M86 in the Virgo Cluster
25.04.2008

Bright lenticular galaxy M86 is near center of this cosmic view, at the heart of the Virgo Galaxy Cluster. Other bright galaxies in the neighborhood include M84 at the upper right, edge-on spiral NGC4388...

Cas A: Optical and X ray
17.01.2013

The aftermath of a cosmic cataclysm, supernova remnant Cassiopeia A (Cas A) is a comfortable 11,000 light-years away. Light from the Cas A supernova, the death explosion of a massive star, first reached Earth just 330 years ago.

Open Cluster NGC 290: A Stellar Jewel Box
8.06.2014

Jewels don't shine this bright -- only stars do. Like gems in a jewel box, though, the stars of open cluster NGC 290 glitter in a beautiful display of brightness and color. The photogenic cluster, pictured above, was captured recently by the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope.

Rosetta Approaches Comet Churyumov Gerasimenko
11.08.2014

What does it look like to approach a comet? Early this month humanity received a new rendition as the robotic Rosetta spacecraft went right up to -- and began orbiting -- the nucleus of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

Milky Way and Planets Near Opposition
21.05.2016

In this early May night skyscape, a mountain road near Bursa, Turkey seems to lead toward bright planets Mars and Saturn and the center of our Milky Way Galaxy, a direction nearly opposite the Sun in planet Earth's sky.

Orion above Easter Island
18.09.2017

Why were the statues on Easter Island built? No one is sure. What is sure is that over 800 large stone statues exist there. The Easter Island statues, stand, on the average, over twice as tall as a person and have over 200 times as much mass.

Atlas, Daphnis, and Pan
18.05.2019

Atlas, Daphnis, and Pan are small, inner, ring moons of Saturn. They are shown at the same scale in this montage of images by the Cassini spacecraft that made its grand final orbit of the ringed planet in September 2017. In fact, Daphnis was discovered in Cassini images from 2005.

APOD: 2023 March 15 Б Jupiter and Venus Converge over Germany
15.03.2023

This was a sky to show the kids. Early this month the two brightest planets in the night sky, Jupiter and Venus, appeared to converge. At their closest, the two planets were separated by only about the angular width of the full moon.

APOD: 2023 October 18 Б Dust and the Western Veil Nebula
18.10.2023

It's so big it is easy to miss. The entire Veil Nebula spans six times the diameter of the full moon, but is so dim you need binoculars to see it. The nebula was created about 15,000 years ago when a star in the constellation of the Swan (Cygnus) exploded.

APOD: 2026 February 8 Б Active Sunspot Region 4366 Crosses the Sun
8.02.2026

An unusually active sunspot region is now crossing the Sun. The region, labelled AR 4366, is much larger than the Earth and has produced several powerful solar flares over the past ten days. In the featured image, the region is marked by large and dark sunspots toward the upper right of the Sun's disk.