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Astronomy Picture of the Day
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Bright Perseids from Sweden
Image · NASA APOD
Known for its bright and fast meteors, the annual Perseid Meteor Shower comes to planet Earth's skies from a radiant in the heroic constellation Perseus. The popular northern summer celestial spectacle is created as grains of dust cast off along the orbit of periodic comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle vaporize in Earth's dense atmosphere, tracing brief, but beautiful streaks through the night. Taken near the shower's peak of activity on August 12, this composite image recorded two bright perseid meteors and one meteor's watery reflection from a location near the coastal village of Grisslehamn, Sweden. Almost as bright as Altair, brightest star on the scene, the meteors appear along with the faint, diffuse background of the Milky Way. This year, the shower's peak activity coincided with a New Moon, so perseid meteor flashes were undiminished by bright moonlight. And for many skywatchers, this night of bright perseid meteors followed their viewing of the silhouette of the New Moon in a much anticipated solar eclipse. Growing Gallery: Solar Eclipse of 2026 August 12
Credit: Clear Skies
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Sunspots Today
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Image · NASA/ESA SOHO
Sunspots are cooler, darker patches on the Sun's visible surface where intense magnetic fields push up through the photosphere and slow the flow of heat from below. They are typically a couple of thousand degrees cooler than their surroundings, can grow larger than Earth, and drift across the disc as the Sun rotates roughly once a month.
Counting them matters: the sunspot number tracks the Sun's roughly 11-year activity cycle, and the biggest, most magnetically tangled groups are the launch pads for solar flares and coronal mass ejections. Those storms drive aurorae, but can also disturb radio communication, GPS accuracy, satellites and power grids — so daily counts from observatories like SOHO underpin space-weather forecasting and our understanding of stellar magnetism.
Open Sun Observation
Black-and-white white-light map of the solar disc with Earth shown to scale — every dark speck is a sunspot group. Never look at the Sun directly — use certified solar filters.
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2 Trillion
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Stars orbit Milky Way's black hole
"The universe is not outside of you. Look inside yourself; everything that you want, you already are." — Rumi