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Astronomy Picture Of the Day (APOD)
APOD: 2026 August 8 Á A Messier Moment for Tempel 2
7.08.2026
Which of these is not a comet? You guessed it - the one on the right is a globular star cluster. The diffuse greenish coma of periodic comet 10P/Tempel 2 is at left in the frame.
Rubin's COSMOS Field
6.08.2026
There are more than half a million galaxies in the central panel of this image from the NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile. This is the COSMOS field, a patch of sky several times larger than the full moon, first observed by Hubble.
APOD: 2026 August 6 Á New Sharpest Image of the Sun Uncovers Instability
5.08.2026
What does the new sharpest image of our Sun show? Instability. To be clear, a certain kind of interactive process called the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability (KHI). This instability can create waves and swirls when two streams flow past each other -- in this case variable streams of solar magnetic plasma.
APOD: 2026 August 5 Á Spokes on Saturn's B Ring
4.08.2026
DonÁt get spooked by SaturnÁs ghostly spokes! Today we feature a nearly two-hour timelapse of Saturn and its rings looping forwards and backwards. A day on Saturn is only 10 hours long, so two hours of observation covers quite a bit of its rotation.
APOD: 2026 August 4 Á Curious Cometary Knots in the Helix Nebula
3.08.2026
What causes unusual knots of gas and dust in planetary nebulas? Seen also in the Ring Nebula, the Dumbbell Nebula and NGC 2392, the knots' existence was not initially predicted, and their origins are still not well understood.
APOD: 2026 August 3 Á Vaporizing Meteor Photobombs the Lacerta Nebula
2.08.2026
What's happening to this meteor? This bright meteor streak appeared and disappeared quickly during a long exposure of the Great Lacerta Nebula, seen faintly in red toward the center of the image.
APOD: 2026 August 2 Á A Fire Rainbow over West Virginia
1.08.2026
What's happening to this cloud? Ice crystals in a distant cirrus cloud are acting like little floating prisms. Known informally as a fire rainbow for its flame-like appearance, a circumhorizon arc appears parallel to the horizon.
APOD: 2026 August 1 Á Buck Moon and Belt of Venus
31.07.2026
The Buck Moon is a traditional name for the full moon of July. In this colorful Adriatic sea and skyscape captured on July 28 from Krk Island along the coast of Croatia, a full Buck Moon is just rising over distant mountains.
APOD: 2026 July 31 Á NGC 4372 and the Dark Doodad
30.07.2026
The Dark Doodad Nebula drifts through southern skies, a tantalizing target for binoculars toward the small constellation Musca, The Fly. A dusty interstellar cloud, it's seen against rich starfields just south of the Coalsack Nebula and the Southern Cross.
Red Sun through Wildfire Smoke
29.07.2026
This could be the view from an exoplanet orbiting around a red dwarf star, but it is our own Sun. This image was taken on July 22, 2026, in the Okanagan region in the Canadian province of British Columbia.
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