Planets Over Stonehenge
9.05.2002

Stonehenge, four thousand year old monument to the Sun, provides an appropiate setting for this delightful snapshot of the Sun's children gathering in planet Earth's sky. While the massive stone structure dates from around 2000 B.C.

Huygens on Titan Illustrated
31.01.2006

If you could stand on Titan, what might you see? About one year ago the robotic Huygens probe landed on the enigmatic moon of Saturn and sent back the first ever images from beneath Titan's thick cloud layers.

Moons and Jupiter
13.04.2017

On April 10, a Full Moon and Jupiter shared this telephoto field of view. Both were near opposition, opposite the Sun in Earth's night sky. Captured when a passing cloud bank dimmmed...

From the Northern to the Southern Cross
27.01.2019

There is a road that connects the Northern to the Southern Cross but you have to be at the right place and time to see it. The road, as pictured here, is actually...

Planets of the Solar System
25.06.2022

Simultaneous images from four cameras were combined to construct this atmospheric predawn skyscape. The cooperative astro-panorama captures all the planets of the Solar System, just before sunrise on June 24. That foggy morning found innermost planet Mercury close to the horizon but just visible against the twilight, below and left of brilliant Venus.

Stardust and Comet Tails
20.08.2022

Heading for its closest approach to the Sun, or perihelion, on December 19 comet C/2017 K2 (PanSTARRS) remains a sight for telescopic observers as it sweeps through planet Earth's skies in the constellation Scorpius.

Southwest Mercury
13.09.1996

The planet Mercury resembles a moon. Mercury's old surface is heavily cratered like many moons. Mercury is larger than most moons but smaller than Jupiter's moon Ganymede and Saturn's moon Titan. Mercury is much denser and more massive than any moon, though, because it is made mostly of iron.

Galaxy and Planets Beyond Bristlecone Pines
19.06.2016

What's older than these ancient trees? Nobody you know -- but almost everything in the background of this picture. The trees are impressively old -- each part of the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest located in eastern California, USA.

APOD: 2023 March 19 Б Equinox at the Pyramid of the Feathered Serpent
19.03.2023

To see the feathered serpent descend the Mayan pyramid requires exquisite timing. You must visit El Castillo -- in Mexico's Yucatцn Peninsula -- near an equinox. Then, during the late afternoon if the sky is clear, the pyramid's own shadows create triangles that merge into the famous illusion of a slithering viper.

Crescent Enceladus
16.12.2023

Peering from the shadows, the Saturn-facing hemisphere of tantalizing inner moon Enceladus poses in this Cassini spacecraft image. North is up in the dramatic scene captured during November 2016 as Cassini's camera was pointed in a nearly sunward direction about 130,000 kilometers from the moon's bright crescent.