Thunder Moon over Pisa

2017-07-18 Marco Meniero

What's wrong with this picture? If you figure it out, you may then realize where the image was taken. The oddity lies actually in one of the buildings -- it leans. The Leaning Tower of Pisa has been an iconic legend since shortly after its ...

Moon Shadow versus Sun Reflection

2017-07-17

What are those lights and shadows crossing the Earth? As the featured five-second time-lapse video progresses, a full day on planet Earth is depicted as seen from Japan's Himawari-8 satellite in geostationary orbit high above the Pacific Ocean. ...

Lightning Eclipse from the Planet of...

2017-07-16 Chris KotsiopoulosGreekSky

Thunderstorms almost spoiled this view of the spectacular 2011 June 15 total lunar eclipse. Instead, storm clouds parted for 10 minutes during the total eclipse phase and lightning bolts contributed to the dramatic sky. Captured with a 30-second ...

Close-up of The Great Red Spot

2017-07-15

On July 11, the Juno spacecraft once again swung near to Jupiter's turbulent cloud tops in its looping 53 day orbit around the Solar System's ruling gas giant. About 11 minutes after perijove 7, its closest approach on this orbit, it passed ...

NGC 4449: Close-up of a Small Galaxy

2017-07-14 Hubble Legacy Archive

(xxxedit and linkxxx) Grand spiral galaxies often seem to get all the glory. Their young, blue star clusters and pink star forming regions along sweeping spiral arms are guaranteed to attract attention. But small irregular galaxies form stars ...

Full Moon and Boston Light

2017-07-13 Babak Tafreshi

This well-planned telephoto timelapse captures July's Full Moon rise across outer Boston Harbor, Massachusetts, planet Earth. In the foreground, the historic terrestrial beacon is known as Boston Light. July's Full Moon is known to some as a ...

Messier 63: The Sunflower Galaxy

2017-07-12 Hubble Legacy Archive

A bright spiral galaxy of the northern sky, Messier 63 is about 25 million light-years distant in the loyal constellation Canes Venatici. Also cataloged as NGC 5055, the majestic island universe is nearly 100,000 light-years across. That's about ...

Star Cluster Omega Centauri in HDR

2017-07-11 Mike O'Day

Behold the largest ball of stars in our galaxy. Omega Centauri is packed with about 10 million stars, many older than our Sun and packed within a volume of only about 150 light-years in diameter. The star cluster is the largest and brightest of ...

Spiral Galaxy NGC 1512: The Nuclear Ring

2017-07-10

What's happening around the center of this spiral galaxy? Seen in total, NGC 1512 appears to be a barred spiral galaxy -- a type of spiral that has a straight bar of stars across its center. This bar crosses an outer ring, though, a ring not ...

Earth at Night

2017-07-09

Can you find your favorite country or city? Surprisingly, on this world-wide nightscape, city lights make this task quite possible. Human-made lights highlight particularly developed or populated areas of the Earth's surface, including the ...