IC 405 & 410 Mosaic - Flame And Tadpole Nebulas

International Space Station (ISS) passing across the field of view of the Moon, as seen from a telescope.

Craters and Shadows at the Lunar Terminator

Credits: Talha Zia

Flight Commander John Young reviewing checklists aboard Space Shuttle Columbia, STS-1

✨The Beauty of Jupiter ✨

LBN 420 ("Galileo's Finger")

Scientists believe they've found evidence of what was once an ocean on Mars. Check out the shoreline on mars!

Let’s fly into Jupiter! Does this ball of gas have a surface? Let’s see!

Astronomy Picture of the Day

2025 January 28

Comet G3 ATLAS over Uruguay

A foreground grass field is shown below a distant field of stars. On the grass field are some trees. Dwarfing the trees, in the sky, is a comet with a long tail.

Image Credit & Copyright: Mauricio Salazar

Explanation: Comets can be huge. When far from the Sun, a comet's size usually refers to its hard nucleus of ice and rock, which typically spans a few kilometers -- smaller than even a small moon. When nearing the Sun, however, this nucleus can eject dust and gas and leave a thin tail that can spread to an enormous length -- even greater than the distance between the Earth and the Sun. Pictured, C/2024 G3 (ATLAS) sports a tail of sunlight-reflecting dust and glowing gas that spans several times the apparent size of a full moon, appearing even larger on long duration camera images than to the unaided eye. The featured image shows impressive Comet ATLAS over trees and a grass field in Sierras de Mahoma, San Jose, Uruguay about a week ago. After being prominent in the sunset skies of Earth's southern hemisphere, Comet G3 ATLAS is now fading as it moves away from the Sun, making its impressive tails increasingly hard to see.

Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)

NASA Official: Amber Straughn

A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,

NASA Science Activation

& Michigan Tech. U.