APOD: 2023 November 27 Б LBN 86: The Eagle Ray Nebula
27.11.2023

This eagle ray glides across a cosmic sea. Officially cataloged as SH2-63 and LBN 86, the dark nebula is composed of gas and dust that just happens to appear shaped like a common ocean fish. The interstellar dust nebula appears light brown as it blocks and reddens visible light emitted behind it.

APOD: 2024 April 14 Б How a Total Solar Eclipse Ended
14.04.2024

How does a total solar eclipse end? Yes, the Moon moves out from fully blocking the Sun, but in the first few seconds of transition, interesting things appear. The first is called a diamond ring.

APOD: 2025 April 9 Б HH 49: Interstellar Jet from Webb
9.04.2025

What's at the tip of this interstellar jet? First let's consider the jet: it is being expelled by a star system just forming and is cataloged as Herbig-Haro 49 (HH 49). The star system expelling this jet is not visible -- it is off to the lower right.

APOD: 2026 April 29 Б The Moon, Venus, and the Pleiades
29.04.2026

No, Earth did not recently acquire six more moons! TodayБs APOD is a combination of images following the Moon, Venus, and the Pleiades across a southern Sicilian sky as twilight turned to evening on April 19.

APOD: 2007 February 20- White Ridges on Mars
20.02.2007

What created these white ridges on Mars? The images showing the white ridges, including some of the highest resolution images ever taken from Martian orbit, were recorded last year by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

APOD: 2020 August 4 Б NGC 2442: Galaxy in Volans
4.08.2020

Distorted galaxy NGC 2442 can be found in the southern constellation of the flying fish, (Piscis) Volans. Located about 50 million light-years away, the galaxy's two spiral arms extending from a pronounced central bar have a hook-like appearance in wide-field images.

APOD: 2023 August 14 Б The Ring Nebula from Webb
14.08.2023

The Ring Nebula (M57), is more complicated than it appears through a small telescope. The easily visible central ring is about one light-year across, but this remarkable exposure by the James Webb Space Telescope explores this popular nebula with a deep exposure in infrared light.

APOD: 2024 February 28 Б Shades of Night
28.02.2024

How does the sky turn dark at night? In stages, and with different characteristic colors rising from the horizon. The featured image shows, left to right, increasingly late twilight times after sunset in 20 different vertical bands. The picture was taken last month in Syracuse, Sicily, Italy, in the direction opposite the Sun.

APOD: 2024 July 21 Б King of Wings Hoodoo under the Milky Way
21.07.2024

This rock structure is not only surreal -- it's real. Perhaps the reason it's not more famous is that it is smaller than one might guess: the capstone rock overhangs only a few meters.

APOD: 2025 January 20 Б Comet ATLAS Rounds the Sun
20.01.2025

Why does Comet ATLAS have such colorful tails? Last week Comet C/2024 G3 (ATLAS) passed its closest to the Sun -- well inside the orbit of Mercury -- and brightened dramatically. Unfortunately, the comet was then so angularly near the Sun that it was very hard for humans to see. But NASA's SOHO spacecraft saw it.