Noctilucent Cloud Storm Panorama
11.07.2009

Noctilucent or night-shining clouds lie near the edge of space. From about 80 kilometers above Earth's surface, the icy clouds can still reflect sunlight even though the Sun itself is below the horizon as seen from the ground.

A Venus Transit Over the Baltic Sea
13.06.2012

Waiting years and traveling kilometers -- all to get a shot like this. And even with all of this planning, a good bit of luck was helpful. As the Sun rose over the Baltic...

APOD: 2015 July 11 Geology on Pluto
11.07.2015

Pluto is coming into focus. As the robotic New Horizons spacecraft bears down on this unexplored world of the distant Solar System, new features on its surface are becoming evident. In the displayed image...

APOD: 2023 April 23 Б A Waterspout in Florida
23.04.2023

What's happening over the water? Pictured here is one of the better images yet recorded of a waterspout, a type of tornado that occurs over water. Waterspouts are spinning columns of rising moist air that typically form over warm water.

M83: The Southern Pinwheel Galaxy from VLT
6.12.1999

M83 is one of the closest and brightest spiral galaxies on the sky. Visible with binoculars in the constellation of Hydra, majestic spiral arms have prompted its nickname as the Southern Pinwheel. Although discovered...

The Doomed Dust Disk of NGC 7052
22.06.1998

What created the dust disk in the center of NGC 7052, and what keeps it spinning? Although the disk might appear as a relatively tame "hubcap in space", the unusual center of elliptical galaxy NGC 7052 is probably the remnant of a titanic collision between galaxies.

Swirls and Stars in IC 4678
24.05.2005

Swirls of gas and dust enrich this little observed starfield toward the constellation of Sagittarius. Just to the side of the more often photographed Lagoon Nebula (M8) and the Trifid Nebula (M20) lies this busy patch of sky dubbed IC 4678.

M57: The Ring Nebula
25.06.2006

It looked like a ring on the sky. Hundreds of years ago astronomers noticed a nebula with a most unusual shape. Now known as M57 or NGC 6720, the gas cloud became popularly known as the Ring Nebula.

Curiosity: Wheels on Mars
3.06.2013

Could life ever have existed on Mars? To help find out, humanity landed the Curiosity rover on Mars last August. To make sure the car-sized explorer survived the interplanetary trip and dramatic landing intact, the above image and others was taken peering at, under, and around Curiosity.

The Big Corona
20.09.2017

Most photographs don't adequately portray the magnificence of the Sun's corona. Seeing the corona first-hand during a total solar eclipse is unparalleled. The human eye can adapt to see coronal features and extent that average cameras usually cannot. Welcome, however, to the digital age.