Chemicals Glow as a Meteor Disintegrates

2023-07-24 Michael Kleinburger

Meteors can be colorful. While the human eye usually cannot discern many colors, cameras often can. Pictured here is a fireball, a disintegrating meteor that was not only one of the brightest the photographer has ever seen, but colorful. The ...

The Antikythera Mechanism

2023-07-23

It does what? No one knew that 2,000 years ago, the technology existed to build such a device. The Antikythera mechanism, pictured, is now widely regarded as the first computer. Found at the bottom of the sea aboard a decaying Greek ship, its ...

Apollo 11: Armstrong's Lunar Selfie

2023-07-22

A photograph of Buzz Aldrin standing on the Moon taken by Neil Armstrong, was digitally reversed to create this lunar selfie. Captured in July 1969 following the Apollo 11 moon landing, Armstrong's original photograph recorded not only the ...

Galactic Cirrus: Mandel Wilson 9

2023-07-21 Gabriel Rodrigues Santos

The combined light of stars along the Milky Way are reflected by these cosmic dust clouds that soar 300 light-years or so above the plane of our galaxy. Known to some as integrated flux nebulae and commonly found at high galactic latitudes, the ...

M64: The Black Eye Galaxy Close Up

2023-07-20

This magnificent spiral galaxy is Messier 64, often called the Black Eye Galaxy or the Sleeping Beauty Galaxy for its dark-lidded appearance in telescopic views. The spiral's central region, about 7,400 light-years across, is pictured in ...

Chandrayaan-3 Launches to the Moon

2023-07-19 Sruthi Suresh (Space Group)

Birds don't fly this high. Airplanes don't go this fast. The Statue of Liberty weighs less. No species other than human can even comprehend what is going on, nor could any human just a millennium ago. The launch of a rocket bound for ...

Milky Way above La Palma Observatory

2023-07-18 Marcin Rosadziński

What's happening in the night sky? To help find out, telescopes all over the globe will be pointing into deep space. Investigations will include trying to understand the early universe, finding and tracking Earth-menacing asteroids, ...

Shells and Arcs around Star CW Leonis

2023-07-17

What's happening around this star? No one is sure. CW Leonis is the closest carbon star, a star that appears orange because of atmospheric carbon dispersed from interior nuclear fusion. But CW Leonis also appears engulfed in a gaseous ...

Meteor and Milky Way over the Alps

2023-07-16 Nicholas Roemmelt (Venture Photography)

Now this was a view with a thrill. From Mount Tschirgant in the Alps, you can see not only nearby towns and distant Tyrolean peaks, but also, weather permitting, stars, nebulas, and the band of the Milky Way Galaxy. What made the arduous climb ...

Webb's First Deep Field

2023-07-15

This stunning infrared image was released one year ago as the James Webb Space Telescope began its exploration of the cosmos. The view of the early Universe toward the southern constellation Volans was achieved in 12.5 hours of exposure with ...