Enhanced version of the Nasa astronomy picture of the day website
The Clipper and the Comet
NASA's Europa Clipper is now headed toward an ocean world beyond Earth. The large spacecraft is tucked into the payload fairing atop the Falcon Heavy rocket in this photo, taken at Kennedy...
Colorful Aurora over New Zealand
Sometimes the night sky is full of surprises. Take the sky over Lindis Pass, South Island, New Zealand one-night last week. Instead of a typically calm night sky filled with constant stars, a busy...
Animation: Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS Tails Prediction
How bright and strange will the tails of Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS become? The comet has brightened dramatically over the few weeks as it passed its closest to the Sun and, just three days ago,...
Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS Over the Lincoln Memorial
Go outside at sunset tonight and see a comet! C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan–ATLAS) has become visible in the early evening sky in northern locations to the unaided eye. To see the comet, look west through...
Aurora Timelapse Over Italian Alps
Did you see last night's aurora? This question was relevant around much of the world a few days ago because a powerful auroral storm became visible unusually far from the Earth's poles. The...
Northern Lights, West Virginia
A gravel country lane gently winds through this colorful rural night skyscape. Captured from Monroe County in southern West Virginia on the evening of October 10, the starry sky above is a familiar...
Ring of Fire over Easter Island
The second solar eclipse of 2024 began in the Pacific. On October 2nd the Moon's shadow swept from west to east, with an annular eclipse visible along a narrow antumbral shadow path tracking...
Five Bright Comets from SOHO
Five bright comets are compared in these panels, recorded by a coronograph on board the long-lived, sun-staring SOHO spacecraft. Arranged chronologically all are recognizable by their tails...
M106: A Spiral Galaxy with a Strange Center
What's happening at the center of spiral galaxy M106? A swirling disk of stars and gas, M106's appearance is dominated by blue spiral arms and red dust lanes near the nucleus, as shown in...
Annular Eclipse over Patagonia
Can you find the Sun? OK, but can you explain why there’s a big dark spot in the center? The spot is the Moon, and the impressive alignment shown, where the Moon lines up inside the Sun, is called...
The Long Tails Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS
A bright comet is moving into the evening skies. C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan–ATLAS) has brightened and even though it is now easily visible to the unaided eye, it is so near to the Sun that it is still...
The Magnificent Tail of Comet McNaught
Comet McNaught, the Great Comet of 2007, grew a spectacularly long and filamentary tail. The magnificent tail spread across the sky and was visible for several days to Southern Hemisphere...
M27: Not a Comet
While hunting for comets in the skies above 18th century France, astronomer Charles Messier diligently kept a list of the things encountered during his telescopic expeditions that were definitely...
Comet at Moonrise
Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan–ATLAS) is growing brighter in planet Earth's sky. Fondly known as comet A3, this new visitor to the inner Solar System is traveling from the distant Oort cloud. The...
Eclipse at Sunrise
The second solar eclipse of 2024 began in the Pacific. On October 2nd the Moon's shadow swept from west to east, with an annular eclipse visible along a narrow antumbral shadow path tracking...
The Large Magellanic Cloud Galaxy
It is the largest satellite galaxy of our home Milky Way Galaxy. If you live in the south, the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is quite noticeable, spanning about 10 degrees across the night sky,...
Porphyrion: The Longest Known Black Hole Jets
How far can black hole jets extend? A new record was found just recently with the discovery of a 23-million light-year long jet pair from a black hole active billions of years ago. Dubbed...
Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS over Mexico
The new comet has passed its closest to the Sun and is now moving closer to the Earth. C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan–ATLAS) is currently moving out from inside the orbit of Venus and on track to pass its...
Seven Dusty Sisters
Is this really the famous Pleiades star cluster? Known for its iconic blue stars, the Pleiades is shown here in infrared light where the surrounding dust outshines the stars. Here, three infrared...
Rocket Eclipse at Sunset
Shockwaves ripple across the glare as a launch eclipses the setting Sun in this exciting close-up. Captured on September 17, the roaring Falcon 9 rocket carried European Galileo L13 navigation...