Clearing Skies
26.07.2002

Clear evening skies are a welcome sight for stargazers worldwide, but clearing skies are good too. Just such a glorious occasion was recorded in this dramatic photo taken by Dominic Cantin during a recent gathering of Canadian astronomers at St-NИrИe Observatory, located about 60 kilometers southeast of the city of Quebec.

Saturn s Dragon Storm
25.02.2005

Dubbed the "Dragon Storm", convoluted, swirling cloud features are tinted orange in this false-color, near-infrared image of Saturn's southern hemisphere. In one of a series of discoveries announced by Cassini researchers, the Dragon...

A Space Shuttle Before Dawn
13.05.2009

This shuttle has launched to space. Pictured above, the Space Shuttle Atlantis sat on Launch Pad 39A before dawn last month as it was prepared for the launch. The shuttle itself is visible on the image right, attached to a brown liquid fuel tank and two white solid rocket boosters.

Fire on Earth
21.11.2000

Sometimes, regions of planet Earth can be seen lit up with fire. Since fire is the rapid acquisition of oxygen, and since oxygen is a key indicator of life, fire on any planet would be an indicator of life on that planet.

Close up of the Face on Mars
28.05.2001

Wouldn't it be fun if clouds were turtles? Wouldn't it be fun if the laundry on the bedroom chair was a friendly monster? Wouldn't it be fun if rock mesas on Mars were faces or interplanetary monuments? Clouds, though, are small water droplets, floating on air.

Nocturnal: Scenes from the Southern Night
6.08.2012

Have you ever seen the night sky change? It does -- sometimes in beautiful and unexpected ways. To see it, though, usually requires patience. The above award winning video shows several of the possible changes in dramatic fashion with a time lapse video.

Close up of the Face on Mars
14.12.2003

Wouldn't it be fun if clouds were turtles? Wouldn't it be fun if the laundry on the bedroom chair was a friendly monster? Wouldn't it be fun if rock mesas on Mars were faces or interplanetary monuments? Clouds, though, are small water droplets, floating on air.

Flying over the Earth at Night II
12.03.2018

What would it be like to orbit the Earth? The International Space Station (ISS) does this every 90 minutes, and sometimes the astronauts on board take image sequences that are made into videos. The featured time-lapse video shows many visual spectacles of the dark Earth below.

Burning Tree Sprite
2.08.2001

This dramatic, garishly colored image was captured with a low-light level camera on 2001 June 7. It shows what appears to be a "burning tree" above the National Cheng Kung University campus in Tainan City, Taiwan ... but the burning tree is actually a fleeting red sprite 300 kilometers away.

The Flare and the Galaxy
2.09.2015

Is this person throwing a lightning bolt? No. Despite appearances, this person is actually pointing in the direction of a bright Iridium flare, a momentary reflection of sunlight off of a communications satellite in orbit around the Earth.