Chasing the Moon’s ShadowChasing the shadow of a New Moon, NASA’s WB-57F high altitude research aircraft took to the skies off the coast of Iceland on August 12 to observe a total solar eclipse. At 50,000 feet the aircraft was piloted along the precisely determined path of totality to maximize its time in the Moon’s shadow. A suite of hig…Read More

Launch of the Roman Space TelescopeA new telescope has been launched into space to study the universe. The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope (RST) has the same size main mirror as the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) but sees 100 times more sky during each snapshot. This is possible because when compared to HST, RST’s main mirror is more curved, its…Read More

M74: A Grand Design SpiralIf not the most grand, 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. Classified as an Sc galaxy, the grand design of M74’s graceful spiral arms are traced by…Read More

Eclipse Pairclipses tend to come in pairs. Twice a year, during an eclipse season that lasts about 34 days, Sun, Moon, and Earth can nearly align. Then the new and full phases of the Moon, separated by just over 14 days, create a solar and a lunar eclipse. But only rarely is the alignment at both new moon and full moon during a single eclipse…Read More

The Sky Turns Above ParanalAt the latitude of ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile, about 25 degrees south, Earth’s rotation moves the planet’s surface eastward at over 1,500 kilometers per hour. And while that’s faster than the speed of sound at sea level, the motion is imperceptible. Still, that motion can be revealed in the apparent rotation of…Read More

Colorful Aurora over Icelandic WaterfallWhat a sight to behold, when a night sky became filled with colors that appeared to rain over the Skógafoss waterfall in Iceland. This image was taken in a single 5 second exposure by the photographer in April 2025. Seeing an aurora is on many people’s bucket lists. But it is not easy. It requires…Read More

JWST Images The Lion’s Head NebulaAre we looking at the future of our Sun? The James Webb Space Telescope captured today’s composite image of the Lion’s Head Nebula (NGC 2392) with its NIRCam and MIRI instruments. The Lion’s Head Nebula is the remnant of a Sun-like star. This star was unable to sustain the nuclear fusion in its core needed to re…Read More

Earth’s Shadow Visualized with Lunar EclipsesWhat’s creating this giant hole in space? This is not a black hole — it’s a shadow. It’s Earth’s shadow. Since at least the time of Aristotle, people have noted that Earth’s dark shadow on the Moon during a partial lunar eclipse is circular — although never a whole circle. Using modern digital t…Read More

Comet 220P in OutburstComet 220P is unexpectedly bright. Normally, periodic Comet 220P/McNaught is so dim that to see it requires a telescope. Two surprising outbursts this year, however, have made it about 20,000 times brighter than usual, so that it is now visible with binoculars and long-duration camera exposures. As expected, Comet 220P…Read More

Cassini Approaches SaturnWhat would it look like to approach the grand planet Saturn? One doesn’t have to just imagine — the Cassini spacecraft did just this in 2004, recording thousands of images along the way, and hundreds of thousands more since entering orbit. Some of Cassini’s early images have been digitally tweaked, cropped, and compiled…Read More

Cassini Approaches SaturnWhat would it look like to approach the grand planet Saturn? One doesn’t have to just imagine — the Cassini spacecraft did just this in 2004, recording thousands of images along the way, and hundreds of thousands more since entering orbit. Some of Cassini’s early images have been digitally tweaked, cropped, and compiled…Read More

Mostly PerseidsRecorded the night of August 12-13, images from four dedicated meteor-monitoring cameras at an astronomical observatory in Czechia were aligned and combined to create this all-night, all-sky view. On that night, the total count came to 1,706 meteors. And since that coincided with the peak activity of the 2026 Perseid Meteor Shower,…Read More

Time-Lapse of the Star S301 Orbiting the Black Hole in the Center of the GalaxyWhat does it feel like to zoom around a spinning supermassive black hole? The featured video is an animation showing a time-lapse of 4 years of observations of the star S301 orbiting Sagittarius A*, the 4-million-solar-mass black hole in the center of our Galaxy.…Read More

The Case of the Mysterious Maybe MeteorWhatdunit? What disappeared while crossing a partially eclipsed Sun? Let’s present the evidence. The 24 frames-per-second video was taken in Spain (40°34’30.3″N 1°12’28.8″W) at 20:28 local time on August 12, 2026. The Perseids meteor shower was at its peak during this time. Is this a meteor? Meteor sho…Read More

Milky Way over YellowstoneThe Milky Way was not created by an evaporating lake. The colorful pool of water, about 10 meters across, is known as Silex Spring and is located in Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, USA. Illuminated artificially, the colors are caused by layers of bacteria that grow in the hot spring. Steam rises off the spring,…Read More

Buck Moon and Belt of VenusThe Buck Moon is a traditional name for the full moon of July. In this colorful Adriatic sea and skyscape captured on July 28 from Krk Island along the coast of Croatia, a full Buck Moon is just rising over distant mountains. Since a full moon rises as the Sun sets, Earth’s shadow also rises in the twilight scene, a…Read More

Red Sun through Wildfire SmokeThis could be the view from an exoplanet orbiting around a red dwarf star, but it is our own Sun. This image was taken on July 22, 2026, in the Okanagan region in the Canadian province of British Columbia. Wildfire smoke from the Pacific Northwest acted as a solar filter, allowing the photographer to take this…Read More

Psyche Receives Gravity Assist from MarsSolar System bodies make deep space exploration more fuel efficient! Today’s video shows the Psyche spacecraft gaining speed and changing its trajectory with minimal fuel spent due to a gravity assist from Mars in May 2026. Mars has an average orbital speed of almost 87,000 km/h (54,000 mph) around the S…Read More

Barnards Loop over Twin VolcanoesWhat’s connecting these two volcanoes? In ancient folklore, the two volcanoes, Parinacota (left) and Pomerape (right), are connected by representing a mythical prince and princess who engaged in a forbidden romance. Beneath the ground, the two peaks are not known to be connected by a common pool of hot magma, and…Read More

Simulation TNG50: A Galaxy Cluster FormsHow do clusters of galaxies form? Since our universe moves too slowly to watch, faster-moving computer simulations are created to help find out. One famous effort is TNG50 from IllustrisTNG, an upgrade of the famous Illustris Simulation. The first part of the featured video tracks cosmic gas (mostly…Read More

RCW 86: Historical Supernova RemnantIn 185 AD, Chinese astronomers recorded the appearance of a new star in the Nanmen asterism. That part of the sky is identified with part of the southern constellation Centaurus on modern star charts. In fact, the new star was reported to be visible to the naked-eye for months before it faded from view, and is…Read More

The Corona Australis Molecular Cloud and the Chandelier ClusterThe Southern Crown (Corona Australis) dazzles with young and ancient celestial jewels. The Corona Australis Cloud is a collage of reflection and emission nebulae on the left of today’s image. At 430 light years away, this cloud is one of the closest star-forming regions to Earth. It c…Read More

Shadow and RainbowAt sunset, an alignment of rainbow and mountain shadow was captured in this remarkable snapshot. The stunning view was recorded from a fire lookout on Smith Peak in the Plumas National Forest near Portola, California on July 13. Still, near sunset it’s no accident that the majestic mountain shadow seems to point to the center of…Read More

NGC 300: A Cosmic Gemstone with Stars and Gas CloudsThis sparkling, colorful gemstone is a spiral galaxy, NGC 300. It is one of the closest spiral galaxies to Earth, only about 6 million light-years away. But does it really look like this? Here is a more standard portrait of it. This unusual image combines the light from the stars and…Read More

Red Sprites in the Tatacoa DesertIs there an angry Sith using force lightning in the Tatacoa Desert? This is not science fiction, but a red sprite with multiple streamers! Ordinary lightning occurs when thundercloud particles collide, lose their electrons, and build up negative charge at the cloud bottom. The cloud’s negative charge repels n…Read More

Double Lobed Asteroid TorifuneWhy is this asteroid a double? Earlier this month the Japanese robotic spacecraft Hayabusa2 shot past asteroid 98943 Torifune and captured pictures. Although previous observations from distant Earth indicated that Torifune was oblong, Hayabusa2 found that Torifune actually has two joined lobes. With a length of…Read More

Swift Boost MissionSometimes we can all use a little help from a friend. NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory needs a boost to stay in orbit after almost 22 years of service. This video shows an artist’s visualization of the Swift Boost Mission: The Katalyst’s LINK spacecraft was launched aboard a Northrop Grumman Pegasus XL rocket on July 3…Read More

Dueling Bands over the Atacama DesertWhat are these two bands in the sky? The more commonly seen band is on the left and is the central band of our Milky Way galaxy. Our Sun orbits in the disk of this spiral galaxy so that from inside, it appears as a band of comparable brightness all the way around the sky. The less commonly seen band, on the…Read More

Saturn’s Iapetus: Painted MoonWhat has happened to Saturn’s moon Iapetus? Vast sections of this strange world are dark as coal, while others are as bright as snow. To help better understand this unusually tinted moon, in 2007 NASA directed the robotic Cassini spacecraft then orbiting Saturn to swoop within 2,000 kilometers. Pictured here, from…Read More

Three Galaxies in PavoSome 190 million light-years away, far beyond the bright stars and nebulae of the Milky Way, these three galaxies are drawn together by gravity in a mesmerizing cosmic dance. Clearly distorted by galactic-scale gravitational interactions, large spiral galaxies NGC6769 and NGC6770 are seen face-on, with luminous galactic disks…Read More

Sibling Supernova RemnantsWhat happens when one of the stars in a binary goes supernova? This image combines visible (yellow), ultraviolet (purple) and infrared light (cyan, red and orange) to show two supernova remnants and their surrounding environment, about 6,000 light-years away. The younger one is the well-known Jellyfish Nebula in the…Read More

The Cotton Candy Clouds of Rho OphiuchiAlthough they look like cotton candy, you cannot eat these clouds! Taken in Cádiz, Spain, today’s image features the Rho Ophiuchi complex, a rich tapestry of young and old astronomical phenomena. This colorful cloud complex is a nearby star-forming region containing hundreds of young stellar objects,…Read More

Anticrepuscular Rays over SicilyThe Sun has just set… in the opposite side of the sky. Pictured here are anticrepuscular rays apparently converging in the east in this image of the limestone plateau in the heart of the Hyblaean Mountains of southeastern Sicily, in Italy. How were these anticrepuscular rays formed, if the Sun wasn’t there?…Read More

Interplanetary EarthIn an interplanetary first, on July 19, 2013 Earth was photographed on the same day from two other worlds of the Solar System, innermost planet Mercury and ringed gas giant Saturn. Pictured on the left, Earth is the pale blue dot just below the rings of Saturn, as captured by the robotic Cassini spacecraft then orbiting the…Read More

The Eagle Nebula and FriendsWhat looks as if it is going to swallow the great Pillars of Creation? The Eagle Nebula (M16) is not a bird, a plane, or Superman. M16 is actually a combination of several celestial objects. NGC 6611 is the young star cluster that appears to peak out beneath the Eagle’s “wings”. The ultraviolet light from these stars…Read More

Thor’s HelmetThor not only has his own day (Thursday), but a helmet in the heavens. Popularly called Thor’s Helmet, NGC 2359 is a hat-shaped cosmic cloud with wing-like appendages. Heroically sized even for a Norse god, Thor’s Helmet is about 30 light-years across. In fact, the cosmic head-covering is more like an interstellar bubble, blown by a…Read More

Comet R3 PanSTARRS Through TimeWhat happens to a comet as it leaves our inner Solar System? Now, the arrival of a comet into the inner Solar System is typically heralded with great fanfare and high hopes that the comet will become bright and photogenic. But on the way out, the comet’s nucleus is less warmed by the Sun, less gas and dust are…Read More

The Hydra Cluster of GalaxiesWithin our own Milky Way galaxy, two bright, spiky stars stand like sentinels in the foreground of this cosmic snapshot. Far beyond them are the galaxies of the Hydra Cluster. In fact, while the spiky foreground stars are hundreds of light-years distant, the Hydra Cluster galaxies are well over 100 million light-years…Read More

A Planetary Nebula with Cosmic BuckyballsWhat is happening inside this unusual nebula? Planetary nebula Tc 1, captured here in exquisite detail by the James Webb Space Telescope, is the celestial site where buckyballs were first identified in 2010. Buckminsterfullerene — as buckyballs are officially called — is a molecule with 60 carbon ato…Read More

Andromeda Through Gas and DustOver 1000 years ago, Persian astronomer Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi published humanity’s oldest known record of the Andromeda Galaxy in “The Book of Fixed Stars” (Bodleian Library MS. Marsh 144 p. 167). 800 years later, Andromeda became the 31st entry in Charles Messier’s “Catalogue of Nebulae and Star Clusters”. From “a…Read More

The Vela Supernova RemnantThe explosion is over, but the consequences continue. About twelve thousand years ago, a relatively normal star in the constellation Vela suddenly exploded, creating a strange point of light briefly visible to humans living near the beginning of recorded history. The outer layers of the star crashed into the…Read More

Saturn at NightTelescopic views of Saturn and its beautiful rings often make it the star of star parties. But this stunning view of the outer gas gaint planet’s rings and night side just isn’t possible from telescopes in the vicinity of planet Earth. Peering out from the inner Solar System they can only bring Saturn’s day side into view. In fact,…Read More

Eagle Nebula Pillars in Infrared from HubbleNewborn stars are forming in the Eagle Nebula. They are gravitationally contracting in pillars of dense gas and dust. The intense radiation of these newly-formed bright stars is causing surrounding material to boil away. This image, taken with the Hubble Space Telescope in near infrared light, allows…Read More

Supermoon Versus MicromoonWhat is so micro about tonight’s blue micromoon? Just after sunset, a full moon will appear slightly smaller and dimmer than usual. The reason is that the Moon’s fully illuminated phase occurs within a short time of apogee – when the Moon is farthest from the Earth in its elliptical orbit. In fact, tonight’s micromoon…Read More

Messier 104A gorgeous spiral galaxy, Messier 104 is famous for its nearly edge-on profile featuring a broad ring of obscuring dust lanes. Seen in silhouette against an extensive central bulge of stars, the swath of cosmic dust lends a broad brimmed hat-like appearance to the galaxy suggesting a more popular moniker, the Sombrero Galaxy. Also known…Read More

NGC 1514: The Crystal Ball NebulaWhat do you see in this crystal ball? The featured image shows NGC 1514, known as the Crystal Ball Nebula, observed by the Gemini North telescope on Maunakea, in Hawai’i. NGC 1514 is 1,500 light-years away and was discovered by William Herschel in 1790. This planetary nebula is formed when a star becomes a…Read More

PK 164 +31.1: The Headphone NebulaWhat is a pair of headphones doing in the sky? Today’s image features the Headphone Nebula, also known as PK 164 +31.1 or Jones-Emberson 1. This planetary nebula, the remnant of a dying Sun-like star, faintly occupies an angular region of the Lynx constellation about 1/5th the diameter of the full moon. The red a…Read More

NGC 3660 and Burçin’s GalaxyThe upper galaxy might be more photogenic, but the lower galaxy is more unusual. The galaxy up top is NGC 3660, a spiral galaxy similar to our own Milky Way galaxy in that it has several bright blue spiral arms and a central bar of stars, dust, and gas. Captured by chance in the featured deep and colorful image,…Read More

Thackeray’s GlobulesWhat are these strange space globs? Situated in rich star fields and glowing hydrogen gas, these opaque clouds of interstellar dust and gas are so large they might be able to form stars. Their home is known as IC 2944, a bright stellar nursery located about 7,600 light years away toward the constellation of the Centaur…Read More

A Martian Eclipse: Phobos Crosses the SunWhat’s that passing in front of the Sun? It looks like a moon, but it can’t be Earth’s Moon, because it isn’t round. It’s the Martian moon Phobos. The featured video was taken from the surface of Mars in 2022 by the Perseverance rover. Phobos, at 11.5 kilometers across, is 150 times smaller than Luna (our…Read More