Looking Through Abell 68
8.03.2013

Want to use a cluster of galaxies as a telescope? It's easier than you might think as distant galaxy clusters naturally act as strong gravitional lenses. In accordance with Einstein's theory...

Southern Cross over Chilean Volcano
24.01.2021

Have you ever seen the Southern Cross? This famous four-star icon is best seen from Earth's Southern Hemisphere. The featured image was taken last month in Chile and captures the Southern Cross just to the left of erupting Villarrica, one of the most active volcanos in our Solar System.

Small Star
19.11.1999

A dim double star system cataloged as Gliese 623 lies 25 light-years from Earth, in the constellation of Hercules. The individual stars of this binary system were distinguished for the first time when the Hubble Space Telescope's Faint Object Camera recorded this image in June 1994.

First Horizon Scale Image of a Black Hole
30.04.2022

What does a black hole look like? To find out, radio telescopes from around the Earth coordinated observations of black holes with the largest known event horizons on the sky. Alone, black holes are just black, but these monster attractors are known to be surrounded by glowing gas.

Man Enters Space
14.04.2001

Forty years ago, on April 12, 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Alexseyevich Gagarin became the first human in space. His remotely controlled Vostok 1 spacecraft lofted him to an altitude of 200 miles and carried him once around planet Earth. Gagarin was strictly a passenger on this flight.

Field of Rosette
13.02.2010

What surrounds the florid Rosette nebula? To better picture this area of the sky, the famous flowery emission nebula on the far right has been captured recently in a deep and dramatic wide field image that features several other sky highlights.

The Galactic Core in Infrared
6.01.2009

What's happening at the center of our Milky Way Galaxy? To help find out, the orbiting Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes have combined their efforts to survey the region in unprecedented detail in infrared light.

A Live View from the International Space Station
14.05.2014

If were floating above the Earth right now, this is what you might see. Two weeks ago, the robotic SpaceX Dragon capsule that delivered supplies to the Earth-orbiting International Space Station (ISS) also delivered High Definition Earth Viewing (HDEV) cameras that take and transmit live views of Earth.

Galaxies and the South Celestial Pole
31.12.2020

The South Celestial Pole is easy to spot in star trail images of the southern sky. The extension of Earth's axis of rotation to the south, it's at the center of all the southern star trail arcs.

The Mystery of the Fading Star
7.01.2010

Every 27 years Epsilon Aurigae fades, remaining dim for roughly two years before growing bright again. Since the 19th century, astronomers have studied the mystery star, eventually arguing that Epsilon Aur, centered in this telescopic skyview, was actually undergoing a long eclipse by a dark companion object.