Milky Way over French Alp Hoodoos
16.05.2022

Real castles aren't this old. And the background galaxy is even older. Looking a bit like an alien castle, the pictured rock spires are called hoodoos and are likely millions of years old. Rare, but found around the world, hoodoos form when dense rocks slow the erosion of softer rock underneath.

Yuri s Planet
12.04.2013

On another April 12th, in 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Alexseyevich Gagarin became the first human to see planet Earth from space. Commenting on his view from orbit he reported, "The sky is very dark; the Earth is bluish. Everything is seen very clearly".

Discovery Spring
20.03.2001

Welcome to the equinox! Moving northward in Earth's sky, today the Sun crosses the celestial equator at 13:31 Universal Time bringing Spring to the north and Fall to the south. The change...

La Silla s Starry Night
23.09.2004

On clear, moonless nights, the stars still come out with a vengance above the high-altitude La Silla astronomical observatory. Taking advantage of a recent visit to this first European Southern Observatory (ESO) site constructed on a mountain top in Chile, ESO software engineer Nico Housen recorded this stunning sky view.

The Windmill and the Star Trails
17.04.2020

Stars can't turn these old wooden arms, but it does look like they might in this scene from a rotating planet. The well-composed night skyscape was recorded from Garafia, a municipality on the island of La Palma, Canary Islands, planet Earth.

A Dangerous Sunrise on Gliese 876d
29.04.2012

On planet Gliese 876d, sunrises might be dangerous. Although nobody really knows what conditions are like on this close-in planet orbiting variable red dwarf star Gliese 876, the above artistic illustration gives one impression.

A Dangerous Sunrise on Gliese 876d
21.05.2008

On planet Gliese 876d, sunrises might be dangerous. Although nobody really knows what conditions are like on this close-in planet orbiting variable red dwarf star Gliese 876, the above artistic illustration gives one impression.

A Phoenix Aurora over Iceland
16.03.2016

All of the other aurora watchers had gone home. By 3:30 am in Iceland, on a quiet night last September, much of that night's auroras had died down. Suddenly though, a new burst of particles streamed down from space, lighting up the Earth's atmosphere once again.

M7: Open Star Cluster in Scorpius
8.11.2009

M7 is one of the most prominent open clusters of stars on the sky. The cluster, dominated by bright blue stars, can be seen with the naked eye in a dark sky in the tail of the constellation of the Scorpion (Scorpius).

Geminids in 2007
3.01.2008

Dust from curious near-Earth asteroid 3200 Phaethon seems to fall from the constellation Gemini in this fisheye skyview. The composite image was recorded over four December nights (12-15) just last year from Ludanyhalaszi, Hungary. Of course, the streaks are meteor trails from the annual Geminids meteor shower.