A Perseid Meteor
11.08.1997

Tonight the Perseid Meteor Shower reaches its maximum. Grains of rocky ice will streak across the sky as they evaporate during entry into Earth's atmosphere. These ice chips were shed from Comet Swift-Tuttle. The Perseids result from the annual crossing of the Earth through Comet Swift-Tuttle's orbit.

Sprite Lightning in Slow Motion
13.10.2014

What causes sprite lightning? Mysterious bursts of light in the sky that momentarily resemble gigantic jellyfish have been recorded for over 25 years, but their root cause remains unknown. Some thunderstorms have them -- most don't. Recently, however, high speed videos are better detailing how sprites actually develop.

NGC 2419 Intergalactic Wanderer
4.06.2015

Three objects stand out in this thoughtful telescopic image, a view toward the mostly stealthy constellation Lynx. The two brightest (the spiky ones) are nearby stars. The third is the remote globular star cluster NGC 2419, at distance of nearly 300,000 light-years.

Enceladus Ice Volcanos
8.06.2006

In this stunning Saturnian vista - one in a series of artist's visions of volcanos on alien worlds - icy geysers erupt along narrow fractures in inner moon Enceladus. The majestic plumes were actually discovered by instruments on the Cassini Spacecraft during close encounters with bright and shiny Enceladus last year.

In the Vicinity of the Cone Nebula
23.11.2008

Strange shapes and textures can be found in neighborhood of the Cone Nebula. The unusual shapes originate from fine interstellar dust reacting in complex ways with the energetic light and hot gas being expelled by the young stars.

Giant Dust Ring Discovered Around Saturn
13.10.2009

What has created a large dust ring around Saturn? At over 200 times the radius of Saturn and over 50 times the radius of Saturn's expansive E ring, the newly discovered dust ring is the largest planetary ring yet imaged. The ring was found in infrared light by the Earth-orbiting Spitzer Space Telescope.

Milky Way and Zodiacal Light over Chile
9.03.2020

What is the band of light connecting the ground to the Milky Way? Zodiacal light -- a stream of dust that orbits the Sun in the inner Solar System. It is most easily seen just before sunrise, where it has been called a false dawn, or just after sunset.

Vela Satellites: The Watchers
5.11.1995

In October of 1963 the US Air Force launched the first in a series of satellites inspired by a recently signed nuclear test ban treaty. Signatories of this treaty agreed not to test nuclear devices in the atmosphere or in space.

Chandra Resolves the Hard X Ray Background
14.01.2000

It is everywhere but nobody knew why. In every direction at all times, the sky glows in X-rays. The X-ray background phenomenon was discovered over 35 years ago, soon after the first X-ray satellites were launched, and has since gone unexplained.

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.