APOD: 2024 March 11 Б A Full Plankton Moon
11.03.2024

What glows in the night? This night featured a combination of usual and unusual glows. Perhaps the most usual glow was from the Moon, a potentially familiar object. The full Moon's nearly vertical descent results from the observer being near Earth's equator.

Lunokhod: Moon Robot
14.01.2006

On November 17, 1970 the Soviet Luna 17 spacecraft landed the first roving remote-controlled robot on the Moon. Known as Lunokhod 1, it weighed just under 2,000 pounds and was designed to operate...

Suiting Up for the Moon
1.04.2015

How will cows survive on the Moon? One of the most vexing questions asked about space, scientists have spent decades debating this key issue. Finally, after extensive computer modeling and over a dozen midnight milkings, engineers have designed, built, and now tested the new Lunar Grazing Module (LGM), a multi-purpose celestial bovine containment system.

Ganymede: A Really Groovy Moon
11.07.1996

Ganymede's surface is a wrinkled mess. As large ice-sheets shift on the moon's surface, parts of the surface buckle causing high ridges, deep furrows, and parallel grooves. This photo, taken by the Galileo spacecraft currently orbiting Jupiter, was released yesterday. The large circular feature near the picture bottom is a large impact crater.

Green Flashes: Sun, Moon, Venus, Mercury
30.05.2020

Follow a sunset on a clear day against a distant horizon and you might glimpse green just as the Sun disappears from view. The green flash is caused by refraction of light rays traveling to the eye over a long path through the atmosphere.

The ISS and a Colorful Moon
31.07.2015

Tonight's Full Moon, the second Full Moon in July, could be called a blue moon according to modern folklore. But this sharp and detailed mosaic, recorded with telescope and digital camera just before July's first Full Moon, actually does show a colorful lunar surface.

APOD: 2026 January 25 Б Phobos: Doomed Moon of Mars
25.01.2026

This moon is doomed. Mars, the red planet named for the Roman god of war, has two tiny moons, Phobos and Deimos, whose names are derived from the Greek for Fear and Panic. These...

Matterhorn, Moon, and Meteor
24.01.2019

Fans of planet Earth probably recognize the Matterhorn in the foreground of this night skyscape. Famed in mountaineering history, the 4,478 meter Alpine mountain stands next to the totally eclipsed Moon. In spite...

APOD: 2023 March 12 Б Saturns Hyperion: A Moon with Odd Craters
12.03.2023

What lies at the bottom of Hyperion's strange craters? To help find out, the robot Cassini spacecraft that once orbited Saturn swooped past the sponge-textured moon and took images of unprecedented detail.

Sun vs Super Moon
11.05.2012

The Super Moon wins, by just a little, when its apparent size is compared to the Sun in this ingenious composite picture. To make it, the Full Moon on May 6 was photographed with the same camera and telescope used to image the Sun (with a dense solar filter!) on the following day.