APOD: 2023 April 26 Б The Moon through the Arc de Triomphe
26.04.2023

Was this a lucky shot? Although many amazing photographs are taken by someone who just happenedбto be in the right place at the right time, this image took skill and careful planning. First...

The Andromeda Deep Field
19.05.2003

What can you learn from looking into the depths of space? In an effort to find out true ages of stars in neighboring Andromeda galaxy's halo, astronomers stared into the galaxy giant with the new Advanced Camera for Surveys through the Hubble Space Telescope.

Mercury and Venus in the West
2.04.2004

Doing their part in the ongoing dance of the planets, Mercury and Venus both reached their greatest elongation or maximum apparent distance from the Sun only a few days ago, on March 29th. Eager...

Raining Perseids
6.08.2005

Comet dust rained down on planet Earth last August, streaking through dark skies in the annual Perseid meteor shower. So, while enjoying the anticipated space weather, astronomer Fred Bruenjes recorded a series of many 30 second long exposures spanning about six hours on the night of August 11/12 using a wide angle lens.

Reflecting Merope
15.07.2006

(xxxedit and linkxxx) In the well known Pleiades star cluster, starlight is slowly destroying this wandering cloud of gas and dust. The star Merope lies just off the upper left edge of this picture from the Hubble Space Telescope.

SOHO: Comet McNaught Movie
20.01.2007

This frame from a spectacular time lapse movie shows Comet McNaught - the Great Comet of 2007 - sweeping through the inner solar system. The movie frames were recorded from January 12 through Jan 16 by a coronograph onboard the sun-staring SOHO spacecraft.

The Cosmic Web of the Tarantula Nebula
11.11.2008

First cataloged as a star, 30 Doradus is actually an immense star forming region in nearby galaxy The Large Magellanic Cloud. The region's spidery appearance is responsible for its popular name, the Tarantula nebula, except that this tarantula is about 1,000 light-years across, and 180,000 light-years away in the southern constellation Dorado.

Perseid Meteors Over China
21.08.2013

Comet dust rained down on planet Earth earlier this month, streaking through dark skies in the annual Perseid meteor shower. While enjoying the anticipated space weather above Zhangbei Prairie, Hebei Province, China, astronomer Xiang...

Star Factory Messier 17
27.05.2014

What's happening at the center of this nebula? Sculpted by stellar winds and radiation, the star factory known as Messier 17 lies some 5,500 light-years away in the nebula-rich constellation Sagittarius. At that distance, this degree wide field of view spans almost 100 light-years.

NGC 6240: Merging Galaxies
21.05.2015

NGC 6240 offers a rare, nearby glimpse of a cosmic catastrophe in its final throes. The titanic galaxy-galaxy collision takes place a mere 400 million light-years away in the constellation Ophiuchus. The merging galaxies spew distorted tidal tails of stars, gas, and dust and undergo fast and furious bursts of star formation.