An intense storm and lake-effect snow walloped upstate New York - especially rural areas in western New York - in late February 2020. On the shores of Lake Erie, the storm created a dramatic display of thick, windblown ice on homes and buildings.

These hot, dust-laden winds are known as “la calima” and happen most often in winter. They can blow at up to 75 mph (120 kph). The dust kicked up last weekend in Africa drifted over the Canary Islands, shutting down airports and stranding travelers.

The moon will cover Mars 5 times in 2020, but the occultation on February 18, 2020, was the only one accessible to viewers in much of North and Central America. Photos from the EarthSky Community here.

The European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope is in northern Chile. Astronomers used it to capture the unprecedented dimming of Betelgeuse, a red supergiant star in the constellation of Orion. The new images show how the apparent shape of this star is changing.

Antarctica's Pine Island Glacier - known as ‘PIG’ for short - has just spawned a huge iceberg. At over 115 square miles (300 square km), this huge berg quickly broke into many ‘PIGlet’ pieces

ESA's sun-exploring Solar Orbiter will be the first spacecraft ever to fly over the sun's poles. It'll study the origin of the solar wind, which has the potential to affect earthly technologies.

Astronaut Christina Koch has returned to Earth after a record-breaking stay of 328 days aboard the International Space Station. She now holds the record for the longest single spaceflight by a woman.

Stunning new Spitzer Space Telescope image of the Tarantula Nebula in the nearby Large Magellanic Cloud dwarf galaxy. Spitzer ended its 16-year mission on January 30.

Diamorpha on a Georgia mountaintop

The Venus-Neptune in conjunction on January 27 was the closest planetary conjunction of 2020. But - because Neptune is so faint - it wasn't easy to capture. Plus a star near Venus confused people!