Facing NGC 6946
26.07.2024

From our vantage point in the Milky Way Galaxy, we see NGC 6946 face-on. The big, beautiful spiral galaxy is located just 20 million light-years away, behind a veil of foreground dust and stars in the high and far-off constellation Cepheus.

A Full Sky Multi Colored Auroral Corona
9.11.2004

On some nights the sky is the most interesting show in town. This fisheye picture captures a particularly active and colorful auroral corona that occurred two days ago over l'Observatoire de la Decouverte in Val Belair near Quebec, Canada.

Apollo 11 Landing Site Panorama
30.08.2012

Have you seen a panorama from another world lately? Assembled from high-resolution scans of the original film frames, this one sweeps across the magnificent desolation of the Apollo 11 landing site on the Moon's Sea of Tranquility.

Milky Way, Launch, and Landing
11.05.2019

The Milky Way doesn't look quite this colorful and bright to the eye, but a rocket launch does. So a separate deep exposure with a sensitive digital camera was used in this composite skyscape to bring out our galaxy's central crowded starfields and cosmic dust clouds.

Hercules Galaxies
27.08.1998

These are galaxies of the Hercules Cluster, an archipelago of "island universes" a mere 650 million light-years distant. This cluster is loaded with gas and dust rich, star forming, spiral galaxies but has relatively few elliptical galaxies, which lack gas and dust and the associated newborn stars.

The South Pole of Asteroid Vesta
19.09.2011

What created the circular structure around the south pole of asteroid Vesta? Pictured above, the bottom of the second largest object in the asteroid belt was recently imaged for the first time by the robotic Dawn satellite that arrived last month.

A Martian Metamorphosis
4.06.2002

Is it an Escher, or Mars? Three different types of surfaces visible in the North Polar Cap of Mars morph into each other in a way perhaps reminiscent of the works of M. C. Escher. On the far left dark sand covers the ground, while the center shows a transition to a dune field.

Water Found in Space Rock
7.09.1999

What would you do if it rained blue water from space? On 1998 March 22, no umbrella was needed, as the blue water came attached to a stony meteorite that landed in Monahans, Texas. The meteorite fall was seen by several boys, and was being carefully scrutinized by NASA scientists within 72 hours.

The Pipe Nebula
23.11.2012

East of Antares, dark markings sprawl through crowded star fields toward the center of our Milky Way Galaxy. Cataloged in the early 20th century by astronomer E. E. Barnard, the obscuring interstellar dust clouds include B59, B72, B77 and B78, seen in silhouette against the starry background.

Light Echoes from V838 Mon
26.06.2022

What caused this outburst of V838 Mon? For reasons unknown, star V838 Mon's outer surface suddenly greatly expanded with the result that it became one of the brighter stars in the Milky Way Galaxy in early 2002. Then, just as suddenly, it shrunk and faded.