Two Hours Before Neptune
14.02.2015

Two hours before closest approach to Neptune in 1989, the Voyager 2 robot spacecraft snapped this picture. Clearly visible for the first time were long light-colored cirrus-type clouds floating high in Neptune's atmosphere. Shadows of these clouds can even be seen on lower cloud decks.

A Tail of Two Hemispheres
1.02.2007

By January 19/20 Comet McNaught's magnificent dust tail stretched for about 150 million kilometers (~1 AU), requiring images from both southern and northern hemispheres of planet Earth to take it all in.

Saturnian Aurora
17.09.2000

Girdling the second largest planet in the Solar System, Saturn's Rings are one of the most spectacular sights for earthbound telescopes. This image from the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope's STIS instrument, offers a striking view of another kind of ring around Saturn - pole encircling rings of ultraviolet aurora.

Comet Hale Bopp Over Val Parola Pass
8.12.2021

Comet Hale-Bopp, the Great Comet of 1997, became much brighter than any surrounding stars. It was seen even over bright city lights. Away from city lights, however, it put on quite a spectacular show. Here Comet Hale-Bopp was photographed above Val Parola Pass in the Dolomite mountains surrounding Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy.

X Ray Moon
2.09.2000

This x-ray image of the Moon was made by the orbiting ROSAT (Röntgensatellit) Observatory in 1990. In this digital picture, pixel brightness corresponds to x-ray intensity. Consider the image in three parts: the bright hemisphere of the x-ray moon, the darker half of the moon, and the x-ray sky background.

Flying Saucer Crash Lands in Utah Desert
4.11.2018

A flying saucer from outer space crash-landed in the Utah desert after being tracked by radar and chased by helicopters. The year was 2004, and no space aliens were involved. The saucer, pictured here...

Flying Saucer Crash Lands in Utah Desert
13.11.2022

A flying saucer from outer space crash-landed in the Utah desert after being tracked by radar and chased by helicopters. The year was 2004, and no space aliens were involved. The saucer, pictured here...

MAVEN s Ultraviolet Mars
27.06.2023

These two global views of Mars were captured at ultraviolet wavelengths, beyond the spectrum visible to human eyes. Recorded by the MAVEN spacecraft's Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph instrument in July 2022 (left) and January 2023, three otherwise invisible ultraviolet bands are mapped into red, green, and blue colors.

The Further Tail of Comet Leonard
30.12.2021

Comet Leonard, brightest comet of 2021, is at the lower left of these two panels captured on December 29 in dark Atacama desert skies. Heading for its perihelion on January 3 Comet Leonard's visible tail has grown.

Three Tails of Comet NEOWISE
8.03.2021

What created the unusual red tail in Comet NEOWISE? Sodium. A spectacular sight back in the summer of 2020, Comet NEOWISE, at times, displayed something more than just a surprisingly striated white dust tail and a pleasingly patchy blue ion tail.