Global Ocean Suspected on Saturns Enceladus
20.09.2015

Do some surface features on Enceladus roll like a conveyor belt? A leading interpretation of images taken of Saturn's most explosive moon indicate that they do. This form of asymmetric tectonic activity, very...

High Energy Andromeda
7.01.2016

A mere 2.5 million light-years away, the Andromeda Galaxy, also known as M31, really is just next door as large galaxies go. In this (inset) scan, image data from NASA's Nuclear Spectrosopic Telescope...

The Orion Nebula in Infrared from WISE
2.01.2019

The Great Nebula in Orion is an intriguing place. Visible to the unaided eye, it appears as a small fuzzy patch in the constellation of Orion. But this image, an illusory-color four-panel mosaic taken...

The Horsehead Nebula in Infrared from Hubble
12.04.2020

While drifting through the cosmos, a magnificent interstellar dust cloud became sculpted by stellar winds and radiation to assume a recognizable shape. Fittingly named the Horsehead Nebula, it is embedded in the vast and complex Orion Nebula (M42).

Perseverance in Jezero Crater s Delta
17.09.2022

The Perseverance rover's Mastcam-Z captured images to create this mosaic on August 4, 2022. The car-sized robot was continuing its exploration of the fan-shaped delta of a river that, billions of years ago, flowed into Jezero Crater on Mars.

APOD: 2023 February 19 Б Seven Dusty Sisters in Infrared
19.02.2023

Is this really the famous Pleiades star cluster? Known for its iconic blue stars, the Pleiades is shown here in infrared light where the surrounding dust outshines the stars. Here three infrared colors have been mapped into visual colors (R=24, G=12, B=4.6 microns).

APOD: 2024 September 30 Б Comet Tsuchinshan ATLAS over Mexico
30.09.2024

The new comet has passed its closest to the Sun and is now moving closer to the Earth. C/2023 A3 (TsuchinshanБATLAS) is currently moving out from inside the orbit of Venus and on track to pass its nearest to the Earth in about two weeks.

Planetary Nebula Mz3: The Ant Nebula
5.02.2001

Why isn't this ant a big sphere? Planetary nebula Mz3 is being cast off by a star similar to our Sun that is, surely, round. Why then would the gas that is streaming away create an ant-shaped nebula that is distinctly not round?

Jagged Hills on Jupiters Callisto
28.08.2001

Why does Jupiter's moon Callisto have unusual jagged hills? This mystery came to light after the robot spacecraft Galileo, in orbit around Jupiter since 1995, swooped past the dark moon in May. The resulting pictures were the highest resolution yet obtained for a Jovian moon: objects as small as 3 meters across are discernable.

Stars Without Galaxies
3.02.1997

Galaxies are made up of stars, but are all stars found within galaxies? Apparently not. Using the Hubble Space Telescope, researchers exploring the Virgo Cluster of galaxies have now found about 600 red giant stars adrift in intergalactic space.