Comet Hale-Bopp Outbound
10.09.1997

Hale-Bopp, the Comet of the Century, is leaving the inner Solar System. Outbound at about 12 miles per second it is presently nearing the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. This false-color image represents a recent view from low Earth orbit showing the comet surrounded by its shrinking coma against a background of stars.

Rings Around Beta Pictoris
8.02.2000

An unusual dust disk surrounds nearby star Beta Pictoris. Discovered in 1983, astronomers are still learning just how unusual this disk is. Recent images and computer simulations indicate that the disk contains several elliptical dust rings larger than our own Solar System.

Abell 2744: Pandoras Cluster of Galaxies
29.06.2011

Why is this cluster of galaxies so jumbled? Far from a smooth distribution, Abell 2744 not only has knots of galaxies, but the X-ray emitting hot gas (colored red) in the cluster appears distributed differently than the dark matter.

Comet Leonard from Space
15.12.2021

What does Comet Leonard look like from space? Today's featured image from Origin.Space's Yangwang-1 space telescope shows not only the currently bright comet -- but several other space delights as well. Taken...

APOD: 2023 November 20 Б The Horsehead Nebula
20.11.2023

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.

Sun 360: STEREO Captures Views of the Entire Sun
7.02.2011

For the first time, the entire Sun is being imaged all at once. This has become possible because the two STEREO satellites orbiting and monitoring the Sun are now on opposite sides of the Sun.

APOD: 2023 June 18 Б Saturns Northern Hexagon
18.06.2023

Why would clouds form a hexagon on Saturn? Nobody is sure. Originally discovered during the Voyager flybys of Saturn in the 1980s, nobody has ever seen anything like it anywhere else in the Solar System.

The Backyard Universe
14.04.1999

How far can you see from your own backyard? Across the Solar System, even across our Galaxy, these sights are not difficult. Recently, however, amateur Paul Boltwood gazed across the universe. His record setting image is shown above in false color.

APOD: 2007 February 20- White Ridges on Mars
20.02.2007

What created these white ridges on Mars? The images showing the white ridges, including some of the highest resolution images ever taken from Martian orbit, were recorded last year by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

The Seahorse of the Large Magellanic Cloud
23.03.2009

To some it may look to some like a big space monster, but it is more big than monster. To others it may look like a grazing seahorse, but the dark object toward the image right is actually an inanimate pillar of smoky dust about 20 light years long.