Cocoon Nebula Wide Field
18.09.2014

In this crowded starfield covering over 2 degrees within the high flying constellation Cygnus, the eye is drawn to the Cocoon Nebula. A compact star forming region, the cosmic Cocoon punctuates a long trail of obscuring interstellar dust clouds.

Fibrils Flower on the Sun
16.02.2015

When does the Sun look like a flower? In a specific color of red light emitted by hydrogen, as featured here, some regions of the solar chromosphere may resemble a rose. The color-inverted image was taken in 2014 October and shows active solar region 2177.

The New World Atlas of Artificial Sky Brightness
30.06.2016

How far are you from a naturally dark night sky? In increasing steps, this world map (medium | large) shows the effect of artificial night sky brightness on the visual appearance of the night sky. The brightness was modeled using high resolution satellite data and fit to thousands of night sky brightness measurements in recent work.

Lunar Eclipse over Cologne Cathedral
22.01.2019

Why would a bright full Moon suddenly become dark? Because it entered the shadow of the Earth. That's what happened Sunday night as the Moon underwent a total lunar eclipse. Dubbed by some...

Stars, Dust, and Gas near NGC 3572
28.05.2019

Star formation can be colorful. This chromatic cosmic portrait features glowing gas and dark dust near some recently formed stars of NGC 3572, a little-studied star cluster near the Carina Nebula. Stars from...

InSight on a Cloudy Day
4.10.2019

Clouds drift through the sky as the light fades near sunset in this three frame animated gif. The scene was captured on sol 145 beginning around 6:30pm local time by a camera on the Mars InSight lander. Of course, InSight's martian day, sol 145, corresponds to Earth calendar date April 25, 2019.

M16: Inside the Eagle Nebula
28.12.2020

From afar, the whole thing looks like an Eagle. A closer look at the Eagle Nebula, however, shows the bright region is actually a window into the center of a larger dark shell of dust. Through this window, a brightly-lit workshop appears where a whole open cluster of stars is being formed.

APOD: 2025 March 10 Б NGC 1499: The California Nebula
10.03.2025

Could Queen Calafia's mythical island exist in space? Perhaps not, but by chance the outline of this molecular space cloud echoes the outline of the state of California, USA. Our Sun has its home within the Milky Way's Orion Arm, only about 1,000 light-years from the California Nebula.

APOD: 2026 February 18 Б Orions Cradle
18.02.2026

Cradled in red-glowing hydrogen gas, stars are being born in Orion. These stellar nurseries lie at the edge of the giant Orion molecular cloud complex, some 1,500 light-years away. This detailed view spans...

Chandra Deep Field
12.10.2002

Officially the Chandra Deep Field - South, this picture represents the deepest ever x-ray image of the Universe. One million seconds of accumulated exposure time with the orbiting Chandra X-ray Observatory went in to its making.