NGC 4302 and NGC 4298
21.04.2017

Seen edge-on, spiral galaxy NGC 4302 (left) lies about 55 million light-years away in the well-groomed constellation Coma Berenices. A member of the large Virgo Galaxy Cluster, it spans some 87,000 light-years, a little smaller than our own Milky Way.

Gigantic Jets Over Oklahoma
29.08.2007

Have you ever seen a gigantic jet? They are extremely rare but tremendously powerful. Gigantic jets are a newly discovered type of lightning discharge between some thunderstorms and the Earth's ionosphere high above them. Pictured above is one such jet caught by accident by a meteor camera in Oklahoma, USA.

Asteroid 2012 DA14 Passes the Earth
17.02.2013

There it goes. That small spot moving in front of background stars in the above video is a potentially dangerous asteroid passing above the Earth's atmosphere. This past Friday, the 50-meter wide asteroid...

Noctilucent Clouds and Aurora Over Scotland
19.08.2013

Why would the sky still glow after sunset? Besides stars and the band of our Milky Way galaxy, the sky might glow because it contains either noctilucent clouds or aurora. Rare individually, both are visible in the above time lapse movie taken over Caithness, Scotland, UK taken during a single night earlier this month.

Firing Lasers to Tame the Sky
10.02.2021

Why do stars twinkle? Our atmosphere is to blame as pockets of slightly off-temperature air, in constant motion, distort the light paths from distant astronomical objects. Atmospheric turbulence is a problem for astronomers because it blurs the images of the sources they want to study.

Gigantic Jet Lightning from Puerto Rico
29.09.2021

Have you ever seen a gigantic jet? They are extremely rare but tremendously powerful. Gigantic jets are a type of lightning discharge documented only this century that occur between some thunderstorms and the Earth's ionosphere high above them.

Crumbling Comet Schwassmann Wachmann 3 Approaches
26.04.2006

A crumbling comet will soon pass near the Earth. Comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 is brightening and may even be visible to the unaided eye when the fragmented comet zooms past Earth during the middle of next month.

Churning Clouds on Jupiter
11.08.2020

Where is Jupiter's ammonia? Gaseous ammonia was expected to be seen in Jupiter's upper atmosphere by the orbiting Juno spacecraft -- but in many clouds is almost absent. Recent Juno data, however, gives some clues: some high-level clouds appear to be home to an unexpected type of electrical discharge dubbed shallow lightning.

M74: The Perfect Spiral
11.08.2013

If not perfect, then this spiral galaxy is at least one of the most photogenic. An island universe of about 100 billion stars, 32 million light-years away toward the constellation Pisces, M74 presents a gorgeous face-on view.

The Infrared Visible Andromeda
12.12.2014

This remarkable synthetic color composite image was assembled from archives of visible light and infrared astronomy image data. The field of view spans the Andromeda Galaxy (M31), a massive spiral a mere 2.5 million light-years away. In fact, with over twice the diameter of our own Milky Way, Andromeda is the largest nearby galaxy.