Uranus' Moon Miranda
23.12.1995

NASA's robot spacecraft Voyager 2 passed the planet Uranus and its moons in 1986. While the cloud tops of Uranus proved to be rather featureless, the surface of Miranda, the innermost of Uranus' large moons, showed several interesting features.

Comet Halley and the Milky Way
3.10.1997

Comet Halley was photographed superposed in front of the disk of our Milky Way Galaxy in 1986 by the Kuiper Airborne Observatory. Comet Halley is the bright white streak near this photograph's center. Comet Halley is the most famous comet in history, and returns to the inner Solar System every 76 years.

A View from the Zone
7.03.2014

Brilliant Venus and the central Milky Way rise in the early morning hours of March 1 in this sea and skyscape. The scene looks out from a beach at Sea Isle City, New Jersey, USA, planet Earth.

Approaching Pluto
26.05.2015

Here comes Pluto. NASA's robotic New Horizons spacecraft is now beyond the orbit of Neptune and closing fast on the Solar System's most famous unexplored world. The featured time lapse video shows...

NEOWISE of the North
16.07.2020

After local midnight on July 14 comet NEOWISE was still above the horizon for Goldenrod, Alberta, Canada, just north of Calgary, planet Earth. In this snapshot it makes for an awesome night with dancing displays of the northern lights. The long-tailed comet and auroral displays are beautiful apparitions in the north these days.

The Orion Nebula in Hydrogen
21.11.2000

The Great Nebula in Orion can be found just below and to the left of the easily identifiable belt of three stars in the popular constellation Orion. This fuzzy patch, visible to the unaided eye, contains one of the closest stellar nurseries, lying at a distance of about 1500 light years.

Manicouagan Impact Crater
31.12.2004

Manicouagan Crater in northern Canada is one of the oldest impact craters known. Formed about 200 million years ago, the present day terrain supports a 70-kilometer diameter hydroelectric reservoir in the telltale form of an annular lake. The crater itself has been worn away by the passing of glaciers and other erosional processes.

Chasing Juno
11.07.2016

Wait for me! In 2011, NASA's robotic mission Juno launched for Jupiter from Cape Canaveral, Florida, USA. Last week, Juno reached Jupiter and fired internal rockets to become only the second spacecraft to orbit our Solar System's largest planet.

Crescent Moon Occultation
24.02.2023

On February 22, a young Moon shared the western sky at sunset with bright planets Venus and Jupiter along the ecliptic plane. The beautiful celestial conjunction was visible around planet Earth. But from some locations Jupiter hid for a while, occulted by the crescent lunar disk.

A Prominent Solar Prominence from SOHO
14.03.2009

What's happened to our Sun? It was sporting a spectacular -- but not very unusual -- solar prominence. A solar prominence is a cloud of solar gas held above the Sun's surface by the Sun's magnetic field.