Brilliant Encounter
Venus and Jupiter, the brightest objects in the night sky other than the Moon, are staging a spectacular encounter in…
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Blue Snowball
A Hubble Space Telescope image shows NGC 7662, the Blue Snowball Nebula, which is the final act of a dying…
Stormy Skies
A giant storm swirls all the way around Saturn in this 2010 view from the Cassini spacecraft. Such storms have…
Morning Array
The crescent Moon will slip past several bright stars and planets in the early morning hours on October 8 and…
Icy Realm
Billions of icy bodies inhabit the Kuiper Belt, a wide band beyond the orbit of Neptune, the solar system’s most…
The First
This artist’s concept depicts a giant planet orbiting the star 51 Pegasi, in the constellation Pegasus. The planet was the…
First Encounter
The New Horizons spacecraft is closing in on Pluto, with its closest approach scheduled for July 14, as depicted in…
Dark Planet
Mercury, the Sun’s innermost planet, is one of the darkest major bodies in the solar system. It reflects less than…
Best Shot
The New Horizons spacecraft snapped this view of Pluto (bottom) and its largest moon, Charon (top) from a range of…
The Homunculus
The near-death of a massive star created this vast peanut-shaped cloud of gas and dust, known as the Homunculus Nebula.…