The Coathanger
This image shows the Coathanger — a pattern of 10 stars that really does resemble a coat hanger. It’s in…
Deep Heating
Saturn, shown here in a view from the Cassini spacecraft, radiates more heat into space than it receives from the…
Beautiful Infants
Streamers of gas and dust surround the embryonic star system FS Tauri in this image from James Webb Space Telescope.…
Solar Handle
What looks like a wide “handle” at the upper right edge of the Sun’s disk is actually a massive eruption…
Busy Heart
Many millions of stars pack this view of the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. The stars form vast clouds,…
Maw of a Black Hole
Streamers of hot gas swirl into the maw of a black hole in this artist’s concept of GRO J1655-40, a…
Star Cocoon
Like a cosmic butterfly, a cluster of young stars is just emerging from its cocoon — a cloud of gas…
Mesmerizing Moons
Saturn’s moons Iapetus (left), Mimas, and Dione show fascinating histories. One hemisphere of Iapetus is almost pure white, while the…
Tie-Dyed Sky
A multi-colored aurora shimmers above Alaska in this 2017 image. Anaurora flares to life when charged particles from the Sun…
Surveying the Moon
The first American spacecraft to soft-land on the Moon snapped this image of its own shadow on June 13, 1966,…