Enhanced version of the Nasa astronomy picture of the day website
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...
Stellar Streams in the Local Universe
The twenty galaxies arrayed in these panels are part of an ambitious astronomical survey of tidal stellar streams. Each panel presents a composite view; a deep, inverted image taken from publicly...
The Great Globular Cluster in Hercules
In 1716, English astronomer Edmond Halley noted, "This is but a little Patch, but it shows itself to the naked Eye, when the Sky is serene and the Moon absent." Of course, M13 is now less...
Comet A3 Through an Australian Sunrise
Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS is now visible in the early morning sky. Diving into the inner Solar System at an odd angle, this large dirty iceberg will pass its closest to the Sun -- between the orbits...
NGC 6727: The Rampaging Baboon Nebula
This dusty region is forming stars. Part of a sprawling molecular cloud complex that resembles, to some, a rampaging baboon, the region is a relatively close by 500 light-years away toward the...
Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS Approaches
What will happen as this already bright comet approaches? Optimistic predictions have Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan–ATLAS) briefly becoming easily visible to the unaided eye -- although the future...
Chicagohenge: Equinox in an Aligned City
Chicago, in a way, is like a modern Stonehenge. The way is east to west, and the time is today. Today, and every equinox, the Sun will set exactly to the west, everywhere on Earth. Therefore,...
Sunrise Shadows in the Sky
The defining astronomical moment of this September's equinox is at 12:44 UTC on September 22, when the Sun crosses the celestial equator moving south in its yearly journey through planet...