SN 2005ap: The Brightest Supernova Yet Found
16.10.2007

What could cause a bang this big? This supernova explosion was so inherently bright that it could be seen nearby 5 billion light years away (a redshift of 0.28) even with a small telescope.

Perseid Below
17.08.2011

Denizens of planet Earth watched this year's Perseid meteor shower by looking up into the moonlit night sky. But this remarkable view captured by astronaut Ron Garan looks down on a Perseid meteor.

M106 Across the Spectrum
5.07.2014

The spiral arms of bright, active galaxy M106 sprawl through this remarkable multiwavelength portrait, composed of image data from radio to X-rays, across the electromagnetic spectrum. Also known as NGC 4258, M106 can be found toward the northern constellation Canes Venatici.

A Candidate for the Biggest Boom Yet Seen
26.01.2016

It is a candidate for the brightest and most powerful explosion ever seen -- what is it? The flaring spot of light was found by the All Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae (ASASSN) in June of last year and labelled ASASSN-15lh.

M57: The Ring Nebula
17.04.2018

Except for the rings of Saturn, the Ring Nebula (M57) is probably the most famous celestial band. Its classic appearance is understood to be due to our own perspective, though. The recent mapping...

The Slow Dance of Galaxies NGC 5394 and 5395
4.03.2020

If you like slow dances, then this may be one for you. A single turn in this dance takes several hundred million years. Two galaxies, NGC 5394 and NGC 5395, slowly whirl about each other in a gravitational interaction that sets off a flourish of sparks in the form of new stars.

APOD: 2024 February 6 Б NGC 1566: A Spiral Galaxy from Webb and Hubble
6.02.2024

What's different about this galaxy? Very little, which makes the Spanish Dancer galaxy, NGC 1566, one of the most typical and photogenic spirals on the sky. There is something different about this galaxy...

Unwinding M51
6.04.2024

The arms of a grand design spiral galaxy 60,000 light-years across are unwound in this digital transformation of the magnificent 2005 Hubble Space Telescope portrait of M51. In fact...

On The Trail Of A Fireball
19.02.1999

This exceptionally bright fireball meteor trail was photographed with a fish-eye camera at a Czech Republic station of the European Fireball Network on January 21, 1999. Of the star trails visible in this night-long exposure, the bright short arc in the upper left is due to Polaris, the north star.

A Sharper View of a Hazy Giant
6.11.2008

This dramatic image of Jupiter is touted as the sharpest picture of the entire gas giant ever taken from the ground. The picture was made using a prototype instrument known as MAD (Multi-conjugate Adaptive optics Demonstrator) mounted on one of the European Southern Observatory's 8-meter diameter Very Large Telescope units in Chile.