Stars over an Erupting Volcano
3.03.2021

Mt. Etna has been erupting for hundreds of thousands of years. Located in Sicily, Italy, the volcano produces lava fountains over one kilometer high. Mt. Etna is not only one of the most active...

APOD: 2025 March 23 Б Ancient Ogunquit Beach on Mars
23.03.2025

This was once a beach -- on ancient Mars. The featured 360-degree panorama, horizontally compressed, was taken in 2017 by the robotic Curiosity rover that explored the red planet. Named Ogunquit Beach after its terrestrial...

Mars Simulated View
16.07.2003

When earthdweller Patrick Vantuyne wondered what his home planet's single large moon would look like if viewed from Mars on July 17, he availed himself of the JPL Solar System Simulator. Of course...

Hawaii
25.07.1998

Aloha! With the graceful arc of the Earth's limb in the background, the Hawaiian Island archipelago is visible in this stunning photo taken by the astronauts onboard the shuttle Discovery in October of 1988. Along with popular beaches and tropical resorts, these volcanic islands offer extreme elevations with dark, dry, cloudless skies.

Comet Meets Ring Nebula: Part II
12.05.2006

Moving rapidly through planet Earth's night sky, Fragment C of crumbling comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 passed almost directly in front of M57 - the Ring Nebula, and faint spiral galaxy IC 1296 on May 8.

NGC 4565: Galaxy on Edge
5.07.2012

Magnificent spiral galaxy NGC 4565 is viewed edge-on from planet Earth. Also known as the Needle Galaxy for its narrow profile, bright NGC 4565 is a stop on many telescopic tours of the northern sky, in the faint but well-groomed constellation Coma Berenices.

APOD: 2015 July 8 In the Company of Dione
8.07.2015

That is not our Moon. It's Dione, and its a moon of Saturn. The robotic Cassini spacecraft took the featured image during a flyby of Saturn's cratered Moon last month. Perhaps what makes this image so interesting, though, is the background.

Blue Comet Meets Blue Stars
12.02.2018

What's that heading for the Pleiades star cluster? It appears to be Comet C/2016 R2 (PanSTARRS), but here, appearances are deceiving. On the right and far in the background, the famous Pleiades star cluster is dominated by blue light from massive young stars.

Interstellar Comet 2I Borisov
14.12.2019

From somewhere else in the Milky Way galaxy, Comet 2I/Borisov is just visiting the Solar System. Discovered by Crimean amateur astronomer Gennady Borisov on August 30, 2019, the first known interstellar comet is captured in these two recent Hubble Space Telescope images.

3I/ATLAS: A View from Planet Earth
21.11.2025

Now outbound after its perihelion or closest approach to the Sun on October 29, Comet 3I/ATLAS is only the third known interstellar object to pass through our fair Solar System. Its greenish coma...