The Extraordinary Spiral in LL Pegasi
11.12.2016

What created the strange spiral structure on the left? No one is sure, although it is likely related to a star in a binary star system entering the planetary nebula phase, when its outer atmosphere is ejected.

Animation: Spiral Disk around a Black Hole
20.08.2019

What would it look like to orbit a black hole? Many black holes are surrounded by swirling pools of gas known as accretion disks. These disks can be extremely hot, and much of the orbiting gas will eventually fall through the black hole's event horizon -- where it will never been seen again.

Apollo 12: Self Portrait
24.11.2019

Is this image art? 50 years ago, Apollo 12 astronaut-photographer Charles "Pete" Conrad recorded this masterpiece while documenting colleague Alan Bean's lunar soil collection activities on Oceanus Procellarum. The featured image is dramatic and stark.

The Antennae Galaxies in Collision
3.12.2020

Sixty million light-years away toward the southerly constellation Corvus, these two large galaxies are colliding. The cosmic train wreck captured in stunning detail in this Hubble Space Telescope snapshot takes hundreds of millions of years to play out. Cataloged as NGC 4038 and NGC 4039, the galaxies' individual stars don't often collide though.

Spiral Galaxy M66 from Hubble
24.02.2021

ItБs always nice to get a new view of an old friend. This stunning Hubble Space Telescope image of nearby spiral galaxy M66 is just that. A spiral galaxy with a small central bar, M66 is a member of the Leo Galaxy Triplet, a group of three galaxies about 30 million light years from us.

A Perfect Spiral
13.08.2021

If not perfect then this spiral galaxy is at least one of the most photogenic. An island universe of about 100 billion stars, 32 million light-years away toward the constellation Pisces, M74 presents a gorgeous face-on view.

M57: The Ring Nebula
16.07.2000

Except for the rings of Saturn, The Ring Nebula (M57) is probably the most famous celestial band. This planetary nebula's simple, graceful appearance is thought to be due to perspective -- our view from planet Earth looking straight into what is actually a barrel-shaped cloud of gas shrugged off by a dying central star.

C 2001 A2 (LINEAR): Comet
5.07.2001

Comet C/2001 A2 (LINEAR) has crossed the celestial equator and is heading north. Outward bound, this primordial piece of the solar system is still just visible to the unaided eye and can now be sighted by northern hemisphere skygazers as it moves through the constellation Pisces.

Quadrantids: Meteors in Perspective
26.01.1996

Meteor showers are caused by streams of solid particles, dust size and larger, moving as a group through space. In many cases, the orbits of these meteor streams can be identified with the dust tails of comets.

Apollo 17s Moonship
15.04.1999

Awkward and angular looking, Apollo 17's lunar module Challenger was designed for flight in the vacuum of space. This sharp picture from the command module America, shows Challenger's ascent stage in lunar orbit.