora Above
11.11.1998

On some nights the sky is the most interesting show in town. This picture captures a particularly active and colorful display of aurora that occurred a month ago high above Alaska. Auroras are more commonly seen by observers located near the Earth's poles.

A Pileus Iridescent Cloud Over Ethiopia
24.08.2011

Yes, but how many dark clouds have a multicolored lining? Pictured, behind this darker cloud, is a pileus iridescent cloud, a group of water droplets that have a uniformly similar size and so together diffract different colors of sunlight by different amounts.

Our Solar System from Voyager
14.12.1996

After taking spectacular pictures of our Solar System's outer planets, Voyager 1 looked back at six planets to take our Solar System's first family portrait. Here Venus, Earth, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, were all visible across the sky.

Antares
24.06.1997

Antares is a huge star. In a class called red supergiant, Antares is about 700 times the size of our own Sun, 15 times more massive, and 10,000 times brighter. Antares is the brightest star in the constellation of Scorpius and one of the brighter stars in all the night sky.

Symbiotic Star System R Aquarii
4.01.1996

Sometimes stars work together to create a spectacular display. Such is the case with the binary star system R Aquarii - a "symbiotic" star system. Here two stars, a variable giant and a white dwarf companion - create both a nebula and a jet.

A Winter Solstice
21.12.1997

Today is the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. The yearly cycle of Seasons on planet Earth once again finds the Sun at its lowest point in the Northern Sky.

Distant Galaxies
7.09.1995

This Hubble Space Telescope image of a group of faint galaxies "far, far away" is a snap shot of the Universe when it was young. The bluish, irregularly shaped galaxies revealed in the image are up to eight billion light years away and seem to have commonly undergone galaxy collisions and bursts of star formation.

Central Galactic Star Bursts
1.10.1995

The pictured core of the galaxy NGC 253 shows an exceptionally high rate of star formation. In the center are some of the densest knots of stars ever found, surrounded by glowing gas and dust lanes. Galaxies where such high star formation rates are seen are called "starburst" galaxies.

Albert Einstein: 1879 - 1955
19.12.1995

Albert Einstein is considered by many the greatest astrophysicist. He is pictured here in the Swiss Patent Office where he did much of his great work. Einstein's many visionary scientific contributions include...

Dusty Galaxy Centaurus A
30.03.1997

One of the most unusual galaxies known, Centaurus A, is pictured above. Cen A is marked by dramatic dust lanes that run across the galaxy's center. These dust lanes are so thick they almost completely obscure the galaxy's center in visible light.