Through the Shadow of the Moon
14.04.2015

What would it look like to fly through a total eclipse of the Sun? On a typical place on Earth in the path of the dark shadow of the Moon during a total eclipse, an observer would see the Moon cross the face of the Sun, completely blocking it for a few minutes.

M51: The Center Of The Whirlpool
27.05.2000

In the center of M51, a spiral galaxy 23 million light-years away, astronomers have identified a dense region of young stars. Viewed face-on in the constellation Canes Venatici, the swirling arcs of this galaxy's spiral arms have inspired its popular name, The Whirlpool Galaxy.

A Bucket Wheel Excavator on Earth
24.10.2010

Please wait while one of the largest mobile machines in the world crosses the road. The machine pictured above is a bucket-wheel excavator used in modern surface mining. Machines like this have given humanity the ability to mine minerals and change the face of planet Earth in new and dramatic ways.

A Sun Halo Over Tennessee
9.03.2005

Sometimes it looks like the Sun is being viewed through a large lens. In the above case, however, there are actually millions of lenses: ice crystals. As water freezes in the upper atmosphere, small, flat, six-sided, ice crystals might be formed.

Messier 61 Close Up
28.08.2019

Image data from the Hubble Space Telescope, the European Southern Observatory, and small telescopes on planet Earth are combined in this magnificent portrait of face-on spiral galaxy Messier 61 (M61). A mere 55 million light-years away in the Virgo Cluster of Galaxies, M61 is also known as NGC 4303.

Debris Disks Surround Distant Suns
10.12.2004

In this dramatic artist's vision, debris along the outer reaches of a planet forming disk orbits in the glare of a distant sun. But inset are actual images of such disks around two nearby stars - AU Microscopii (top left; edge-on) and HD107146 (right: face-on) - as seen by the Hubble Space Telescope.

Lunation
5.02.2012

Our Moon's appearance changes nightly. This time-lapse sequence shows what our Moon looks like during a lunation, a complete lunar cycle. As the Moon orbits the Earth, the half illuminated by the Sun first becomes increasingly visible, then decreasingly visible. The Moon always keeps the same face toward the Earth.

The Shining Clouds of Mars
5.06.2021

The weathered and layered face of Mount Mercou looms in the foreground of this mosaic from the Curiosity Mars rover's Mast Camera. Made up of 21 individual images the scene was recorded just after sunset on March 19, the 3,063rd martian day of Curiosity's on going exploration of the Red Planet.

Crescent Enceladus
9.02.2017

Peering from the shadows, the Saturn-facing hemisphere of tantalizing inner moon Enceladus poses in this Cassini spacecraft image. North is up in the dramatic scene captured last November as Cassini's camera was pointed in a nearly sunward direction about 130,000 kilometers from the moon's bright crescent.

Manhattan Moonrise
16.06.2017

A Full Moon rose as the Sun set on June 9, known to some as a Strawberry Moon. Close to the horizon and taking on the warm color of reflected sunlight filtered through...