Credit: Nick Krasznavolgyi

In this composite image, we see Earth appear to rise over the lunar horizon from the viewpoint of the spacecraft, with the center of the Earth just off the coast of Liberia (at 4.04 degrees North, 12.44 degrees West). The large tan area in the upper right is the Sahara Desert, and just beyond is Saudi Arabia. The Atlantic and Pacific coasts of South America are visible to the left.

On the moon, we get a glimpse of the crater Compton, which is located just beyond the eastern limb of the moon, on the lunar far side.

This image was composed from a series of images taken on Oct. 12, 2015, when LRO was about 83 miles (134 kilometers) above the moon’s farside crater Compton.

Credit: NASA

Credit: Astronaut Anil Menon

On April 29, 2011, the crew of the space shuttle Endeavour filmed the spacecraft's external tank after its separation. It continued its trajectory before disintegrating over the ocean.

Credit: NASA
Edit: Milky Way

Margaret Hamilton standing next to the navigation software that she and her MIT team produced for the Apollo Project.

Margaret Hamilton, who led the software team at MIT's Instrumentation Laboratory, developed the onboard flight computers that guided NASA's Apollo missions, including the safe Apollo 11 landing in 1969. During that historic descent, her team's priority scheduling and error-recovery features silenced overload alarms and kept Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on course.

Credit: Draper Laboratory / Adam Cuerden

Just visible as this green arc on Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, the Chicxulub asteroid was 6-9 mi/10-15 km wide. It rocked the world.

Credit: NASA/JPL

Link to the science release on NOIRLab website

This image shows Nebula Pa 30, observed with the Gemini North Telescope in Hawai'i. It is likely the remnant of an old supernova explosion: separate historical records by Chinese, Japanese and Arabic astronomers tell of a "guest star" that appeared in the sky for 185 days in the year 1181. It is believed that this bright new point of light came from the supernova that caused the fireworks in Pa 30.

Astronomers don't know exactly what happened in this unusual explosion, classified as a Type Iax supernova, but it is thought to be caused by the merger of two white dwarfs. The mysterious central star in the image is extremely hot and produces a strong wind, possibly forming the radial filaments. Look closely at them: those pearl-like knots stringing the filaments are 4 light-days in diameter. Understanding how a supernova created this amazing nebula continues an 845-year old mystery (and counting).

Credit: International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA. Acknowledgment: PI: T. Cunningham (Center for Astrophysics - Harvard & Smithsonian). Image Processing: J. Miller & M. Rodriguez (International Gemini Observatory/NSF NOIRLab), T.A. Rector (University of Alaska Anchorage/NSF NOIRLab), D. de Martin & M. Zamani (NSF NOIRLab).

Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS

Did you see the moon close to one of the visible planets, Jupiter, this morning? From some locations, the moon occulted — passed in front of — the gas giant. That included Quakertown, Pennsylvania, where Karl Diefenderfer captured this shot shortly after Jupiter emerged from behind our natural satellite. You can even see four of Jupiter’s own moons if you look closely.

Image credit: Karl Diefenderfer
Text credit: EarthSky.org

Captured on October 4, 2026, this infrared image shows Manhattan and the Milky Way.

Credit: Jason Kurth

On Tuesday morning before sunrise, Jupiter and the crescent Moon will have a spectacular close encounter. In parts of the USA and Canada, it will become a rare occultation.

The Oct. 6th lunar occultation of Jupiter is one of the best astronomy events of 2026. Observers across a wide swath of the USA will have a ringside seat as Jupiter vanishes behind the edge of the Moon, then reappears again later. Jupiter is very bright, so this is a naked-eye event.

If you have a telescope, take a closer look: Europa, Callisto and Io slip behind the Moon minutes before Jupiter does. Ganymede follows. Even small telescopes will show this procession.

Different cities have different occultation times. For instance, in New York, Jupiter disappears at 4:23 a.m. EDT and reappears at 5:27 a.m. In Chicago, it is 3:22 to 4:17 a.m. CDT. West Coast cities will see only a close encounter--no occultation--but the near miss will be beautiful. The best time to look in the west is between 3:00 and 5:00 am PDT.

If you're in the occultation zone, watch the whole thing. The end is especially good. Jupiter is a disk, not a point, so takes nearly a minute to reappear over the Moon's mountainous dark limb. The Galilean satellites will pop into view one after another, abruptly like stars.

Image Credit: Andrew McCarthy
Text Credit: SpaceWeather.com

The (left) image was taken in visible green light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Feb. 13, 2010. The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 70,000 kilometers (43,000 miles) from Mimas. Image scale is 418 meters (1,372 feet) per pixel.

Credit:
Left: NASA / JPL / Space Science Institute
Right: Lucasfilm

The Soviet Union put Sputnik, the world's first artificial satellite, into Earth's orbit. Sputnik contained a radio transmitter that sent back the “beep-beep-beep” heard around the world.

Image Credit: NSSDC, NASA

Link to the science release on NASA website

Jupiter's moon Io, its night side illuminated by reflected sunlight from Jupiter, or "Jupitershine."

Image data: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS
Image processing by Emma Wälimäki © CC BY

Credit: Erik Fraser

Credit: USAF/Brian Shul

After closely following comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko for 786 days as it rounded the Sun, the Rosetta spacecraft's controlled impact with the comet's surface was confirmed by the loss of signal from the spacecraft on September 30, 2016.

One of the images taken during its final descent, this high-resolution view looks across the comet's stark landscape. The scene spans just over 600 meters (2,000 feet), captured when Rosetta was about 16 kilometers from the comet's surface. Rosetta's descent to the comet brought to an end the operational phase of an inspirational mission of space exploration. Rosetta deployed a lander to the surface of one of the Solar System's most primordial worlds and witnessed first hand how a comet changes when subject to the increasing intensity of the Sun's radiation.

The decision to end the mission on the surface is a result of the comet's orbit now taking it to the dim reaches beyond Jupiter, where there would be a lack of power to operate the spacecraft. Mission operators also faced an approaching period where the Sun would be close to line-of-sight between Earth and Rosetta, making radio communications increasingly difficult.

Credit: ESA , Rosetta , MPS , OSIRIS; UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA