Ares 3 Landing Site: The Martian Revisited
16.05.2015

This close-up from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's HiRISE camera shows weathered craters and windblown deposits in southern Acidalia Planitia. A striking shade of blue in standard HiRISE image colors, to the human eye the area would probably look grey or a little reddish.

M16: Pillars of Star Creation
6.12.2020

These dark pillars may look destructive, but they are creating stars. This pillar-capturing image of the inside of the Eagle Nebula, taken with the Hubble Space Telescope in 1995, shows evaporating gaseous globules (EGGs) emerging from pillars of molecular hydrogen gas and dust.

Seeing Titan
31.03.2023

Shrouded in a thick atmosphere, Saturn's largest moon Titan really is hard to see. Small particles suspended in the upper atmosphere cause an almost impenetrable haze, strongly scattering light at visible wavelengths and hiding Titan's surface features from prying eyes.

APOD: 2025 November 24 Б Apep: Unusual Dust Shells from Webb
24.11.2025

What created this unusual space sculpture? Stars. This unusual system of swirls and shells, known as Apep, was observed in unprecedentedбdetail by NASAБs James Webb Space Telescope in infrared light in 2024. Observations indicate...

Apollo 17 s Moonship
27.12.2025

Awkward and angular looking, Apollo 17's lunar module Challenger was designed for flight in the near vacuum of space. Digitally enhanced and reprocessed, this picture taken from Apollo 17's command module America shows Challenger's ascent stage in lunar orbit.

Spiral Galaxy NGC 3310 in Ultraviolet
17.01.2001

Why is NGC 3310 bursting with young stars? The brightest of these new stars are so hot that they light up this spiral galaxy not only in blue light, but in light so blue humans can't see it: ultraviolet. The Hubble Space Telescope took the above photograph in different bands of ultraviolet light.

Cas A Supernova Remnant in X Rays
24.08.2002

The complex shell of a star seen to explode 300 years ago is helping astronomers to understand how that star exploded. This Chandra Observatory image of supernova remnant Cassiopeia A (Cas A) shows unprecedented detail in three x-ray colors.

Gamma Ray Bursts from the Unknown
23.11.1996

Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs) pose one of the greatest mysteries of modern astronomy. About once a day, the gamma-ray sky lights up with a spectacular explosion. No one knows what causes these explosions or even how far away they are.

Spiral Galaxy NGC 3982 Before Supernova
3.11.2003

What do stars look like just before they explode? To find out, astronomers are taking detailed images of nearby galaxies now, before any supernova is visible. Hopefully, a star in one of the hundreds of high resolution galaxy images will explode in the coming years.

A Dust Devil Crater on Mars
30.12.2003

What caused the streaks in this Martian crater? Since the above image shows streaks occurring both inside and outside the crater, they were surely created after the crater-causing impact. Newly formed trails like these...