Hurricane Ivan from the Space Station
9.10.2016

Ninety percent of the houses on Grenada were damaged by the destructive force of Hurricane Ivan. At its peak in 2004, Ivan was a Category 5 hurricane, the highest power category on the Saffir-Simpson Scale, and created sustained winds in excess of 200 kilometers per hour.

Red Sprites over the Channel
15.06.2017

Mysterious and incredibly brief, red sprites are seen to occur high above large thunderstorms on planet Earth. While they have been recorded from low Earth orbit or high flying airplanes, these dancing, lightning-like events were captured in video frames from a mountain top perch in northern France.

Space Station Silhouette on the Moon
2.04.2019

What's that unusual spot on the Moon? It's the International Space Station. Using precise timing, the Earth-orbiting space platform was photographed in front of a partially lit gibbous Moon last month. The featured image was taken from Palo Alto, California, USA with an exposure time of only 1/667 of a second.

Rings and Seasons of Saturn
19.09.2021

On Saturn, the rings tell you the season. On Earth, Wednesday marks an equinox, the time when the Earth's equator tilts directly toward the Sun. Since Saturn's grand rings orbit along...

Rocket Transits Rippling Sun
31.05.2022

The launch of a rocket at sunrise can result in unusual but intriguing images that feature both the rocket and the Sun. Such was the case last month when a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from NASA's Kennedy Space Center carrying 53 more Starlink satellites into low Earth orbit.

Fire on Earth
21.11.2000

Sometimes, regions of planet Earth can be seen lit up with fire. Since fire is the rapid acquisition of oxygen, and since oxygen is a key indicator of life, fire on any planet would be an indicator of life on that planet.

Comet LINEAR Breaks Up
31.07.2000

Unexpectedly, Comet LINEAR is breaking up. In retrospect, clues of its demise have been surfacing all month as the new comet has been approaching the Sun and brightening with dramatic flares. Above, the Hubble Space Telescope captured Comet C/1999 S4 LINEAR early this month blowing off a large piece of its crust.

The Center of the Circinus Galaxy in X Rays
16.05.2001

Are black holes the cause of X-rays that pour out from the center of the Circinus galaxy? A new high-resolution image from the orbiting Chandra X-ray Observatory has resolved the inner regions of this nearby galaxy into several smaller sources. The image is shown above in representative-color.

Releasing Compton
29.11.1995

Named for Nobel laureate physicist Arthur Holly Compton, the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory (CGRO) Satellite was launched in April of 1991 aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis. CGRO's mission is to explore the Universe at gamma-ray energies.

In the Center of the Lagoon Nebula
4.03.2003

The center of the Lagoon Nebula is busy with the awesome spectacle of star formation. Visible in the lower left, at least two long funnel-shaped clouds, each roughly half a light-year long, have been formed by extreme stellar winds and intense energetic starlight. The tremendously bright nearby star, Hershel 36, lights the area.