Астрономическая картинка дня (APOD)

APOD: 2026 January 20 Б Io in True Color
19.01.2026 | Астрономическая картинка дня

The strangest moon in the Solar System is bright yellow. The featured picture, an attempt to show how Io would appear in the "true colors" perceptible to the average human eye, was taken in 1999 July by the Galileo spacecraft that orbited Jupiter from 1995 to 2003.

APOD: 2026 January 19 Б CTB 1: The Medulla Nebula
18.01.2026 | Астрономическая картинка дня

What powers this unusual nebula? CTB 1 is the expanding gas shell that was left when a massive star toward the constellation of Cassiopeia exploded about 10,000 years ago. The star likely detonated when it ran out of elements, near its core, that could create stabilizing pressure with nuclear fusion.

APOD: 2026 January 18 Б Jupiter from the Webb Space Telescope
17.01.2026 | Астрономическая картинка дня

This infrared view of Jupiter by Webb is illuminating. High-resolution infrared images of Jupiter from the James Webb Space Telescope (Webb) reveal, for example, differences between high-floating bright clouds -- including the Great Red Spot -- and low-lying dark clouds.

Apollo 14: A View from Antares
16.01.2026 | Астрономическая картинка дня

Apollo 14's Lunar Module Antares landed on the Moon on February 5, 1971. Toward the end of the stay astronaut Ed Mitchell snapped a series of photos of the lunar surface while looking out a window, assembled into this detailed mosaic by Apollo Lunar Surface Journal editor Eric Jones.

NGC 7023: The Iris Nebula
15.01.2026 | Астрономическая картинка дня

These cosmic clouds have blossomed 1,300 light-years away in the fertile starfields of the constellation Cepheus. Called the Iris Nebula, NGC 7023 is not the only nebula to evoke the imagery of flowers.

Plato and the Lunar Alps
14.01.2026 | Астрономическая картинка дня

The dark-floored, 95 kilometer wide crater Plato and sunlit peaks of the lunar Alps (Montes Alpes) are highlighted in this this sharp telescopic snapshot of the Moon's surface. While the Alps of planet...

APOD: 2026 January 14 Б M51: The Whirlpool Galaxy
13.01.2026 | Астрономическая картинка дня

The Whirlpool Galaxy is a classic spiral galaxy. At only 30 million light years distant and fully 60 thousand light years across, M51, also known as NGC 5194, is one of the brightest and most picturesque galaxies on the sky.

APOD: 2026 January 12 Б Meteor Dust
11.01.2026 | Астрономическая картинка дня

What's happening to this meteor? It is shedding its outer layers as it passes through the Earth's atmosphere and heats up. The sudden high temperatures not only cause the bright glow along the dramatic streak but also melt and vaporize the meteor's component rock and ice, creating dust.

APOD: 2026 January 11 Б M104: The Sombrero Galaxy in Infrared
10.01.2026 | Астрономическая картинка дня

This floating ring is the size of a galaxy. In fact, it is a galaxy -- or at least part of one: the photogenic Sombrero Galaxy, one of the largest galaxies in the nearby Virgo Cluster of Galaxies.

Jupiter with the Great Red Spot
9.01.2026 | Астрономическая картинка дня

Jupiter reaches its 2026 opposition today, January 10. That puts our Solar System's most massive planet opposite the Sun and near its closest and brightest for viewing from planet Earth. In fact, captured...