Астрономическая картинка дня (APOD)

NanoSail D2
2.01.2026 | Астрономическая картинка дня

In 2011, on January 20, NASA's NanoSail-D2 unfurled a very thin and very reflective 10 square meter sail becoming the first solar sail spacecraft in low Earth orbit. Often considered the stuff...

Auroral Corona
1.01.2026 | Астрономическая картинка дня

Cycle 25 solar maximum made 2025 a great year for aurora borealis (or aurora australis) on planet Earth. And the high level of solar activity should extend into 2026. So, while you're celebrating the arrival of the new year, check out this spectacular auroral display that erupted in starry night skies over Kirkjufell, Iceland.

APOD: 2025 December 31 Б HH 222: The Waterfall Nebula
31.12.2025 | Астрономическая картинка дня

What created the Waterfall Nebula? The origin is still being researched. The structure, officially designated Herbig-Haro 222, appears in the region of NGC 1999 in the Great Orion Molecular Cloud complex. The elongated gaseous stream stretches about ten light years but appears similar to a long waterfall on Earth.

APOD: 2025 December 30 Б An Artificial Comet
30.12.2025 | Астрономическая картинка дня

Yes, but can your comet tail do this? No, and what you are seeing is not the tail of a comet. The picture features a cleverly overlayed time-lapse sequence of a group of satellites orbiting Earth together in June.

APOD: 2025 December 29 Б M1: The Crab Nebula
29.12.2025 | Астрономическая картинка дня

This is the mess that is left when a star explodes. The Crab Nebula, the result of a supernova seen in 1054 AD, is filled with mysterious filaments. The filaments are not only tremendously...

APOD: 2025 December 28 Б NGC 1898: Globular Cluster in the Large Magellanic Cloud
28.12.2025 | Астрономическая картинка дня

Jewels don't shine this bright -- only stars do. And almost every spot in this jewel-box of an image from the Hubble Space Telescope is a star. Now, some stars are more red than our Sun, and some more blue -- but all of them are much farther away.

Apollo 17 s Moonship
27.12.2025 | Астрономическая картинка дня

Awkward and angular looking, Apollo 17's lunar module Challenger was designed for flight in the near vacuum of space. Digitally enhanced and reprocessed, this picture taken from Apollo 17's command module America shows Challenger's ascent stage in lunar orbit.

3I/ATLAS Flyby
26.12.2025 | Астрономическая картинка дня

Attention grabbing interstellar visitor 3I/ATLAS made its not-so-close flyby of our fair planet on December 19 at a distance of 1.8 astronomical units. That's about 900 light-seconds. This deep exposure captures the comet...

Unicorn, Fox Fur and Christmas Tree
25.12.2025 | Астрономическая картинка дня

A star forming region cataloged as NGC 2264, this beautiful but complex arrangement of interstellar gas and dust is about 2,700 light-years distant in the faint but fanciful constellation Monoceros, the Unicorn. Seen...

APOD: 2025 December 24 Б Mystery: Little Red Dots in the Early Universe
24.12.2025 | Астрономическая картинка дня

What are these little red dots (LRDs)? Nobody knows. Discovered only last year, hundreds of LRDs have now been found by the James Webb Space Telescope in the early universe. Although extremely faint, LRDs are now frequently identified in deep observations made for other purposes.