The Dancing Auroras of Saturn
27.06.2021

What drives auroras on Saturn? To help find out, scientists have sorted through hundreds of infrared images of Saturn taken by the Cassini spacecraft for other purposes, trying to find enough aurora images to correlate changes and make movies.

PDS 70: Disk, Planets, and Moons
24.08.2021

It's not the big disk that's attracting the most attention. Although the big planet-forming disk around the star PDS 70 is clearly imaged and itself quite interesting. It's also not the planet on the right, just inside the big disk, thatБs being talked about the most.

Young Star Jet MHO 2147
21.01.2022

Laser guide stars and adaptive optics sharpened this stunning ground-based image of stellar jets from the Gemini South Observatory, Chilean Andes, planet Earth. These twin outflows of MHO 2147 are from a young star in formation.

APOD: 2023 January 11 Б Spiral Aurora over Iceland
11.01.2023

The scene may look like a fantasy, but it's really Iceland. The rock arch is named Gatklettur and located on the island's northwest coast. Some of the larger rocks in the foreground span a meter across. The fog over the rocks is really moving waves averaged over long exposures.

APOD: 2024 June 16 Б Animation: Black Hole Destroys Star
16.06.2024

What happens if a star gets too close to a black hole? The black hole can rip it apart -- but how? It's not the high gravitational attraction itself that's the problem -- it's the difference in gravitational pull across the star that creates the destruction.

The Light, Dark, and Dusty Trifid
10.08.2024

Messier 20, popularly known as the Trifid Nebula, lies about 5,000 light-years away toward the nebula rich constellation Sagittarius. A star forming region in the plane of our galaxy, the Trifid does illustrate...

APOD: 2024 November 19 Б Undulatus Clouds over Las Campanas Observatory
19.11.2024

What's happening with these clouds? While it may seem that these long and thin clouds are pointing toward the top of a hill, and that maybe a world-famous observatory is located there, only part of that is true.

John Glenn: Friendship 7 To Discovery
29.10.1998

Rehearsing for his historic flight on February 20, 1962, Mercury program astronaut John H. Glenn Jr. works in a cramped training capsule preparing for a few hours' voyage through space. Dubbed Friendship...

M57: The Ring Nebula
29.07.2001

Except for the rings of Saturn, the Ring Nebula (M57) is probably the most famous celestial band. This planetary nebula's simple, graceful appearance is thought to be due to perspective -- our view from planet Earth looking straight into what is actually a barrel-shaped cloud of gas shrugged off by a dying central star.

Comet NEAT Passes an Erupting Sun
24.02.2003

As Comet NEAT flared last week, the Sun roared. Just as the comet swooped inside the orbit of Mercury and developed a long and flowing tail of gas and dust, the Sun emitted a huge Coronal Mass Ejection (CME).