Astronomy Picture of the Day

2017-09-13 George Varouhakis

Nebulas are perhaps as famous for being identified with familiar shapes as perhaps cats are for getting into trouble. Still, no known cat could have created the vast Cat's Paw Nebula visible in Scorpius. At 5,500 light years distant, Cat's Paw ...

2017-09-12 KAISTHuboLab Music: Flowing Air by Mattia Vlad Morleo

How would you feel if the Sun disappeared? Many eclipse watchers across the USA surprised themselves with the awe that they felt and the exclamations that they made as the Sun momentarily disappeared behind the Moon. Perhaps expecting just a ...

2017-09-11 Cassini Imaging TeamISSJPLESANASAS. Van Vuuren Music: Adagio for Strings (NY Philharmonic)

What would it look like to approach Saturn in a spaceship? One doesn't have to just imagine -- the Cassini spacecraft did just this in 2004, recording thousands of images along the way, and hundreds of thousands more since entering orbit. Some of ...

2017-09-10

Why does a hurricane have an eye at its center? No one is yet sure. What happens in and around a hurricane's eye is well documented, though. Warm air rises around the eye's edges, cools, swirls, and spreads out over the large storm, sinking ...

2017-09-09 Chris Cook

Very recognizable stars of the northern sky are a backdrop for calm waters in this moonlit sea and skyscape off Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Taken on September 7, the photo also records a colorful display of northern lights or aurora borealis ...

2017-09-08 Rogelio Bernal Andreo

There were no crowds on the beach at Phillips Lake, Oregon on August 21. But a few had come there to stand, for a moment, in the dark shadow of the Moon. From the beach, this unscripted mosaic photo records their much anticipated solar eclipse. ...

2017-09-07 Yujing Qin

In clear Madras, Oregon skies, this colorful eclipse composite captured the elusive chromospheric or flash spectrum of the Sun. Only three exposures, made on August 21 with telephoto lens and diffraction grating, are aligned in the frame. ...

2017-09-06 AndrewStruder

What should you do if your rock climbing picture is photobombed by a total eclipse of the Sun? Rejoice -- because your planning paid off. After months of considering different venues, and a week of scouting different locations in Oregon's Smith ...

2017-09-05

What are those spots on Jupiter? Largest and furthest, just right of center, is the Great Red Spot -- a huge storm system that has been raging on Jupiter possibly since Giovanni Cassini's likely notation of it 352 years ago. It is not yet known ...

2017-09-04

What do Saturn's rings look like from Saturn? Images from the robotic spacecraft Cassini are providing humanity with this unprecedented vantage point as it nears the completion of its mission. Previous to Cassini's Grand Finale orbits, all images ...