Photo of the Day This is a map of the universe. The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) at Kitt Peak National Observatory, Arizona, has finished its five-year survey. It observed more than 47 million galaxies and quasars and created a 3D map centered on the Earth. Today's featured image shows a thin slice of [...]
Photo of the Day Why are there three arches across the sky instead of two? Last month, after being dropped off by a helicopter at a high mountain peak in the Alps near the Swiss Italian border, an adventurous astrophotographer expected two arches of our Milky Way galaxy to be visible during the night. [...]
Photo of the Day The best way to see comet R3 PanSTARRS’s long tail is with a camera. This week, the recently brightened comet appears in northern skies to the east just before dawn, but is only barely visible to the unaided eye. The many-degree ion tail captured on long duration camera exposures is [...]
Photo of the Day Messier 82 is a starburst galaxy with a superwind. In fact, through supernova explosions and powerful winds from massive stars, the burst of star formation in M82 is driving a prodigious outflow. Evidence for the superwind from the galaxy's central regions is clear in the sharp telescopic portrait. The composite [...]
Photo of the Day Why does Comet R3 (PanSTARRS) have a wispy tail? The newest bright member of the inner Solar System, Comet C/2025 R3 (PanSTARRS) is already extending an impressive stream of glowing gas. This tail starts from an unseen central nucleus of dirty ice that is likely a few kilometers across. The [...]
Photo of the Day Do you see the horse's head? What you are seeing is not the famous Horsehead nebula toward Orion, but rather a fainter nebula that only takes on a familiar form with deeper imaging. The main part of the here-imaged molecular cloud complex is reflection nebula IC 4592. Reflection nebulas are [...]
Photo of the Day The party is still going on in spiral galaxy NGC 3310. Roughly 100 million years ago, NGC 3310 likely collided with a smaller galaxy causing the large spiral galaxy to light up with a tremendous burst of star formation. The changing gravity during the collision created density waves that compressed [...]
Photo of the Day How can we see what is invisible? Black holes are not easy to see in the dark cosmic night, but astronomers can find them by analyzing their gravitational effects on matter, light and spacetime. The featured image shows an illustration that combines a simulation of a black hole binary system [...]
Photo of the Day We are one small step closer to returning to the Moon. A new chapter in human exploration began yesterday when NASA's Artemis II launched aboard the Space Launch System (SLS) from Kennedy Space Center. Carrying four astronauts, the Orion spacecraft's planned lunar flyby will be the first in over half [...]
Photo of the Day What unexpected things do you see when you look up at the night sky? Today’s image resembles an abstract painting, with large swaths of color strewn across a cosmic canvas seemingly without design. Despite the image's abstract nature, the human mind finds patterns, identifying a large claw reaching up towards [...]
