The Giant and the Glory
6.08.2004

On a flight from Vienna to Brussels, astronomer Franz Kerschbaum looked out the window and photographed this beautiful atmospheric phenomenon, the glory, shining in the direction directly opposite the Sun. Before airplanes, the glory, known to some as the heiligenschein or the Specter of the Brocken, was occasionally seen from mountaintops.

A Digital Lunar Eclipse
19.05.2022

Recorded on May 15/16 this sequence of exposures follows the Full Moon during a total lunar eclipse as it arcs above treetops in the clearing skies of central Florida. A frame taken every 5 minutes by a digital camera shows the progression of the eclipse over three hours.

Eclipsed Moon and Stars
23.05.2003

Half-shadowed by the Earth, the Moon takes on a remarkable appearance against a field of stars in this intriguing telephoto picture recorded during a partial phase of last week's lunar eclipse. The picture is not a composite, but it has been digitally enhanced to bring out features covering a large range in brightness.

Vanishing Act
21.06.2008

Compare these two close-up pictures taken on sol 20 (left) and sol 24 of a trench dug in the Martian surface by NASA's Phoenix Lander. Those sols of the Phoenix Mission (a sol is a Martian day), correspond to June 15 and 18 on planet Earth.

Eclipsed Moonlight
21.06.2011

A celestial prelude to today's solstice, the June 15 total lunar eclipse was one of the longest in recent years. It was also one of the darkest, but not completely dark. Even during...

Eclipsed Moon in the Morning
9.12.2011

Tomorrow, December 10, the Full Moon will slide through planet Earth's shadow in a total lunar eclipse. The entire eclipse sequence, including 51 minutes of totality, will be visible from Asia and Australia...

Space Shuttle Rising
24.05.2015

What's that rising from the clouds? The space shuttle. Sometimes, if you looked out the window of an airplane at just the right place and time, you could have seen something very unusual -- a space shuttle launching to orbit.

Mimas in Saturnlight
16.03.2017

Peering from the shadows, the Saturn-facing hemisphere of Mimas lies in near darkness alongside a dramatic sunlit crescent. The mosaic was captured near the Cassini spacecraft's final close approach on January 30, 2017. Cassini's camera was pointed in a nearly sunward direction only 45,000 kilometers from Mimas.

Life Enabling Plumes above Enceladus
16.04.2017

Does Enceladus have underground oceans that could support life? The discovery of jets spewing water vapor and ice was detected by the Saturn-orbiting Cassini spacecraft in 2005. The origin of the water feeding the jets, however, was originally unknown.

Sunrise at Copernicus Crater
30.05.2019

A prominent impact site anchored in the lunar Oceanus Procellarum, Copernicus crater is at the center of this telescopic portrait in light and shadow. Caught in stacked and sharpened video frames recorded on April...