APOD: 2023 May 24 Б Observatory Aligned with Moon Occulting Jupiter
23.05.2023

Sometimes we witness the Moon moving directly in front of -- called occulting -- one of the planets in our Solar System. Earlier this month that planet was Jupiter. Captured here was the moment when Jupiter re-appeared from behind the surface of our Moon.

APOD: 2023 December 17 Б Geminids over Chinas Nianhu Lake
16.12.2023

Where are all of these meteors coming from? In terms of direction on the sky, the pointed answer is the constellation of Gemini. That is why the major meteor shower in December is known as the Geminids -- because shower meteors all appear to come from a radiant toward Gemini.

APOD: 2024 April 28 Б Rings Around the Ring Nebula
27.04.2024

The Ring Nebula (M57) is more complicated than it appears through a small telescope. The easily visible central ring is about one light-year across, but this remarkably deep exposure - a collaborative effort combining data from three different large telescopes - explores the looping filaments of glowing gas extending much farther from the nebula's central star.

APOD: 2025 June 30 Б NGC 4651: The Umbrella Galaxy
29.06.2025

It's raining stars. What appears to be a giant cosmic umbrella is now known to be a tidal stream of stars stripped from a small satellite galaxy. The main galaxy, spiral galaxy...

APOD: 2026 February 1 Б Galle: Happy Face Crater on Mars
31.01.2026

Mars has put on a happy face. The Martian crater Galle is famous because it has internal markings that make it look like a face that is both smiling and winking. These markings were originally discovered in the 1970s in pictures taken by the Viking Orbiter.

APOD: 2003 June 9 Ш The Pencil Nebula Supernova Shockwave
9.06.2003

At 500,000 kilometers per hour, a supernova shockwave plows through interstellar space. This shockwave is known as the Pencil Nebula, or NGC 2736, and is part of the Vela supernova remnant, an expanding shell of a star that exploded about 11,000 years ago.

APOD: 2023 March 27 Б Aurora Over Arctic Henge
26.03.2023

Reports of powerful solar flares started a seven-hour quest north to capture modern monuments against an aurora-filled sky. The peaks of iconic Arctic Henge in Raufarhцfn in northern Iceland were already aligned with the stars: some are lined up toward the exact north from one side and toward exact south from the other.

APOD: 2023 June 20 Б The Nandu in the Milky Way
19.06.2023

Have you seen the bird in the Milky Way? Beyond the man in the Moon, the night sky is filled with stories, and cultures throughout history have projected some of their most enduring legends onto the stars and dust above. Generations of people see these celestial icons, hear their associated stories, and pass them down.

APOD: 2024 May 21 Б CG4: The Globule and the Galaxy
20.05.2024

Can a gas cloud eat a galaxy? It's not even close. The "claw" of this odd looking "creature" in the featured photo is a gas cloud known as a cometary globule. This globule, however, has ruptured. Cometary globules are typically characterized by dusty heads and elongated tails.

APOD: 2025 April 21 Б Galaxy Lenses Galaxy from Webb
20.04.2025

Is this one galaxy or two? Although it looks like one, the answer is two. One path to this happening is when a small galaxy collides with a larger galaxy and ends up in the center. But in the featured image, something more rare is going on.