It seemed like night, but part of the sky glowed purple. It was the now famous night of May 10, 2024, when people over much of the world reported beautiful […]

Graceful star trail arcs reflect planet Earth’s daily rotation in this colorful night skyscape. To create the timelapse composite, on May 12 consecutive exposures were recorded with a camera fixed […]

This well-composed composite panoramic view looks due south from Banks Peninsula near Christchurch on New Zealand’s South Island. The base of a tower-like rocky sea stack is awash in the […]

A familiar sight from Georgia, USA, the Moon sets near the western horizon in this rural night skyscape. Captured on May 10 before local midnight, the image overexposes the Moon’s […]

What did the monster active region that created the recent auroras look like when at the Sun’s edge? There, AR 3664 better showed its 3D structure. Pictured, a large multi-pronged […]

For the mostly harmless denizens of planet Earth, the brighter stars of open cluster NGC 2169 seem to form a cosmic 37. Did you expect 42? From our perspective, the […]

It was larger than the Earth. It was so big you could actually see it on the Sun’s surface without magnification. It contained powerful and tangled magnetic fields as well […]

Northern lights don’t usually reach this far south. Magnetic chaos in the Sun’s huge Active Region 3664, however, produced a surface explosion that sent a burst of electrons, protons, and […]

Right now, one of the largest sunspot groups in recent history is crossing the Sun. Active Region 3664 is not only big — it’s violent, throwing off clouds of particles […]

Relax and watch two black holes merge. Inspired by the first direct detection of gravitational waves in 2015, this simulation plays in slow motion but would take about one third […]