APOD: 2025 March 3 Б Blue Ghost on the Moon
3.03.2025

There's a new lander on the Moon. Yesterday Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost executed the first-ever successful commercial lunar landing. During its planned 60-day mission, Blue Ghost will deploy several NASA-commissioned scientific instruments, including PlanetVac which captures lunar dust after creating a small whirlwind of gas.

Eris: More Massive than Pluto
19.06.2007

Eris, a dwarf planet currently orbiting the Sun at about twice Pluto's distance, has been measured to have about 27 percent more mass than Pluto. The mass was calculated by timing the orbit of Eris' moon Dysnomia.

Neptune at Night
9.11.2024

Ice giant Neptune is faint in Earth's night sky. Some 30 times farther from the Sun than our fair planet, telescopes are needed to catch a glimpse of the dim and distant world. This dramatic view of Neptune's night just isn't possible for telescopes in the vicinity of planet Earth though.

Jupiter Engulfed and the Milky Way
7.08.2019

This is a good month to see Jupiter. To find our Solar System's largest planet in your sky, look toward the southeast just after sunset -- Jupiter should be the brightest object in that part of the sky.

DART: Impact on Asteroid Dimorphos
27.09.2022

Could humanity deflect an asteroid headed for Earth? Yes. Deadly impacts from large asteroids have happened before in Earth's past, sometimes causing mass extinctions of life. To help protect our Earth from some...

Plutos Newly Discovered Moons Receive Names
8.07.2013

Pluto's newly discovered moons now have names. Known previously as P4 and P5, the International Astronomical Union has now given the fourth and fifth discovered moons of Pluto the names Kerberos and Styx.

Charon and the Small Moons of Pluto
26.10.2015

What do the moons of Pluto look like? Before a decade ago, only the largest moon Charon was known, but never imaged. As the robotic New Horizons spacecraft was prepared and launched, other moons were identified on Hubble images but remained only specks of light.

A High Cliff on Comet Churyumov Gerasimenko
28.11.2021

This high cliff occurs not on a planet, not on a moon, but on a comet. It was discovered to be part of the dark nucleus of Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko (CG) by Rosetta, a robotic spacecraft launched by ESA that rendezvoused with the Sun-orbiting comet in 2014.

Atlas 5 Rocket Launches to the Moon
22.06.2009

This rocket is headed for the Moon. Pictured above, a huge Altas V rocket roared off the launch pad last week to start NASA's first missions to Earth's Moon in 10 years. The rocket is carrying two robotic spacecraft.

Leaving Vesta
19.09.2012

Next stop: Ceres. Last week the robotic Dawn spacecraft ended its year-long mission to asteroid Vesta, becoming the first spacecraft ever to visit this far off world located between Mars and Jupiter, in the Solar System's main asteroid belt.