M8: The Lagoon Nebula
17.08.2013

This beautiful cosmic cloud is a popular stop on telescopic tours of the constellation Sagittarius. Eighteenth century cosmic tourist Charles Messier cataloged the bright nebula as M8. Modern day astronomers recognize the Lagoon Nebula as an active stellar nursery about 5,000 light-years distant, in the direction of the center of our Milky Way Galaxy.

SpaceX Demo-2 Launch
13.06.2020

Clouds are white but the sky is dark in this snapshot of Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center. The dramatic daytime sky is partly due to the black and white photo captured with a digital camera at near-infrared wavelengths. Taken at 3:22 p.m.

Sun Pillar with Upper Tangent Arc
17.02.2021

This was not a typical sun pillar. Just after sunrise two weeks ago in Providence, Rhode Island, USA, a photographer, looking out his window, was suddenly awestruck. The astonishment was caused by a sun pillar that fanned out at the top.

Pixels in the Sun
26.06.2021

These two panels, composed of video frames made with a safe solar telescope and hydrogen alpha filter, show remarkably sharp details on the solar disk and giant prominences along the Sun's edge on June 6 (top) and June 18.

Colorful Airglow Bands Surround Milky Way
13.03.2022

Why would the sky glow like a giant repeating rainbow? Airglow. Now air glows all of the time, but it is usually hard to see. A disturbance however -- like an approaching storm -- may cause noticeable rippling in the Earth's atmosphere.

APOD: 2023 November 1 Б Annular Solar Eclipse over Utah
1.11.2023

Part of the Sun disappeared earlier this month, but few people were worried. The missing part, which included the center from some locations, just went behind the Moon in what is known as an annular solar eclipse. Featured here is an eclipse sequence taken as the Moon was overtaking the rising Sun in the sky.

A Hazy Harvest Moon
20.09.2024

For northern hemisphere dwellers, September's Full Moon was the Harvest Moon. On September 17/18 the sunlit lunar nearside passed into shadow, just grazing Earth's umbra, the planet's dark, central shadow cone, in a partial lunar eclipse.

A Late Leonid from a Sparse Shower
25.11.2003

The 2003 Leonids Meteor Shower contained relatively few meteors. As expected and unlike the last few years, the Earth just did not pass through any dense particle streams left over by the Sun-orbiting Comet Tempel-Tuttle.

Going Wild
19.03.2004

Dynamic jets of gas and dust surround one of the most active planetary surfaces in the solar system in this wild-looking picture of a comet nucleus. The comet's designation is 81P/Wild...

Massive Stars Of 30 Doradus
30.09.1999

This gorgeous visible-light Hubble Space Telescope image shows a young cluster of massive stars at the center of the 30 Doradus Nebula. Gas and dust clouds in 30 Doradus, also known as the Tarantula Nebula, have been sculpted into elongated shapes by powerful winds and ultraviolet radiation from these hot cluster stars.