M42: The Great Orion Nebula
Few astronomical sights excite the imagination like the nearby stellar nursery known as the Orion Nebula. The Nebula's glowing gas surrounds hot young stars at the edge of an immense interstellar molecular cloud. Many of the filamentary ...
Juno Spots a Complex Storm on Jupiter
Some storms on Jupiter are quite complex. The swirling storm was captured late last month by the NASA's robotic Juno spacecraft currently orbiting the Solar System's largest planet. The featured image spans about 30,000 kilometers, making this ...
Hurricane Season Animated
Where do hurricanes go? To better understand dangerous storms, NASA compiled data from several satellites into a supercomputer simulation of this past year's hurricane season. Specifically, the featured video shows how smoke (white), sea salt ...
Our Story in One Minute
Do you have a minute -- to see the entire backstory of human existence? This thrilling video culls together multiple teasing video snippets in an attempt to succinctly summarize our history. And sets it to music. Briefly depicted, from start to ...
Crossing Horizons
Follow this vertical panoramic view from horizon to horizon and your gaze will sweep through the zenith of a dark night sky over Pic du Midi mountaintop observatory. To make the journey above a sea of clouds, 19 single exposures were taken near ...
Apollo 17 at Shorty Crater
In December of 1972, Apollo 17 astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt spent about 75 hours on the Moon in the Taurus-Littrow valley, while colleague Ronald Evans orbited overhead. This sharp image was taken by Cernan as he and Schmitt ...
Alnitak, Alnilam, Mintaka
Alnitak, Alnilam, and Mintaka, are the bright bluish stars from east to west (lower right to upper left) along the diagonal in this cosmic vista. Otherwise known as the Belt of Orion, these three blue supergiant stars are hotter and much more ...
'Oumuamua: Interstellar Asteroid
Nothing like it has ever been seen before. The unusual space rock 'Oumuamua is so intriguing mainly because it is the first asteroid ever detected from outside our Solar System -- although likely many more are to follow given modern ...
Big Dipper over Pyramid Mountain
When did you first learn to identify this group of stars? Although they are familiar to many people around the world, different cultures have associated this asterism with different icons and folklore. Known in the USA as the Big Dipper, the ...
Curiosity Rover Takes Selfie on Mars
Yes, but have you ever taken a selfie on Mars? The Curiosity rover on Mars has. This selfie was compiled from many smaller images -- which is why the mechanical arm holding the camera is not visible. (Although its shadow is!) Taken in ...
