What do you think this is? Here’s a clue: it’s bigger than a bread box. Much bigger. The answer is that pictured NGC 4753 is a twisted disk galaxy, where […]

Is this what will become of our Sun? Quite possibly. The first hint of our Sun’s future was discovered inadvertently in 1764. At that time, Charles Messier was compiling a […]

What are these bubbles frozen into Lake Baikal? Methane. Lake Baikal, a UNESCOWorld Heritage Site in Russia, is the world’s largest (by volume), oldest, and deepest lake, containing over 20% […]

Orion seems to come up sideways, climbing over a distant mountain range in this deep skyscape. The wintry scene was captured from southern Poland on the northern hemisphere’s long solstice […]

No sudden, sharp boundary marks the passage of day into night in this gorgeous view of ocean and clouds over our fair planet Earth. Instead, the shadow line or terminator […]

Viewed face-on, grand spiral galaxy NGC 5643 has a festive appearance in this colorful cosmic portrait. Some 55 million light-years distant, the galaxy extends for over 100,000 light-years, seen within […]

The stars are not alone. In the disk of our Milky Way Galaxy, about 10 percent of visible matter is in the form of gas called the interstellar medium (ISM). […]

A year in sunsets, from April 2023 to March 2024, track along the western horizon in these stacked panoramic views. The well-planed sequence is constructed of images recorded near the […]

On the night of December 15, the Full Moon was bright. Known to some as the Cold Moon or the Long Night Moon, it was the closest Full Moon to […]

After the Crab Nebula, this giant star cluster is the second entry in 18th century astronomer Charles Messier’s famous list of things that are not comets. M2 is one of […]