Sign Up for Our Amazing Newsletter!
A daily update by email. Science news, great photos, sky alerts.
Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.
Fire cloud over California, from space
A pyrocumulus cloud - sometimes called a fire cloud - forms when intense heat from wildfires causes air to rise. Californians have been seeing these towering clouds this July and August.
August 10, 2018
Sky-wide rays
Familiar crepuscular rays and less well known anticrepuscular rays are really one and the same.
August 9, 2018
Evening’s 2 arcs
Draw a line between the 4 bright planets up after sunset now, and you'll see they make an arc across the sky. In this photo, Michael Seeley in Florida contrasted the arc of planets with that of the Milky Way.
August 8, 2018
Speck from an asteroid
Viewed under a microscope, it resembles a human hair. But this is actually an extremely precious speck of dust – a tiny sample from the Itokawa asteroid, brought back to Earth by Japan’s Hayabusa mission.
August 7, 2018
Reaching to the stars
Photographer Miska Saarikko titled this image Reaching to the Stars.
July 31, 2018
Every point is a galaxy
At first glance, it's just a square filled with tiny grains of static. But incredible as it is to imagine, every single point of light in this image is actually a distant galaxy, as observed by ESA’s Herschel Space Observatory.
July 29, 2018
Full moon eclipse and Mars
Mars was brighter in late July than it had been since 2003. Then - on July 27 - that very bright Mars appeared near the moon as it was undergoing a total eclipse.
July 28, 2018
Night-shining clouds over Estonia
Kairo Kiitsak captured an impressive display of noctilucent, or night-shining, clouds, in Simuna, Estonia on July 26, 2018. Noctilucent clouds are seen at high latitudes only from about mid-May to August. Wondrous, if you can catch them!
July 28, 2018
See it! Mars is very bright now
It's the brightest Mars has been in our sky since since 2003. Photos from the EarthSky community here.
July 26, 2018
Tennessee double rainbow
Becky Gillum captured this double rainbow in Cherokee Lake, Tennessee. She said, "With all the storms we've been having, it was only a matter of time until a rainbow appeared."
July 25, 2018
