3D Mercury Transit

2016-05-20 Stefan Seip

On May 9, innermost planet Mercury crossed IN FRONT of the Sun. Though pictures project the event in only two dimensions, a remarkable three dimensional perspective on the transit is possible by free viewing this stereo pair. The images were made ...

The Surface of Europa

2016-05-19

An enhanced-color view, this image covers a 350 by 750 kilometer swath across the surface of Jupiter's tantalizing moon Europa. The close-up combines high-resolution image data with lower resolution color data from observations made in 1998 by ...

Halo from Atacama

2016-05-18 Yuri Beletsky

Influenced by the strong Pacific El Nino, cloudy skies have more often come to Chile's high Atacama Desert this season, despite its reputation as an astronomer's paradise. Located in one of the driest, darkest places on planet Earth, domes of the ...

The Orion Nebula in Visible and Infrared

2016-05-17 NASA

The Great Nebula in Orion is a colorful place. Visible to the unaided eye, it appears as a small fuzzy patch in the constellation of Orion. Long exposure, multi-wavelength images like this, however, show the Orion Nebula to be a busy ...

Clouds of the Carina Nebula

2016-05-16 John Ebersole

What forms lurk in the mists of the Carina Nebula? The dark ominous figures are actually molecular clouds, knots of molecular gas and dust so thick they have become opaque. In comparison, however, these clouds are typically much less dense than ...

Milky Way Over Quiver Tree Forest

2016-05-15 Florian Breuer

In front of a famous background of stars and galaxies lies some of Earth's more unusual trees. Known as quiver trees, they are actually succulent aloe plants that can grow to tree-like proportions. The quiver tree name is derived from the ...

Falcon 9 and Milky Way

2016-05-14 Derek Demeter

On May 6, the after midnight launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lit up dark skies over Merritt Island, planet Earth. Its second stage bound for Earth orbit, the rocket's arc seems to be on course for the center of the Milky Way in this pleasing ...

ISS and Mercury Too

2016-05-13 Thierry Legault

Transits of Mercury are relatively rare. Monday's leisurely 7.5 hour long event was only the 3rd of 14 Mercury transits in the 21st century. If you're willing to travel, transits of the International Space Station can be more frequent though, and ...

A Transit of Mercury

2016-05-12 Howard Brown-Greaves

On May 9, the diminutive disk of Mercury spent about seven and a half hours crossing in front of the Sun as viewed from the general vicinity of Earth. It was the third of 14 transits of the Solar System's innermost planet in the 21st century. ...

A Mercury Transit Music Video from SDO

2016-05-11

What's that small black dot moving across the Sun? Mercury. Possibly the clearest view of Mercury crossing in front of the Sun earlier this week was from Earth orbit. The Solar Dynamics Observatory obtained an uninterrupted vista recording it not ...