Earth at Twilight
24.04.2003

No sudden, sharp boundary marks the passage of day into night in this gorgeous view of ocean and clouds over our fair planet Earth. Instead, the shadow line or terminator is diffuse and shows the gradual transition to darkness we experience as twilight.

Micro Moon over Super Moon
21.01.2014

Did you see the big, bright, beautiful Full Moon last Wednesday night? That was actually a Micro Moon! On that night, the smallest Full Moon of 2014 reached its full phase only a few hours from lunar apogee, the time of its the most distant point from Earth in the Moon's elliptical orbit.

Kepler s House in Linz
14.05.2018

Four hundred years ago today (May 15, 1618) Johannes Kepler discovered the simple mathematical rule governing the orbits of the solar system's planets, now recognized as Kepler's Third Law of planetary motion.

Earth Waves at Saturn
24.08.2013

This friendly photo collage is constructed from more than 1,400 images shared by denizens of planet Earth as part of the Cassini Mission's July 19th Wave at Saturn event. The base picture...

The Flight Deck of Space Shuttle Endeavour
18.04.2012

What would it be like to fly a space shuttle? Although the last of NASA's space shuttles has now been retired, it is still fun to contemplate sitting at the controls of one of the humanity's most sophisticated machines.

APOD: 2025 August 21 Б Mostly Perseids
20.08.2025

In this predawn skyscape recorded during the early morning hours of August 13, mostly Perseid meteors are raining down on planet Earth. You can easily identify the Perseid meteor streaks. They're the ones...

Asteroid Eros Reconstructed
7.06.2009

Orbiting the Sun between Mars and Earth, asteroid 433 Eros was visited by the robot spacecraft NEAR-Shoemaker in 2000 February. High-resolution surface images and measurements made by NEAR's Laser Rangefinder (NLR) have been combined into the above visualization based on the derived 3D model of the tumbling space rock.

An Unusual Mountain on Asteroid Ceres
29.06.2015

What created this large mountain on asteroid Ceres? No one is yet sure. As if in anticipation of today being Asteroid Day on Earth, the robotic spacecraft Dawn in orbit around Ceres took the best yet image of an unusually tall mountain on the Asteroid Belt's largest asteroid.

Asteroid Ryugu from Hayabusa2
21.08.2018

This big space diamond has an estimated value of over 80 billion dollars. It's only diamond in shape, though -- asteroid 162173 Ryugu is thought to be composed of mostly nickel and iron. Asteroids...

Discovery Orbiter Anaglyph
16.09.2006

Approaching the International Space Station on STS-121 in July, the Shuttle Orbiter Discovery posed for a series of photographs. The process was part of an inspection to check for damage to the orbiter, but against the backdrop of planet Earth 300 kilometers below, the pictures themselves are stunning.