Chandra X Ray Telescope
27.07.1999

Wrapped in protective blankets and mounted atop an Inertial Upper Stage (IUS) rocket, the Chandra X-ray Telescope is seen in this wide-angle view before launch snuggled into the space shuttle Columbia's payload bay.

Huge Void Implicated in Distant Universe
27.08.2007

What has created this huge empty area in the universe? No one is yet sure, and even the extent of the estimated billion-light year void is being researched. The void is not a hole...

Apollo 12 and Surveyor 3 Stereo View
23.05.2009

Put on your red/blue glasses and gaze into this dramatic stereo view from the surface of the Moon. The 3D scene features Apollo 12 astronaut Pete Conrad visiting the Surveyor 3 spacecraft in November of 1969. The image was carefully created from two separate pictures (AS12-48-7133, AS12-48-7134) taken on the lunar surface.

NGC 4911: Spiral Diving into a Dense Cluster
8.09.2010

Why are there faint rings around this spiral galaxy? Possibly because the galaxy, NGC 4911, is being pulled at by its neighbors as it falls into the enormous Coma Cluster of Galaxies.

Opportunity s Mars Analemma
16.05.2014

Staring up into the martian sky, the Opportunity rover captured an image at 11:02 AM local mean time nearly every 3rd sol, or martian day, for 1 martian year. Of course, the result...

Bright Spots Resolved in Occator Crater on Ceres
16.09.2015

What created these bright spots on Ceres? The spots were first noted as the robotic Dawn spacecraft approached Ceres, the largest object in the asteroid belt, in February, with the expectation that the mystery would soon be solved in higher resolution images. However, even after Dawn arrived at Ceres in March, the riddle remained.

Cassini Approaches Saturn
11.09.2017

What would it look like to approach Saturn in a spaceship? One doesn't have to just imagine -- the Cassini spacecraft did just this in 2004, recording thousands of images along the way, and hundreds of thousands more since entering orbit.

APOD: 2024 May 24 Б M78 from the Euclid Space Telescope
24.05.2024

Star formation can be messy. To help find out just how messy, ESA's new Sun-orbiting Euclid telescope recently captured the most detailed image ever of the bright star forming region M78. Near...

APOD: 2026 July 1 Б The Cotton Candy Clouds of Rho Ophiuchi
1.07.2026

Although they look like cotton candy, you cannot eat these clouds! Taken in Cádiz, Spain, today's image features the Rho Ophiuchi complex, a rich tapestry of young and old astronomical phenomena. This colorful cloud complex is a nearby star-forming region containing hundreds of young stellar objects, including protostars and T Tauri stars.

SN 1006: Pieces of the Cosmic Ray Puzzle
16.10.1996

Research balloon flights conducted in 1912 by Austrian physicist Victor Hess revealed that the Earth was constantly bombarded by high energy radiation from space - which came to be called "Cosmic Rays". What are Cosmic Rays and where do they come from?