Earth During a Total Solar Eclipse
29.12.2020

What does the Earth look like during a total solar eclipse? It appears dark in the region where people see the eclipse, because that's where the shadow of the Moon falls. The shadow...

A Comet and a Crab
22.10.2021

This pretty field of view spans over 2 degrees or 4 full moons on the sky, filled with stars toward the constellation Taurus, the Bull. Above and right of center in the frame you can spot the faint fuzzy reddish appearance of Messier 1 (M1), also known as the Crab Nebula.

Dueling Bands in the Night
1.03.2022

What are these two bands in the sky? The more commonly seen band is the one on the right and is the central band of our Milky Way galaxy. Our Sun orbits...

Full Moon Perseids
18.08.2022

The annual Perseid meteor shower was near its peak on August 13. As planet Earth crossed through streams of debris left by periodic Comet Swift-Tuttle meteors rained in northern summer night skies. But even...

APOD: 2023 January 11 Б Spiral Aurora over Iceland
11.01.2023

The scene may look like a fantasy, but it's really Iceland. The rock arch is named Gatklettur and located on the island's northwest coast. Some of the larger rocks in the foreground span a meter across. The fog over the rocks is really moving waves averaged over long exposures.

The Light, Dark, and Dusty Trifid
10.08.2024

Messier 20, popularly known as the Trifid Nebula, lies about 5,000 light-years away toward the nebula rich constellation Sagittarius. A star forming region in the plane of our galaxy, the Trifid does illustrate...

APOD: 2026 June 15 Б Triple Shockwave from Sun Crossing Rocket
15.06.2026

What's happening to this Sun-crossing rocket? The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, visible on the upper left, launched only about one minute before this amazing image was captured. As it rose to low Earth...

Calderas And Cliffs Near Io's South Pole
27.04.2000

Braving intense radiation belts, the Galileo spacecraft once again flew past the surface of Jupiter's moon Io (sounds like EYE-oh) on February 22. Combining high resolution black and white images from that flyby...

M57: The Ring Nebula
29.07.2001

Except for the rings of Saturn, the Ring Nebula (M57) is probably the most famous celestial band. This planetary nebula's simple, graceful appearance is thought to be due to perspective -- our view from planet Earth looking straight into what is actually a barrel-shaped cloud of gas shrugged off by a dying central star.

A Milestone Quasar
18.08.1996

Here is a rather typical quasar. But since quasars are so unusual it is quite atypical of most familiar objects. Of the two bright objects in the center of this photo, the quasar is on the left.