APOD: 2025 February 9 Б Milky Way over the Australian Pinnacles
9.02.2025

What strange world is this? Earth. In the foreground of the featured image are the Pinnacles, unusual rock spires in Nambung National Park in Western Australia. Made of ancient sea shells (limestone), how these human-sized picturesque spires formed remains unknown.

Orion over Green Bank
23.02.2022

What will the huge Green Bank Telescope discover tonight? Pictured, the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope (GBT) on the lower right is the largest fully-pointable single-dish radio telescope in the world. With...

APOD: 2023 February 13 Б Comet ZTF and Mars
13.02.2023

No, Comet ZTF is not going to hit Mars. Nicknamed the Green Comet for its bright green coma, C/2022 E3 (ZTF) did, however, pass almost in front of the much-more distant planet a few days ago, very near in time to when the featured picture was taken.

Galaxies Away
21.08.1999

This striking pair of galaxies is far, far away ... about 350 million light-years from Earth. Cataloged as AM0500-620, the pair is located in the southern constellation Dorado. The background elliptical and foreground spiral galaxy are representative of two of the three major classes of galaxies which inhabit our Universe.

X Ray Moon
14.09.2002

This x-ray image of the Moon was made by the orbiting ROSAT (Röntgensatellit) Observatory in 1990. In this digital picture, pixel brightness corresponds to x-ray intensity. Consider the image in three parts: the bright hemisphere of the x-ray moon, the darker half of the moon, and the x-ray sky background.

Meteors and Aurorae over Iceland
7.08.2013

What's going on behind that volcano? Quite a bit. First of all, the volcano itself, named Kirkjufell, is quite old and located in western Iceland near the town of GrundarfjЖrПur. In front...

NGC 602 and Beyond
24.03.2018

Near the outskirts of the Small Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy some 200 thousand light-years distant, lies 5 million year young star cluster NGC 602. Surrounded by natal gas and dust...

NGC 602 and Beyond
11.01.2020

Near the outskirts of the Small Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy some 200 thousand light-years distant, lies 5 million year young star cluster NGC 602. Surrounded by natal gas and dust...

A Deep Sky Behind an Eclipsed Moon
24.05.2022

The plan was to capture a picturesque part of the sky that was hosting an unusual guest. The result included a bonus Б an additional and unexpected guest. The beautiful background features part...

ROSAT Explores The X-Ray Sky
8.10.1996

Launched in 1990, the orbiting ROSAT observatory explored the Universe by viewing the entire sky in x-rays - photons with about 1,000 times more energy than visible light. This ROSAT survey produced the sharpest, most sensitive image of the x-ray sky to date.