What are those unusual streaks? Some images of planet Earth show clear bright streaks that follow the paths of ships. Known as ship tracks, these low and narrow bands are […]

Do dragons fight on the altar of the sky? Although it might appear that way, these dragons are illusions made of thin gas and dust. The emission nebula NGC 6188, […]

Will our Milky Way Galaxy collide one day with its larger neighbor, the Andromeda Galaxy? Most likely, yes. Careful plotting of slight displacements of M31’s stars relative to background galaxies […]

What’s happening at the center of active galaxy 3C 75? The two bright sources at the center of this composite x-ray (blue)/ radio (pink) image are co-orbiting supermassive black holes […]

On May 31 tens of parallel meteor streaks were recorded in this 8 degree wide field of view of planet Earth’s limb from space. The image is one of a […]

With this creative astro-collaboration you can follow the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy as it bridges northern and southern hemisphere skies. To construct the expansive composite nightscape, skies over […]

On May 27 Venus rose as the morning star, near the waning crescent Moon in a predawn sky already full of planets. It was close on the sky to the […]

It wasn’t the storm of the century — but it was a night to remember. Last night was the peak of the Tau Herculids meteor shower, a usually modest dribble […]

The launch of a rocket at sunrise can result in unusual but intriguing images that feature both the rocket and the Sun. Such was the case last month when a […]

What’s happening behind that island? Things both expected and unexpected. Expected, perhaps, the pictured rays of light — called crepuscular rays — originate from the Sun. Unexpected, though, the Sun […]