North Celestial Aurora
17.05.2024

Graceful star trail arcs reflect planet Earth's daily rotation in this colorful night skyscape. To create the timelapse composite, on May 12 consecutive exposures were recorded with a camera fixed to a tripod on the shores of the Ashokan Reservoir, in the Catskills region of New York, USA.

An Atlas V Rocket Prepares to Launch
16.09.2002

The first launch of an Atlas V rocket occurred last month. The Atlas V, built by Lockheed Martin, is the first rocket in the U. S. Air Force's Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle program. Rockets in this program can carry increasingly heavy payloads by just adding more boosters.

Kalamalka Lake Eclipse
1.09.2007

Recorded on August 28th, this serene total lunar eclipse sequence looks southwest down Kalamalka Lake toward the lights of Coldstream, British Columbia. An exposure every 4 minutes captured the Moon's position and eclipse phase, until the Moon set behind the town lights and a hill on the horizon.

Apollo 14: Rickshaw Tracks Across the Moon
27.04.1996

Brilliant sunlight glints off tracks gently winding across the the Moon's Frau Maro highlands. The tracks were made by the Apollo 14 crew's two-wheeled Modularized Equipment Transporter (MET), fondly known as the "rickshaw". The MET was designed as an aid to surface exploration.

The Cygnus Loop
25.07.1999

The shockwave from a 20,000 year-old supernova in the constellation of Cygnus supernova explosion is still expanding into interstellar space. The collision of this fast moving wall of gas with a stationary cloud...

The Search for Life on Mars
21.07.1995

Although images of Mars taken from space revealed the planet to have a barren and cratered surface, scientists did not give up the search for martian life. In 1976 NASA's Viking project succeeded in landing two robot probes on the surface of Mars.

A Daytime Fireball Over South Wales
1.10.2003

Jon Burnett, a teenager from South Wales, UK, was photographing some friends skateboarding last week when the sky did something very strange. High in the distance, a sofa-sized rock came hurtling into the nearby atmosphere of planet Earth and disintegrated.

At the Summit of Olympus Mons
26.05.2004

From martian orbit, the Mars Express cameras looked down on the largest volcano in the solar system. The result was this stunningly detailed overhead view of the caldera or summit crater region of Olympus Mons.

One Small Step
4.10.1998

On July 20th, 1969, a human first set foot on the Moon. Pictured above is the first lunar footprint. The footprint and distinction of the first person to walk on the Moon belong to Neil Armstrong.

Crescent Neptune and Triton
12.12.2009

Gliding silently through the outer Solar System, the Voyager 2 spacecraft camera captured Neptune and Triton together in crescent phase in 1989. The above picture of the gas giant planet and its cloudy moon was taken from behind just after closest approach.