Asteroids in the Distance
17.04.2005

Rocks from space hit Earth every day. The larger the rock, though, the less often Earth is struck. Many kilograms of space dust pitter to Earth daily. Larger bits appear initially as a bright meteor. Baseball-sized rocks and ice-balls streak through our atmosphere daily, most evaporating quickly to nothing.

Venus on the Horizon
19.06.1999

Venus can appear as a brilliant evening star. Besides the sun and moon, Venus is the brightest object visible in Earth's sky. Because it is closer to the sun than Earth, Venus never...

APOD: 2026 April 22 Б Earthset with an iPhone
22.04.2026

What does it mean for the Earth to set? Artemis II Commander Reid Wiseman gave us another spectacular view of Earth from their historic flyby of the Moon. Commander Wiseman's video, taken with an iPhone at 8x zoom, shows our entire planet gradually blocked from view by the Moon.

Asteroids in the Distance
6.03.2011

Rocks from space hit Earth every day. The larger the rock, though, the less often Earth is struck. Many kilograms of space dust pitter to Earth daily. Larger bits appear initially as a bright meteor. Baseball-sized rocks and ice-balls streak through our atmosphere daily, most evaporating quickly to nothing.

Saturns Moon Rhea from Cassini
15.02.2005

Each moon of Saturn seems to come with its own mystery. Rhea, Saturn's second largest moon behind Titan, shows unusual wisps, visible above as light colored streaks. Higher resolution images of the wisps show them to be made of long braided fractures.

Comet Lovejoy s Tail
16.01.2015

Sweeping north in planet Earth's sky, Comet Lovejoy's greenish coma and blue tinted ion tail stretched across this field of stars in the constellation Taurus on January 13. The inset at the upper left shows the 1/2 degree angular size of the full moon for scale.

APOD: 2024 June 30 Б Earthrise: A Video Reconstruction
30.06.2024

About 12 seconds into this video, something unusual happens. The Earth begins to rise. Never seen by humans before, the rise of the Earth over the limb of the Moon occurred about 55.5 years ago and surprised and amazed the crew of Apollo 8.

The Moon Eclipses Saturn
16.07.2014

What happened to half of Saturn? Nothing other than Earth's Moon getting in the way. As pictured above on the far right, Saturn is partly eclipsed by a dark edge of a Moon itself only partly illuminated by the Sun.

Earthset from Orion
23.11.2022

Eight billion people are about to disappear in this snapshot from space. Taken on November 21, the sixth day of the Artemis 1 mission, their home world is setting behind the Moon's bright edge as viewed by an external camera on the outbound Orion spacecraft.

Red Moon, Green Beam
18.04.2014

This is not a scene from a sci-fi special effects movie. The green beam of light and red lunar disk are real enough, captured in the early morning hours of April 15. Of course, the reddened lunar disk is easy to explain as the image was taken during this week's total lunar eclipse.