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…
Greenwich Observatory
The Royal Greenwich Observatory overlooks the Thames Valley in this painting from ca. 1696. The observatory was established by decree…
Barnard’s Planets
An artist’s concept depicts a possible view from one of the four recently discovered planets orbiting Barnard’s Star, one of…
Messier 81
Messier 81 is a ‘grand design’ spiral galaxy, indicating that it has a well-defined spherical core encircled by almost perfect…
Saturn’s Divided Rings
Saturn’s rings encircle the giant planet in this view from the Cassini spacecraft. A dark gap in the ring system…
Rubin Observatory
Stars trail above the Vera Rubin Observatory, in the Andes Mountains of Chile. The observatory, which will repeatedly map the…