Twilight Passage
The planets Venus and Jupiter will cross paths the next few mornings, staging a dazzlingly close encounter. Venus is the…
Urania, Muse of Astronomy
This 18th-century painting depicts Urania, the muse of astronomy. She is holding a globe, and a halo of stars surrounds…
Great Red Spot
The Great Red Spot twirls through the atmosphere of Jupiter in this color-enhanced image from the Juno spacecraft. The spot,…
Mariner 4 Sees Mars
This is the clearest image of Mars snapped by the first successful mission, Mariner 4, which flew past the Red…
Lupus
This image shows the constellation Lupus, the wolf, surrounded by its neighbors. Most of the bright stars in Lupus are…
Lightning
A lightning bolt blasts Canyonlands National Park during a summer thunderstorm. A recent study has strengthened the case that lightning…
Tarantula Nebula
A giant tarantula creeps through a nearby galaxy. It’s the galaxy’s brightest feature and the most impressive stellar nursery in…
Double Blast
Expanding bubbles of hot gas are all that remains of a star that appears to have exploded twice, according to…
Messier 5
The giant star cluster Messier 5 is at least 12 billion years old, making it one of the oldest structures…
Cygnus X-3
A bright disk of gas encircles a black hole in this illustration of the star system Cygnus X-3. The gas…