Enhanced version of the Nasa astronomy picture of the day website
IC 5146: The Cocoon Nebula
Inside the Cocoon Nebula is a newly developing cluster of stars. Cataloged as IC 5146, the beautiful nebula is nearly 15 light-years wide. Soaring high in northern summer night skies, it's...
A Solar Prominence Eruption from SDO
One of the most spectacular solar sights is an erupting prominence. In 2011, NASA's Sun-orbiting Solar Dynamic Observatory spacecraft imaged an impressively large prominence erupting from the...
Sky Full of Arcs
On August 11 a Rocket Lab Electron rocket launched from a rotating planet. With a small satellite on board its mission was dubbed A Sky Full of SARs (Synthetic Aperture Radar satellites), departing...
Meteor Borealis
A single exposure made with a camera pointed almost due north on August 12 recorded this bright Perseid meteor in the night sky west of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. The meteor's incandescent...
Late Night Vallentuna
Bright Mars and even brighter Jupiter are in close conjunction just above the pine trees in this post-midnight skyscape from Vallentuna, Sweden. Taken on August 12 during a geomagnetic storm, the...
Meteors and Aurora over Germany
This was an unusual night. For one thing, the night sky of August 11 and 12, earlier this week, occurred near the peak of the annual Perseid Meteor Shower. Therefore, meteors streaked across the...
Giant Jet from the International Space Station
What's that on the horizon? When circling the Earth on the International Space Station early last month, astronaut Matthew Dominick saw an unusual type of lightning just beyond the Earth's...
Perseid Meteors over Stonehenge
What's happening in the sky above Stonehenge? A meteor shower: specifically, the Perseid meteor shower. A few nights ago, after the sky darkened, many images of meteors from this year's...
Animation: Perseid Meteor Shower
Where do Perseid meteors come from? Mostly small bits of stony grit, Perseid meteoroids were once expelled from Comet Swift-Tuttle and continue to follow this comet's orbit as they slowly...
The Light, Dark, and Dusty Trifid
Messier 20, popularly known as the Trifid Nebula, lies about 5,000 light-years away toward the nebula rich constellation Sagittarius. A star forming region in the plane of our galaxy, the Trifid...
A Perseid Below
Denizens of planet Earth typically watch meteor showers by looking up. But this remarkable view, captured on August 13, 2011 by astronaut Ron Garan, caught a Perseid meteor by looking down. From...
Periodic Comet Swift-Tuttle
A Halley-type comet with an orbital period of about 133 years, Comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle is recognized as the parent of the annual Perseid Meteor Shower. The comet's last visit to the inner Solar...
Milky Way Behind Three Merlons
To some, they look like battlements, here protecting us against the center of the Milky Way. The Three Merlons, also called the Three Peaks of Lavaredo, stand tall today because they are made of...
Storm Cloud Over Texas
What makes this storm cloud so colorful? First, the cloud itself is composed of millions of tiny droplets of water and ice. Its bottom is almost completely flat -- but this isn't unusual. ...
Milky Way Over Tunisia
That's no moon. On the ground, that's the Lars Homestead in Tunisia. And that's not just any galaxy. That's the central band of our own Milky Way galaxy. Last, that's not just any...
Gaia: Here Comes the Sun
What would it look like to return home from outside our galaxy? Although designed to answer greater questions, data from ESA's robotic Gaia mission is helping to provide a uniquely modern...
Glory and Fog Bow
On a road trip up Mount Uludağ in Bursa province, Turkey these motorcyclists found themselves above low clouds and fog in late June. With the bright Sun directly behind them, the view down the side...
Mars Passing By
As Mars wanders through Earth's night, it passes about 5 degrees south of the Pleiades star cluster in this composite astrophoto. The skyview was constructed from a series of images captured over...
Comet Olbers over Kunetice Castle
A visitor to the inner solar system every 70 years or so, Comet 13P/Olbers reached its most recent perihelion, or closest approach to the Sun, on June 30. Now on a return voyage to the distant Oort...
Leopard Spots on Martian Rocks
What is creating these unusual spots? Light-colored spots on Martian rocks, each surrounded by a dark border, were discovered earlier this month by NASA's Perseverance Rover currently exploring...