APOD: 2023 February 13 Б Comet ZTF and Mars
13.02.2023

No, Comet ZTF is not going to hit Mars. Nicknamed the Green Comet for its bright green coma, C/2022 E3 (ZTF) did, however, pass almost in front of the much-more distant planet a few days ago, very near in time to when the featured picture was taken.

Zodiacal Light and the False Dawn
15.09.2002

An unusual triangle of light will be particularly bright near the eastern horizon before sunrise during the next two months for observers in Earth's northern hemisphere. Once considered a false dawn, this triangle of light is actually Zodiacal Light, light reflected from interplanetary dust particles.

Spiral Galaxy In Centaurus
19.04.2003

Centaurus, the Centaur, is one of the most striking constellations in the southern sky. The lovely Milky Way flows through this large constellation whose celestial wonders also include the closest star to the sun, Alpha Centauri, the largest globular star cluster in our galaxy, Omega Centauri, and the closest active galaxy, Centaurus A.

New Horizons at Io
4.04.2007

Spewed from a volcano, a complex plume rises over 300 kilometers above the horizon of Jupiter's moon Io in this image from cameras onboard the New Horizons spacecraft. The volcano, Tvashtar, is marked by the bright glow (about 1 o'clock) at the moon's edge, beyond the terminator or night/day shadow line.

NGC 253 Close Up
2.10.2008

This dusty island universe is one of the brightest spiral galaxies in the sky. Seen nearly edge-on, NGC 253 lies a mere 13 million light-years away and is the largest member of the Sculptor Group of galaxies, neighbor to our own local galaxy group.

Peekskill Fireball Video: Johnstown
23.01.2011

The Peekskill meteor of 1992 was captured on 16 independent videos and then struck a car. Documented as brighter than the full Moon, the spectacular fireball crossed parts of several USA states during its 40 seconds of glory before landing in New York.

Gemini Observatory North
15.10.2016

It does look like a flying saucer, but this technologically advanced structure is not here to deliver the wise extraterrestrial from the scifi classic movie The Day the Earth Stood Still. It is here to advance our knowledge of the Universe though.

Nearby Spiral Galaxy NGC 4945
12.04.1999

For such a close galaxy, NGC 4945 is easy to miss. NGC 4945 is a spiral galaxy in the Centaurus Group of galaxies, located only six times farther away than the prominent Andromeda Galaxy. The thin disk galaxy is oriented nearly edge-on, however, and shrouded in dark dust.

Eyeful of Saturn
30.04.2004

Now a bright speck of light wandering through Earth's night sky, magnificent planet Saturn lies nearly 1.5 billion kilometers from the Sun. But after an interplanetary voyage of seven years the planet's stunning rings nearly fill the field of the Cassini spacecraft's narrow angle camera in this image recorded on March 27.

Spitzer s Milky Way
5.06.2008

The Spitzer Space Telescope's encompasing infrared view of the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy is hard to appreciate in just one picture. In fact, more than 800,000 frames of data from...