APOD: 2025 January 29 Б Dust Shells around WR 140 from Webb
29.01.2025

What are those strange rings? Rich in dust, the rings are likely 3D shells -- but how they were created remains a topic of research. Where they were created is well known: in a binary...

APOD: 2023 September 6 Б HESS Telescopes Explore the High Energy Sky
6.09.2023

They may look like modern mechanical dinosaurs, but they are enormous swiveling eyes that watch the sky. The High Energy Stereoscopic System (H.E.S.S.) Observatory is composed of four 12-meter reflecting-mirror telescopes surrounding a larger telescope housing a 28-meter mirror.

APOD: 2023 April 2 Б M57: The Ring Nebula from Hubble
2.04.2023

It was noticed hundreds of years ago by stargazers who could not understand its unusual shape. It looked like a ring on the sky. Except for the rings of Saturn, the Ring Nebula (M57) may be the most famous celestial circle.

APOD: 2024 February 18 Б Hoags Object: A Nearly Perfect Ring Galaxy
18.02.2024

Is this one galaxy or two? This question came to light in 1950 when astronomer Arthur Hoag chanced upon this unusual extragalactic object. On the outside is a ring dominated by bright blue stars, while near the center lies a ball of much redder stars that are likely much older.

APOD: 2024 March 25 Б Sonified: The Jellyfish Nebula Supernova Remnant
25.03.2024

What does a supernova remnant sound like? Although sound is a compression wave in matter and does not carry into empty space, interpretive sound can help listeners appreciate and understand a visual image of a supernova remnant in a new way. Recently, the Jellyfish Nebula (IC 443) has been sonified quite creatively.

APOD: 2024 December 8 Б Aurora around Saturns North Pole
8.12.2024

Are Saturn's auroras like Earth's? To help answer this question, the Hubble Space Telescope and the Cassini spacecraft monitored Saturn's North Pole simultaneously during Cassini's final orbits around the gas giant in September 2017. During this time, Saturn's tilt caused its North Pole to be clearly visible from Earth.

APOD: 2024 June 30 Б Earthrise: A Video Reconstruction
30.06.2024

About 12 seconds into this video, something unusual happens. The Earth begins to rise. Never seen by humans before, the rise of the Earth over the limb of the Moon occurred about 55.5 years ago and surprised and amazed the crew of Apollo 8.

APOD: 2025 May 11 Б The Surface of Venus from Venera 14
11.05.2025

If you could stand on Venus -- what would you see? Pictured is the view from Venera 14, a robotic Soviet lander which parachuted and air-braked down through the thick Venusian atmosphere in March of 1982.

APOD: 2025 July 16 Б The Rosette Nebula from DECam
16.07.2025

Would the Rosette Nebula by any other name look as sweet? The bland New General Catalog designation of NGC 2237 doesn't appear to diminish the appearance of this flowery emission nebula, as captured by the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) on the Blanco 4-meter telescope at the NSF's Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile.

APOD: 2023 September 4 Б Cygnus: Bubble and Crescent
4.09.2023

As stars die, they create clouds. Two stellar death clouds of gas and dust can be found toward the high-flying constellation of the Swan (Cygnus) as they drift through rich star fields in the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy.