Charon: Moon of Pluto
3.06.2023

A darkened and mysterious north polar region known to some as Mordor Macula caps this premier high-resolution view. The portrait of Charon, Pluto's largest moon, was captured by New Horizons near the spacecraft's closest approach on July 14, 2015.

Galileo s Europa
29.03.2024

Looping through the Jovian system in the late 1990s, the Galileo spacecraft recorded stunning views of Europa and uncovered evidence that the moon's icy surface likely hides a deep, global ocean. Galileo...

APOD: 2025 June 27 Б Messier 109
27.06.2025

Big beautiful barred spiral galaxy Messier 109 is the 109th entry in Charles Messier's famous catalog of bright Nebulae and Star Clusters. You can find it just below the Big Dipper's bowl in the northern constellation Ursa Major.

Cometary Knots in the Helix Nebula
16.04.1996

Four hundred fifty light-years from Earth, the wind from a dying, sun-like star produced a planetary nebula popularly known as the Helix. While exploring the Helix's gaseous envelope with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), astronomers discovered indications of 1,000s of striking "cometary knots" like those shown above.

Saturn: Lord of the Rings
17.01.2004

Born in 1564, Galileo used a telescope to explore the Solar System. In 1610, he became the first to be amazed by Saturn's rings, After nearly 400 years, Saturn's magnificent rings still offer one of the most stunning astronomical sights.

Namibian Nights
4.02.2013

Namibia has some of the darkest nights visible from any continent. It is therefore home to some of the more spectacular skyscapes, a few of which have been captured in the above time-lapse video.

Starburst Galaxy M94 from Hubble
1.12.2019

Why does this galaxy have a ring of bright blue stars? Beautiful island universe Messier 94 lies a mere 15 million light-years distant in the northern constellation of the Hunting Dogs (Canes Venatici).

NGC 1333: Stellar Nursery in Perseus
22.04.2023

In visible light NGC 1333 is seen as a reflection nebula, dominated by bluish hues characteristic of starlight reflected by interstellar dust. A mere 1,000 light-years distant toward the heroic constellation Perseus, it lies at the edge of a large, star-forming molecular cloud.

Magnetar
27.05.1998

What do you call a neutron star with a super-strong magnetic field? You guessed it ... a Magnetar. Imagine a star with more mass than the sun, the density of a neutron, and a magnetic field about a thousand trillion (a one followed by 15 zeroes) times stronger than Earth's.

EHT Resolves Central Jet from Black Hole in Cen A
4.08.2021

How do supermassive black holes create powerful jets? To help find out, the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) imaged the center of the nearby active galaxy Centaurus A. The cascade of featured inset images shows...