Shackleton from ShadowCam
5.05.2023

Shackleton crater lies at the lunar south pole. Peaks along the 21 kilometer diameter are in sunlight, but Shackleton's floor is in dark permanent shadow. Still, this image of the shadowed rim wall...

Perseverance Selfie with Ingenuity
7.06.2025

On the Mars rover's mission Sol 46 or Earth date April 6, 2021, Perseverance held out a robotic arm to take its first selfie on Mars. The WATSON camera...

Moonlight, Mars and Milky Way
27.06.2001

Aloha and welcome to a breath-taking skyscape. In this celestial scene, a four day old Moon illuminates a dreamlike foreground while bright planet Mars (above center) rules and the Milky Way's cosmic clouds of stars and dust seem to stretch from horizon to horizon.

Sunrise Analemma
20.03.2003

Astronomically speaking, at the Equinox on March 21, 01:00 UT (March 20, 8:00 PM ET) the season changes. For this Equinox the Sun rises due east as it crosses the celestial equator heading north. In celebration, consider this spectacular sunrise analemma!

X-Rays from the Galactic Core
6.11.2004

Using the orbiting Chandra X-ray Observatory, astronomers have taken this long look at the core of our Milky Way galaxy, some 26,000 light-years away. The spectacular false-color view spans about 130 light-years.

Solar Eclipse from the Moon
2.03.2007

Parts of Saturday's (March 3) lunar eclipse will be widely visible. For example, skywatchers in Europe, Africa, and western Asia will be able to see the entire spectacle of the Moon gliding through Earth's shadow, but in eastern North America the Moon will rise already in its total eclipse phase.

A Mysterious Hexagonal Cloud System on Saturn
3.04.2007

Why would clouds form a hexagon on Saturn? Nobody is yet sure. Originally discovered during the Voyager flybys of Saturn in the 1980s, nobody has ever seen anything like it anywhere else in the Solar System.

Thackerays Globules
28.12.2008

Rich star fields and glowing hydrogen gas silhouette dense, opaque clouds of interstellar gas and dust in this Hubble Space Telescope close-up of IC 2944, a bright star forming region in Centaurus, 5,900 light-years away. The largest of these dark globules, first spotted by South African astronomer A. D.

The Solar System from MESSENGER
23.02.2011

If you looked out from the center of the Solar System, what would you see? Nearly such a view was taken recently from the MESSENGER spacecraft currently orbiting the Sun from the distance of Mercury. The Sun's planets all appear as points of light, with the closest and largest planets appearing the brightest.

APOD Turns 17
16.06.2012

The first APOD appeared seventeen years ago today, on 1995 June 16. Although garnering only 14 page views on that day, we are proud to estimate that APOD has now served over one billion space-related images over the last 1.7 decades.