Herbig Haro 24
28.05.2025

This might look like a double-bladed lightsaber, but these two cosmic jets actually beam outward from a newborn star in a galaxy near you. Constructed from Hubble Space Telescope image data, the stunning scene...

NGC 1055 Close up
9.11.2017

Big, beautiful spiral galaxy NGC 1055 is a dominant member of a small galaxy group a mere 60 million light-years away toward the aquatically intimidating constellation Cetus. Seen edge-on, the island universe spans over 100,000 light-years, a little larger than our own Milky Way.

M2 9: Wings of a Butterfly Nebula
13.09.2020

Are stars better appreciated for their art after they die? Actually, stars usually create their most artistic displays as they die. In the case of low-mass stars like our Sun and M2-9 pictured here, the stars transform themselves from normal stars to white dwarfs by casting off their outer gaseous envelopes.

Dueling Bands in the Night
1.03.2022

What are these two bands in the sky? The more commonly seen band is the one on the right and is the central band of our Milky Way galaxy. Our Sun orbits...

APOD: 2026 June 15 Б Triple Shockwave from Sun Crossing Rocket
15.06.2026

What's happening to this Sun-crossing rocket? The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, visible on the upper left, launched only about one minute before this amazing image was captured. As it rose to low Earth...

Mercury Spotting
6.06.2004

Can you spot the planet? The diminutive disk of Mercury, the solar system's innermost planet, spent about five hours crossing in front of the enormous solar disk on 2003 May 7, as viewed from the general vicinity of planet Earth.

Jets From SS433
6.03.1996

SS433 is one of the most exotic star systems known to astronomers. Its unremarkable name stems from its inclusion in a catalog of stars which emit radiation characteristic of atomic hydrogen. Its very remarkable behavior stems from a compact object, a black hole or neutron star, which has produced an accretion disk with jets.

Mercury Spotting
8.05.2003

Can you spot the planet? The diminutive disk of Mercury, the solar system's innermost planet, spent about five hours crossing in front of the enormous solar disk yesterday (Wednesday, May 7th), as viewed from the general vicinity of planet Earth.

Solis Lacus: The Eye of Mars
1.10.2020

As telescopes around planet Earth watch, Mars is growing brighter in night skies, approaching its 2020 opposition on October 13. Mars looks like its watching too in this view of the Red Planet from September 22.

Possible Planets And Infrared Dust
20.01.1999

These near-infrared Hubble images of dust surrounding young stars offer the latest tantalizing evidence for planets beyond our Solar System. At left, the dark gap seen in the dust disk is reminiscent of a similar large gap in Saturn's rings believed to be sculpted by orbiting moons.