Why does Saturn appear so big? It doesn’t — what is pictured are foreground clouds on Earth crossing in front of the Moon. The Moon shows a slight crescent phase […]

You couldn’t really be caught in this blizzard while standing by a cliff on Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Orbiting the comet — frequently abbreviated as 67P or CG — in June of 2016, […]

What phase of the Moon is 3.14 radians from the Sun? The Full Moon, of course. Even though the Moon might look full for several days, the Moon is truly […]

Astronomers believe they have now found the most powerful example of a black hole outburst yet seen in our Universe. The composite, false-color featured image is of a cluster of […]

What do the following things have in common: a cone, the fur of a fox, and a Christmas tree? Answer: they all occur in the constellation of the unicorn (Monoceros). […]

What is the band of light connecting the ground to the Milky Way? Zodiacal light — a stream of dust that orbits the Sun in the inner Solar System. It […]

Some stars explode in slow motion. Rare, massive Wolf-Rayet stars are so tumultuous and hot that they are slowly disintegrating right before our telescopes. Glowing gas globs each typically over […]

A surreal night skyscape, this panorama stitched from 12 photos looks to the west at an evening winter sky over Pic du Midi Observatory, Pyrenees Mountains, Planet Earth. Telescope domes […]

The Mars Rover named Curiosity recorded high-resolution, 360 degree views of its location on Mars late last year. The panoramic scene was stitched from over 1,000 images from Curiosity’s Mast […]

This colorful skyscape spans about four full moons across nebula rich starfields along the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy in the royal northern constellation Cepheus. Near the edge of […]