Enhanced version of the Nasa astronomy picture of the day website
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...
Arp 142: Interacting Galaxies from Webb
To some, it looks like a penguin. But to people who study the universe, it is an interesting example of two big galaxies interacting. Just a few hundred million years ago, the upper NGC 2936 was...
Milky Way over Uluru
What's happening above Uluru? A United Nations World Heritage Site, Uluru is an extraordinary 350-meter high mountain in central Australia that rises sharply from nearly flat surroundings....
Sun Dance
Sometimes, the surface of our Sun seems to dance. In the middle of 2012, for example, NASA's Sun-orbiting Solar Dynamic Observatory spacecraft imaged an impressive prominence that seemed to...
Saturn at the Moon's Edge
Saturn now rises before midnight in planet Earth's sky. On July 24, the naked-eye planet was in close conjunction, close on the sky, to a waning gibbous Moon. But from some locations on planet...
Facing NGC 6946
From our vantage point in the Milky Way Galaxy, we see NGC 6946 face-on. The big, beautiful spiral galaxy is located just 20 million light-years away, behind a veil of foreground dust and stars in...
NGC 7023: The Iris Nebula
These cosmic clouds have blossomed 1,300 light-years away in the fertile starfields of the constellation Cepheus. Called the Iris Nebula, NGC 7023 is not the only nebula to evoke the imagery of...
Exaggerated Moon
Our Moon doesn't really have craters this big. Earth's Moon, Luna, also doesn't naturally show this spikey texture, and its colors are more subtle. But this digital creation is based on...
The Crab Nebula from Visible to X-Ray
What powers the Crab Nebula? A city-sized magnetized neutron star spinning around 30 times a second. Known as the Crab Pulsar, it is the bright spot in the center of the gaseous swirl at the...