A Transit of Mercury
11.05.2016

On May 9, the diminutive disk of Mercury spent about seven and a half hours crossing in front of the Sun as viewed from the general vicinity of Earth. It was the second of 14 transits of the Solar System's innermost planet in the 21st century.

The Magnificent Horsehead Nebula
24.12.2016

Sculpted by stellar winds and radiation, a magnificent interstellar dust cloud by chance has assumed this recognizable shape. Fittingly named the Horsehead Nebula, it is some 1,500 light-years distant, embedded in the vast Orion cloud complex.

Southern Neptune
27.06.1998

Neptune, the Solar System's outermost gas giant planet, is 30 times farther from the Sun than Earth. Twelve years after a 1977 launch, Voyager 2 flew by Neptune and found surprising activity on a planet that receives only 3 percent as much sunlight as Jupiter.

Star Trails Above Mauna Kea
19.12.2005

Is there a road to the stars? Possibly there are many, but the physical road pictured above leads up to the top of a dormant volcano that is a premier spot on planet Earth for observing stars and astronomical phenomena.

Three Arches Above Utah
24.05.2011

How many arches can you count in the above image? If you count both spans of the Double Arch in the Arches National Park in Utah, USA, then two. But since the above image...

Great Rift Near the Center of the Milky Way
9.11.2016

Over 100 telescopic image panels in this stunning vertical mosaic span about 50 degrees across the night sky. They follow part of the Great Rift, the dark river of dust and molecular gas that stretches along the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy.

The Planet and the Pipe
6.06.2019

Now posing against our galaxy's rich starfields and nebulae, brilliant planet Jupiter shines in the night sky. Its almost overwhelming glow is near the top of the frame in this colorful telephoto portrait of the central Milky Way.

Lunar Eclipse at the South Pole
4.11.2022

Last May 16 the Moon slid through Earth's shadow, completely immersed in the planet's dark umbra for about 1 hour and 25 minutes during a total lunar eclipse. In this composited timelapse...

APOD: 2024 November 3 Б Jupiter Abyss
2.11.2024

What's that black spot on Jupiter? No one is sure. During one pass of NASA's Juno over Jupiter, the robotic spacecraft imaged an usually dark cloud feature informally dubbed the Abyss. Surrounding cloud patterns show the Abyss to be at the center of a vortex.

Unexpected X Rays from Perseus Galaxy Cluster
1.01.2018

Why does the Perseus galaxy cluster shine so strangely in one specific color of X-rays? No one is sure, but a much-debated hypothesis holds that these X-rays are a clue to the long-sought identity of dark matter.