Alpha News

Scanning the skies for galaxies, Canadian astronomer Paul Hickson and colleagues identified some 100 compact groups of galaxies , now appropriately called Hickson Compact Groups . The four prominent galaxies seen in this intriguing telescopic skyscape are one such group, Hickson 44. The galaxy group is about 100 million light-years distant, far beyond the spiky foreground Milky Way stars, toward the constellation Leo. The two spiral galaxies in the center of the image are edge-on NGC 3190 with its distinctive, warped dust lanes, and S-shaped NGC 3187. Along with the bright elliptical, NGC 3193 (above and left) they are also known as Arp 316. The spiral toward the lower right corner is NGC 3185, the 4th member of the Hickson group. Like other galaxies in Hickson groups , these show signs of distortion and enhanced star formation , evidence of a gravitational tug of war that will eventually result in galaxy mergers on a cosmic timescale. The merger process is now understood to be a nor...

A 26 hour old Moon poses behind the craggy outline of the Italian Dolomites in this twilight mountain and skyscape. The one second long exposure was captured near moonset on March 30. And while only a a sliver of its sunlit surface is visible, most of the Moon's disk can be seen by earthshine as light reflected from a bright planet Earth illuminates the lunar nearside. Also known as the Moon's ashen glow, a description of earthshine in terms of sunlight reflected by Earth's oceans illuminating the Moon's dark surface was written over 500 years ago by Leonardo da Vinci . Of course earthshine is just the most familiar example of planetshine , the faint illumination of the dark portion of a moon by light reflected from its planet . from NASA https://ift.tt/cozDuVZ

Why does Jupiter have rings? Jupiter's main ring was discovered in 1979 by NASA's passing Voyager 1 spacecraft, but its origin was then a mystery. Data from NASA's Galileo spacecraft that orbited Jupiter from 1995 to 2003, however, confirmed the hypothesis that this ring was created by meteoroid impacts on small nearby moons. As a small meteoroid strikes tiny Metis , for example, it will bore into the moon, vaporize, and explode dirt and dust off into a Jovian orbit. The featured image of Jupiter in infrared light by the James Webb Space Telescope shows not only Jupiter and its clouds , but this ring as well. Jupiter's Great Red Spot (GRS) -- in comparatively light color on the right, Jupiter's large moon Europa -- in the center of diffraction spikes on the left, and Europa's shadow -- next to the GRS -- are also visible. Several features in the image are not yet well understood , including the seemingly separated cloud layer on Jupiter's righ...

Can the Sun appear to rise twice at the same time? This was just the case a few days ago from Les Escoumins , Quebec , Canada as our Solar System's bright central orb rose just as it was being partially eclipsed by the Moon. The featured video shows this unusual double-sunrise in real time and being reflected by the St. Lawrence River . Soon after the initial two spots of light appear over distant clouds, what appears to be bright horns become visible -- which are really just parts of the Sun not being eclipsed. Soon, the entire eclipsed Sun is visible above the horizon. In all, this broken sunrise took less than two minutes during a partial eclipse that lasted many times longer. Although the Moon circles the Earth once a month (moon-th), it does not always eclipse the Sun because its tilted orbit usually takes it above or below. from NASA https://ift.tt/VOYpER0

If you watch long enough, a comet will appear. Before then, you will see our Solar System from inside the orbit of Mercury as recorded by NASA 's Parker Solar Probe looping around the Sun . The video captures coronal streamers into the solar wind , a small Coronal Mass Ejection , and planets including, in order of appearance, Mercury , Venus , Saturn , Earth , Mars , and Jupiter . Between the emergence of Earth and Mars, Comet Tempel 1 appears with a distinctive tail. The continuous fleeting streaks are high energy particles from the Sun impacting Parker's sideways looking camera . The featured time-lapse video was taken last year during Encounter 21 , Parker's 21st close approach to the Sun. Studying data and images from Parker are delivering a better understanding of the dynamic Sun's effects on Earth's space weather as well as humanity's power grids, spacecraft, and space-faring astronauts. from NASA https://ift.tt/2htWeSQ

What if the Sun and Moon rose together? That happened yesterday over some northern parts of planet Earth as a partial solar eclipse occurred shortly after sunrise. Regions that experienced the Moon blocking part of the Sun included northeastern parts of North America and northwestern parts of Europe , Asia , and Africa . The featured image was captured yesterday over the Grábrók volcanic crater in Iceland where much of the Sun became momentarily hidden behind the Moon. The image was taken through a cloudy sky but so well planned that the photographer's friend appeared to be pulling the Sun out from behind the Moon. No part of the Earth experienced a total solar eclipse this time. In the distant past, some of humanity was so surprised when an eclipse occurred that ongoing battles suddenly stopped . Today, eclipses are not a surprise and are predicted with an accuracy of seconds. from NASA https://ift.tt/HJNqcT2

Get out your red/blue glasses and float next to Helene, small, icy moon of Saturn. Appropriately named, Helene is a Trojan moon, so called because it orbits at a Lagrange point . A Lagrange point is a gravitationally stable position near two massive bodies, in this case Saturn and larger moon Dione . In fact, irregularly shaped ( about 36 by 32 by 30 kilometers) Helene orbits at Dione's leading Lagrange point while brotherly ice moon Polydeuces follows at Dione's trailing Lagrange point. The sharp stereo anaglyph was constructed from two Cassini images captured during a close flyby in 2011. It shows part of the Saturn-facing hemisphere of Helene mottled with craters and gully-like features. from NASA https://ift.tt/iDJ1toT

Why is the Moon so dusty? On Earth, rocks are weathered by wind and water, creating soil and sand. On the Moon, eons of constant micrometeorite bombardment have blasted away at the rocky surface creating a layer of powdery lunar soil or regolith . For the Apollo astronauts and their equipment, the pervasive, fine, gritty dust was definitely a problem. On the lunar surface in December 1972, Apollo 17 astronauts Harrison Schmitt and Eugene Cernan needed to repair one of their rover's fenders in an effort to keep the rooster tails of dust away from themselves and their gear. This picture reveals the wheel and fender of their dust covered rover along with the ingenious application of spare maps, clamps, and a grey strip of "duct tape". from NASA https://ift.tt/X3WzCfh

One of the brightest galaxies in planet Earth's sky is similar in size to our Milky Way Galaxy: big, beautiful Messier 81 . Also known as NGC 3031 or Bode's galaxy for its 18th century discoverer, this grand spiral can be found toward the northern constellation of Ursa Major, the Great Bear. The sharp, detailed telescopic view reveals M81's bright yellow nucleus, blue spiral arms, pinkish starforming regions, and sweeping cosmic dust lanes . But some dust lanes actually run through the galactic disk (left of center), contrary to other prominent spiral features. The errant dust lanes may be the lingering result of a close encounter between M81 and the nearby galaxy M82 lurking outside of this frame. Scrutiny of variable stars in M81 has yielded a well-determined distance for an external galaxy -- 11.8 million light-years. from NASA https://ift.tt/7ud8zPA

You'd think the Pacman Nebula would be eating stars, but actually it is forming them. Within the nebula , a cluster's young, massive stars are powering the pervasive nebular glow. The eye-catching shapes looming in the featured portrait of NGC 281 are sculpted dusty columns and dense Bok globules seen in silhouette, eroded by intense, energetic winds and radiation from the hot cluster stars. If they survive long enough, the dusty structure s could also be sites of future star formation. Playfully called the Pacman Nebula because of its overall shape, NGC 281 is about 10,000 light-years away in the constellation Cassiopeia . This sharp composite image was made through narrow-band filters in Spain in mid 2024. It combines emissions from the nebula's hydrogen and oxygen atoms to synthesize red, green, and blue colors. The scene spans well over 80 light-years at the estimated distance of NGC 281 . from NASA https://ift.tt/Iqhm9RC

What causes a blue band to cross the Moon during a lunar eclipse? The blue band is real but usually quite hard to see. The featured HDR image of last week's lunar eclipse, however -- taken from Norman , Oklahoma (USA) -- has been digitally processed to exaggerate the colors . The gray color on the upper right of the top lunar image is the Moon 's natural color, directly illuminated by sunlight. The lower parts of the Moon on all three images are not directly lit by the Sun since it is being eclipsed -- it is in the Earth's shadow . It is faintly lit, though, by sunlight that has passed deep through Earth's atmosphere . This part of the Moon is red -- and called a blood Moon -- for the same reason that Earth's sunsets are red: because air scatters away more blue light than red. The unusual purple-blue band visible on the upper right of the top and middle images is different -- its color is augmented by sunlight that has passed high through Earth's atmosphe...

This was once a beach -- on ancient Mars . The featured 360-degree panorama , horizontally compressed , was taken in 2017 by the robotic Curiosity rover that explored the red planet . Named Ogunquit Beach after its terrestrial counterpart , evidence shows that at times long ago the area was underwater, while at other times it was at the edge of an ancient lake . The light peak in the central background is the top of Mount Sharp , the central feature in Gale Crater where Curiosity explored. Portions of the dark sands in the foreground were scooped up for analysis. The light colored bedrock is composed of sediment that likely settled at the bottom of the now-dried lakebed. The featured panorama ( interactive version here ) was created from over 100 images and seemingly signed by the rover on the lower left. from NASA https://ift.tt/eb7KSIi

What's the sound of one laser zapping? There's no need to consult a Zen master to find out, just listen to the first acoustic recording of laser shots on Mars . On Mars Rover Perseverance mission sol 12 (March 2, 2021) the SuperCam instrument atop the rover's mast zapped a rock dubbed Ma'az 30 times from a range of about 3.1 meters. Its microphone recorded the soft staccato popping sounds of the rapid series of SuperCam laser zaps. Shockwaves created in the thin Martian atmosphere as bits of rock are vaporized by the laser shots make the popping sounds, sounds that offer clues to the physical structure of the target. This SuperCam close-up of the Ma'az target region is 6 centimeters (2.3 inches) across. Ma'az means Mars in the Navajo language . from NASA https://ift.tt/qUSdeZl

This popular group leaps into the early evening sky around the March equinox and the northern hemisphere spring . Famous as the Leo Triplet , the three magnificent galaxies found in the prominent constellation Leo gather here in one astronomical field of view. Crowd pleasers when imaged with even modest telescopes, they can be introduced individually as NGC 3628 (bottom left), M66 (middle right), and M65 (top center). All three are large spiral galaxies but tend to look dissimilar, because their galactic disks are tilted at different angles to our line of sight. NGC 3628 , also known as the Hamburger Galaxy, is temptingly seen edge-on, with obscuring dust lanes cutting across its puffy galactic plane. The disks of M66 and M65 are both inclined enough to show off their spiral structure. Gravitational interactions between galaxies in the group have left telltale signs, including the tidal tails and warped, inflated disk of NGC 3628 and the drawn out spiral arms of M66. This gorgeous...

Recorded from 2024 March 10, to 2025 March 1, this composited series of images reveals a pattern in the seasonal drift of the Sun's daily motion through planet Earth's sky. Known to some as an analemma , the figure-eight curve was captured in exposures taken on the indicated dates only at 18:38 UTC from the exact same location south of Stephenville, Texas . The Sun's position on the 2024 solstice dates of June 20 and December 21 would be at the top and bottom of the curve and correspond to the astronomical beginning of summer and winter in the north. Points that lie along the curve half-way between the solstices would mark the equinoxes. The 2024 equinox on September 22, and in 2025 the equinox on March 20 (today) are the start of northern fall and spring. And since one of the exposures was made on 2024 April 8 from the Stephenville location at 18:38:40 UTC, this analemma project also reveals the solar corona in planet Earth's sky during a total solar eclipse . f...

On March 14 the Full Moon slid through Earth's dark umbral shadow and denizens of planet Earth were treated to a total lunar eclipse . Of course, from the Moon's near side that same astronomical syzygy was seen as a solar eclipse. Operating in the Mare Crisium on the lunar surface , the Blue Ghost lander captured this video frame of Earth in silhouette around 3:30am CDT, just as the Sun was emerging from behind the terrestrial disk. From Blue Ghost's lunar perspective the beautiful diamond ring effect, familiar to earthbound solar eclipse watchers, is striking. Since Earth appears about four times the apparent size of the Sun from the lunar surface the inner solar corona , the atmosphere of the Sun most easily seen from Earth during a total solar eclipse, is hidden from view. Still, scattering in Earth's dense atmosphere creates the glowing band of sunlight embracing our fair planet . from NASA https://ift.tt/RDGoyWg

There is no sea on Earth large enough to contain the Shark nebula. This predator apparition poses us no danger as it is composed only of interstellar gas and dust . Dark dust like that featured here is somewhat like cigarette smoke and created in the cool atmospheres of giant stars . After expelling gas and gravitationally recondensing , massive stars may carve intricate structures into their birth cloud using their high energy light and fast stellar wind s as sculpting tools. The heat they generate evaporates the murky molecular cloud as well as causing ambient hydrogen gas to disperse and glow red. During disintegration, we humans can enjoy imagining these great clouds as common icons , like we do for water clouds on Earth. Including smaller dust nebulae such as Van den Bergh 149 & 150, the Shark nebula , sometimes cataloged as LDN 1235, spans about 15 light years and lies about 650 light years away toward the constellation of the King of Aethiopia ( Cepheus ). from...

Thor not only has his own day (Thursday), but a helmet in the heavens. Popularly called Thor's Helmet, NGC 2359 is a hat-shaped cosmic cloud with wing-like appendages. Heroically sized even for a Norse god , Thor's Helmet is about 30 light-years across. In fact, the cosmic head-covering is more like an interstellar bubble , blown by a fast wind from the bright, massive star near the bubble's center. Known as a Wolf-Rayet star , the central star is an extremely hot giant thought to be in a brief, pre- supernova stage of evolution . NGC 2359 is located about 15,000 light-years away toward the constellation of the Great Overdog . This sharp image is a mixed cocktail of data from narrowband filters , capturing not only natural looking stars but details of the nebula's filamentary structures. The star in the center of Thor's Helmet is expected to explode in a spectacular supernova sometime within the next few thousand years. from NASA https://ift.tt/qQ5I9l...

This was a very unusual type of solar eclipse. Typically, it is the Earth's Moon that eclipses the Sun. In 2012, though, the planet Venus took a turn. Like a solar eclipse by the Moon, the phase of Venus became a continually thinner crescent as Venus became increasingly better aligned with the Sun. Eventually the alignment became perfect and the phase of Venus dropped to zero. The dark spot of Venus crossed our parent star. The situation could technically be labeled a Venusian annular eclipse with an extraordinarily large ring of fire . Pictured here during the occultation, the Sun was imaged in three colors of ultraviolet light by the Earth-orbiting Solar Dynamics Observatory , with the dark region toward the right corresponding to a coronal hole . Hours later, as Venus continued in its orbit, a slight crescent phase appeared again. The next Venusian transit across the Sun will occur in 2117 . from NASA https://ift.tt/1JoKjQc

On March 14 the Moon was Full . In an appropriate celebration of Pi day, that put the Moon 3.14 radians (180 degrees) in ecliptic longitude from the Sun in planet Earth's sky. As a bonus for fans of Pi and the night sky , on that date the Moon also passed directly through Earth's umbral shadow in a total lunar eclipse . In clear skies, the colors of an eclipsed Moon can be vivid. Reflecting the deeply reddened sunlight scattered into Earth's shadow, the darkened lunar disk was recorded in this time series composite image from Cerro Tololo Observatory, Chile. The lunar triptych captures the start, middle, and end of the total eclipse phase that lasted about an hour. A faint bluish tint seen just along the brighter lunar limb at the shadow's edge is due to sunlight filtered through Earth's stratospheric ozone layer. from NASA https://ift.tt/L6ISOMf

What phase of the Moon is 3.14 radians from the Sun? The Full Moon, of course. Even though the Moon might look full for several days, the Moon is truly at its full phase when it is Pi radians (aka 180 degrees) from the Sun in ecliptic longitude. That's opposite the Sun in planet Earth's sky. Rising as the Sun set on March 9, 2020, only an hour or so after the moment of its full phase, this orange tinted and slightly flattened Moon still looked full. It was photographed opposite the setting Sun from Teide National Park on the Canary Island of Tenerife. Also opposite the setting Sun, seen from near the Teide volcano peak about 3,500 meters above sea level, is the mountain's rising triangular shadow extending into Earth's dense atmosphere. Below the distant ridge line on the left are the white telescope domes of Teide Observatory . Today, March 14 2025, the moon is Pi radians from the Sun at exactly 06:55 UTC. That's about three minutes before the midpoint of th...

Two protostars are hidden in a single pixel near the center of a striking hourglass-shaped nebula in this near-infrared image from the James Webb Space Telescope. The actively forming star system lies in a dusty molecular cloud cataloged as Lynds 483, some 650 light-years distant toward the constellation Serpens Cauda . Responsible for the stunning bipolar outflows , the collapsing protostars have been blasting out collimated energetic jets of material over tens of thousands of years. Webb's high-resolution view shows the violence of star-formation in dramatic detail as twisting shock fronts expand and collide with slower, denser material. The premier close-up of the star-forming region spans less than 1/2 a light-year within dark nebula Lynds 483 . from NASA https://ift.tt/7ZaR3IW

Why does this galaxy look like a curly vegetable ? The Fiddlehead spiral galaxy likely gets its distorted spiral appearance from a gravitational interaction with its close-by elliptical companion NGC 770 , seen just below. Cataloged as NGC 772 and Arp 78, the Fiddlehead spans over 200,000 light years, is a nearby 100 million light years beyond the stars of our Milky Way galaxy, and is visible toward the constellation of the Ram (Aries). But in the featured image , the Fiddlehead appears to have another companion -- one with a long and fuzzy tail: Comet 43P/Wolf-Harrington . Though the comet appears to be aimed straight at the massive galaxy, it is actually much closer to us, residing only light minutes away -- well within our Solar System. The comet will never reach the distant spiral galaxy, nor is it physically related to it. By a fortunate trick of perspective, though, these two cosmic wonders briefly share the same frame taken late last year from Calern , France . from NASA...

Many spiral galaxies have bars across their centers. Even our own Milky Way Galaxy is thought to have a modest central bar . Prominently barred spiral galaxy NGC 1672, featured here , was captured in spectacular detail in an image taken by the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope . Visible are dark filamentary dust lanes , young clusters of bright blue stars, red emission nebulas of glowing hydrogen gas, a long bright bar of stars across the center, and a bright active nucleus that likely houses a supermassive black hole . Light takes about 60 million years to reach us from NGC 1672 , which spans about 75,000 light years across. NGC 1672 , which appears toward the constellation of the Dolphinfish ( Dorado ), has been studied to find out how a spiral bar contributes to star formation in a galaxy's central regions. from NASA https://ift.tt/foOy5Db

Could Queen Calafia 's mythical island exist in space? Perhaps not, but by chance the outline of this molecular space cloud echoes the outline of the state of California , USA. Our Sun has its home within the Milky Way's Orion Arm , only about 1,000 light-years from the California Nebula . Also known as NGC 1499 , the classic emission nebula is around 100 light-year s long. On the featured image , the most prominent glow of the California Nebula is the red light characteristic of hydrogen atoms recombining with long lost electrons, stripped away ( ionized ) by energetic starlight. The star most likely providing the energetic starlight that ionizes much of the nebular gas is the bright, hot, bluish Xi Persei just to the right of the nebula. A regular target for astrophotographers, the California Nebula can be spotted with a wide-field telescope under a dark sky toward the constellation of Perseus , not far from the Pleiades . from NASA https://ift.tt/tGo706m

Why are there so many cyclones around the north pole of Jupiter? The topic is still being researched. NASA's robotic Juno mission orbiting Jupiter took data in 2018 that was used to construct this stunning view of the curious cyclones at Jupiter's north pole. Measuring the thermal emission from Jovian cloud tops, the infrared observations are not restricted to the hemisphere illuminated by sunlight. They reveal eight cyclonic features that surround a cyclone about 4,000 kilometers in diameter, just offset from the giant planet's geographic north pole. Similar data show a cyclone at the Jovian south pole with five circumpolar cyclones. The south pole cyclones are slightly larger than their northern cousins. Oddly , data from the once Saturn-orbiting Cassini mission has shown that Saturn's north and south pole s each have only a single cyclonic storm system . from NASA https://ift.tt/kyg60WQ

The plane of our Milky Way galaxy extends beyond the limb of planet Earth in this space age exposure captured by astronaut Don Pettit. His camera , with low light and long duration settings, was pointed out the window of a Dragon crew spacecraft docked with the International Space Station on January 29. The orbital outpost was at an altitude of about 400 kilometers above the Pacific Ocean at the time. Motion blurs the Earth below, while the gorgeous view from low Earth orbit includes the Milky Way's prominent satellite galaxies, known as the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, near the upper left in the frame. Fans of southern skies can also spot the Southern Cross. The four brightest stars of the famous southern constellation Crux are near picture center, just beyond the edge of the bright horizon and shining through Earth's orange tinted atmospheric glow. from NASA https://ift.tt/kq6dZvK

Very faint planetary nebula Abell 7 is about 1,800 light-years distant. It lies just south of Orion in planet Earth's skies toward the constellation Lepus, The Hare . Surrounded by Milky Way stars and near the line-of-sight to distant background galaxies its generally simple spherical shape, about 8 light-years in diameter, is revealed in this deep telescopic image. Within the cosmic cloud are beautiful and complex structures though, enhanced by the use of long exposures and narrowband filters that capture emission from hydrogen, sulfur, and oxygen atoms. Otherwise Abell 7 would be much too faint to be appreciated by eye . A planetary nebula represents a very brief final phase in stellar evolution that our own Sun will experience 5 billion years hence , as the nebula's central, once sun-like star shrugs off its outer layers. Abell 7 itself is estimated to be 20,000 years old. But its central star, seen here as a fading white dwarf , is some 10 billion years old. from NASA...

Beautiful island universe Messier 94 lies a mere 15 million light-years distant in the northern constellation of the hunting dogs, Canes Venatici . A popular target for earth-based astronomers, the face-on spiral galaxy is about 30,000 light-years across, with spiral arms sweeping through the outskirts of its broad disk. But this Hubble Space Telescope field of view spans about 7,000 light-years or so across M94's central region. The sharp close-up examines the galaxy's compact, bright nucleus and prominent inner dust lanes, surrounded by a remarkable bluish ring of young, massive stars. The massive stars in the ring appear to be less than about 10 million years old, indicating the galaxy experienced a corresponding well-defined era of rapid star formation. As a result, while the small, bright nucleus is typical of the Seyfert class of active galaxies, M94 is also known as a starburst galaxy . Because M94 is relatively nearby, astronomers can explore in detail reasons fo...

On the right, dressed in blue, is the Pleiades . Also known as the Seven Sisters and M45 , the Pleiades is one of the brightest and most easily visible open clusters on the sky. The Pleiades contains over 3,000 stars, is about 400 light years away, and only 13 light years across. Surrounding the stars is a spectacular blue reflection nebula made of fine dust . A common legend is that one of the brighter stars faded since the cluster was named. On the left, shining in red, is the California Nebula . Named for its shape, the California Nebula is much dimmer and hence harder to see than the Pleiades . Also known as NGC 1499 , this mass of red glowing hydrogen gas is about 1,500 light years away. Although about 25 full moons could fit between them , the featured wide angle, deep field image composite has captured them both . A careful inspection of the deep image will also reveal the star forming region IC 348 and the molecular cloud LBN 777 (the Baby Eagle Nebula). from NA...

Why does this Moon look so unusual? A key reason is its vivid red color. The color is caused by the deflection of blue light by Earth's atmosphere -- the same reason that the daytime sky appears blue . The Moon also appears unusually distorted . Its strange structuring is an optical effect arising from layers in the Earth's atmosphere that refract light differently due to sudden differences in temperature or pressure. A third reason the Moon looks so unusual is that there is, by chance, an airplane flying in front . The featured picturesque gibbous Moon was captured about two weeks ago above Turin , Italy . Our familiar hovering sky orb was part of an unusual quadruple alignment that included two historic ground structures: the Sacra di San Michele on the near hill and Basilica of Superga just beyond. from NASA https://ift.tt/BT5Ce9D

There's a new lander on the Moon. Yesterday Firefly Aerospace 's Blue Ghost executed the first-ever successful commercial lunar landing. During its planned 60-day mission, Blue Ghost will deploy several NASA-commissioned scientific instruments, including PlanetVac which captures lunar dust after creating a small whirlwind of gas. Blue Ghost will also host the telescope LEXI that captures X-ray images of the Earth's magnetosphere . LEXI data should enable a better understanding of how Earth's magnetic field protects the Earth from the Sun's wind and flare s. Pictured , the shadow of the Blue Ghost lander is visible on the cratered lunar surface , while the glowing orb of the planet Earth hovers just over the horizon. Goals for future robotic Blue Ghost landers include supporting lunar astronauts in NASA's Artemis program , with Artemis III currently scheduled to land humans back on the Moon in 2027. from NASA https://ift.tt/7XcnrD1

With spacecraft thrusters at top center, the rugged surface of the Moon lies below the Blue Ghost lander in this space age video frame. The view of the lunar far side was captured by the Firefly Aerospace lunar lander on February 24, following a maneuver to circularize its orbit about 100 kilometers above the lunar surface. The robotic lunar lander is scheduled to touch down tomorrow, Sunday, March 2 , at 3:34am Eastern Time in the Mare Crisium impact basin on the lunar near side. In support of the Artemis campaign , Blue Ghost is set to deliver science and technology experiments to the Moon, part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services program. Blue Ghost's mission on the surface is planned to operate during the lunar daylight hours at the landing site, about 14 Earth days. from NASA https://ift.tt/uPJANZT

Planet Earth hangs in the background of this space age selfie. The snapshot was captured by the IM-2 Nova-C lander Athena , just after stage separation following its February 26 launch to the Moon . A tall robotic lander, Athena is scheduled to touch down on Thursday, March 6, in Mons Mouton, a plateau near the Moon’s South Pole. The intended landing site is in the central portion of one of the Artemis 3 potential landing regions. Athena carries rovers and experiments as part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, including a drill intended to explore beneath the lunar surface in a search for evidence of frozen water. It also carries a propulsive drone dubbed the Micro Nova Hopper . After release to the lunar surface, the autonomous drone is intended to hop into a nearby crater and send science data back to the lander. from NASA https://ift.tt/lmRuNgF

Framed in this single, starry, telescopic field of view are two open star clusters, M35 and NGC 2158. Located within the boundaries of the constellation Gemini, they do appear to be side by side. Its stars concentrated toward the upper right, M35 is relatively nearby, though. M35 (also cataloged as NGC 2168) is a mere 2800 light-years distant, with 400 or so stars spread out over a volume about 30 light-years across. Bright blue stars frequently distinguish younger open clusters like M35 , whose age is estimated at 150 million years. At lower left, NGC 2158 is about four times more distant than M35 and much more compact, shining with the more yellowish light of a population of stars over 10 times older. In general, open star clusters are found along the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy . Loosely gravitationally bound, their member stars tend to be dispersed over billions of years as the open star clusters orbit the galactic center. from NASA https://ift.tt/ywgC54Q

Do you see the ring? If you look very closely at the center of the featured galaxy NGC 6505 , a ring becomes evident. It is the gravity of NGC 6505 , the nearby ( z = 0.042) elliptical galaxy that you can easily see, that is magnifying and distorting the image of a distant galaxy into a complete circle. To create a complete Einstein ring there must be perfect alignment of the nearby galaxy's center and part of the background galaxy. Analysis of this ring and the multiple images of the background galaxy help to determine the mass and fraction of dark matter in NGC 6505's center, as well as uncover previously unseen details in the distorted galaxy. The featured image was captured by ESA 's Earth-orbiting Euclid telescope in 2023 and released earlier this month. from NASA https://ift.tt/SXWRPk1

Why are there so many bright blue stars? Stars are usually born in clusters , and the brightest and most massive of these stars typically glow blue. Less-bright, non-blue stars like our Sun surely also exist in this M41 star cluster but are harder to see. A few bright orange-appearing red giant stars are visible. The red-light filaments are emitted by diffuse hydrogen gas, a color that was specifically filtered and enhanced in this image. In a hundred million years or so, the bright blue stars will have exploded in supernova s and disappeared, while the slightly different trajectories of the fainter stars will cause this picturesque open cluster to disperse. Similarly, billions of years ago, our own Sun was likely born into a star cluster like M41, but it has long since drifted apart from its sister stars . The featured image was captured over four hours with Chilescope T2 in Chile . from NASA https://ift.tt/zK9d2ca

Can a lava flow extend into the sky? No, but light from the lava flow can. One effect is something quite unusual -- a volcanic light pillar . More typically, light pillars are caused by sunlight and so appear as a bright column that extends upward above a rising or setting Sun . Alternatively, other light pillars -- some quite colorful -- have been recorded above street and house lights. This light pillar , though, was illuminated by the red light emitted by the glowing magma of an erupting volcano . The volcano is Italy 's Mount Etna , and the featured image was captured with a single shot during an early morning in mid-February. Freezing temperatures above the volcano's lava flow created ice-crystals either in the air above the volcano or in condensed water vapor expelled by Mount Etna . These ice crystals -- mostly flat toward the ground but fluttering -- then reflected away light from the volcano's caldera . from NASA https://ift.tt/BLyGE7J

Saturn looks slightly different in infrared light. Bands of clouds show great structure, including long stretching storms . Also quite striking in infrared is the unusual hexagonal cloud pattern surrounding Saturn 's North Pole. Each side of the dark hexagon spans roughly the width of our Earth. The hexagon 's existence was not predicted, and its origin and likely stability remain a topics of research . Saturn's famous rings circle the planet and cast shadows below the equator . The featured image was taken by the robotic Cassini spacecraft in 2014 in several infrared colors. In 2017 September, the Cassini mission was brought to a dramatic conclusion when the spacecraft was directed to dive into the ringed giant. from NASA https://ift.tt/VvIF6Dt

Rima Hyginus is a spectacular fissure , some 220 kilometers long, found near the center of the lunar near side . Easy to spot in telescopic views of the Moon, it stretches top left to bottom right across this lunar closeup . The image was made with exaggerated colors that reflect the mineral composition of the lunar soil. Hyginus crater lies near the center of the narrow lunar surface groove. About 10 kilometers in diameter, the low-walled crater is a volcanic caldera, one of the larger non-impact craters on the lunar surface. Dotted with small pits formed by surface collapse, Hyginus rima itself was likely created by stresses due to internal magma upwelling and collapse along a long surface fault. The intriguing region was a candidate landing site for the canceled Apollo 19 mission. from NASA https://ift.tt/grGfSx7

The largest photomosaic ever assembled from Hubble Space Telescope image data is a panoramic view of our neighboring spiral Andromeda Galaxy. With 600 overlapping frames assembled from observations made from July 2010 to December 2022, the full Hubble Andromeda Galaxy mosaic spans almost six full moons across planet Earth's sky . A cropped version shown above is nearly two full moons across and partially covers Andromeda's core and inner spiral arms. Also known as M31, the Andromeda Galaxy is 2.5 million light-years away. That makes it the closest large spiral galaxy to our own Milky Way. Our perspective on the spiral Milky Way is anchored to the view from the location of the Sun , a star found within the Milky Way's galactic disk. But Hubble's magnificent Andromeda mosaic offers an expansive view of a large spiral galaxy from the outside looking in. Hubble's comprehensive, detailed data set extending across the Andromeda Galaxy will allow astronomers to make ...

Enormous elliptical galaxy Messier 87 is about 50 million light-years away. Also known as NGC 4486, the giant galaxy holds trillions of stars compared to the mere billions of stars in our large spiral Milky Way. M87 reigns as the large central elliptical galaxy in the Virgo galaxy cluster . An energetic jet from the giant galaxy's core is seen to stretch outward for about 5,000 light-years in this sharp optical and near-infrared view from the Hubble Space Telescope. In fact, the cosmic blow torch is seen across the electromagnetic spectrum from gamma-rays to radio wavelengths . Its ultimate power source is M87's central, supermassive black hole. An image of this monster in the middle of M87 has been captured by planet Earth's Event Horizon Telescope. from NASA https://ift.tt/KthVy2q

How do stars and planets form? New clues have been found in the protoplanetary system Herbig-Haro 30 by the James Webb Space Telescope in concert with Hubble and the Earth-bound ALMA . The observations show , among other things, that large dust grains are more concentrated into a central disk where they can form planets. The featured image from Webb shows many attributes of the active HH-30 system. Jets of particles are being expelled vertically, shown in red, while a dark dust-rich disk is seen across the center, blocking the light from the star or stars still forming there. Blue-reflecting dust is seen in a parabolic arc above and below the central disk, although why a tail appears on the lower left is currently unknown. Studying how planets form in HH 30 can help astronomers better understand how planets in our own Solar System once formed, including our Earth . from NASA https://ift.tt/34OWkz9

Seen as a seagull and a duck, these nebulae are not the only cosmic clouds to evoke images of flight. But both are winging their way across this broad celestial landscape, spanning almost 7 degrees across planet Earth 's night sky toward the constellation of the Big Dog ( Canis Major ). The expansive Seagull (top center) is itself composed of two major cataloged emission nebulas . Brighter NGC 2327 forms the head with the more diffuse IC 2177 as the wings and body. Impressively, the Seagull's wingspan would correspond to about 250 light-year s at the nebula's estimated distance of 3,800 light-years. At the lower right, the Duck appears much more compact and would span only about 50 light-years given its 15,000 light-year distance estimate. Blown by energetic winds from an extremely massive, hot star near its center, the Duck nebula is cataloged as NGC 2359. Of course, the Duck's thick body and winged appendages also lend it the slightly more dramatic popular moni...

What's happened to the sky? Last Monday, the photogenic launch plume from a SpaceX rocket launch created quite a spectacle over parts of southern California and Arizona . Looking at times like a giant space fish , the impressive rocket launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base near Lompoc , California, was so bright because it was backlit by the setting Sun. The Falcon 9 rocket successfully delivered to low Earth orbit 23 Starlink communications satellites. The plume from the first stage is seen on the right, while the soaring upper stage rocket is seen at the apex of the plume toward the left. Venus appears at the top of the frame, while a bright streetlight shines on the far right. The featured image was captured toward the west after sunset from near Phoenix , Arizona. from NASA https://ift.tt/HYDiTCK

Here comes Jupiter. NASA 's robotic spacecraft Juno is continuing on its highly elongated orbits around our Solar System's largest planet. The featured video is from perijove 11 in early 2018, the eleventh time Juno passed near Jupiter since it arrived in mid-2016. This time-lapse, color-enhanced movie covers about four hours and morphs between 36 JunoCam images. The video begins with Jupiter rising as Juno approaches from the north. As Juno reaches its closest view -- from about 3,500 kilometers over Jupiter's cloud tops -- the spacecraft captures the great planet in tremendous detail. Juno passes light zones and dark belts of clouds that circle the planet, as well as numerous swirling circular storms, many of which are larger than hurricanes on Earth . After the perijove, Jupiter recedes into the distance, then displaying the unusual clouds that appear over Jupiter's south. To get desired science data , Juno swoops so close to Jupiter that its instruments ar...

Three suns seem to hug the horizon in this otherworldly winterscape. But the evocative scene was captured during a February 3rd snowmobile exploration of the mountainous region around Abisko National Park, northern Sweden, planet Earth . The two bright spots on either side of Earth's Sun are parhelia (singular parhelion), also known as mock suns or sun dogs. The parhelia are caused by hexagonal ice crystals suspended in the hazy atmosphere that reflect and refract sunlight. Commonly seen in winter and at high latitudes, the bright parhelia lie along the visible 22 degree ice halo of the Sun . from NASA https://ift.tt/frYAN2W

The Rosette Nebula, NGC 2237, is not the only cosmic cloud of gas and dust to evoke the imagery of flowers , but it is probably the most famous. At the edge of a large molecular cloud in Monoceros some 5,000 light years away, the petals of this cosmic rose are actually a stellar nursery. The lovely, symmetric shape is sculpted by the winds and radiation from its central cluster of hot young, O-type stars . Stars in the energetic cluster , cataloged as NGC 2244 , are only a few million years young, while the central cavity in the Rosette Nebula, is about 50 light-years in diameter. The nebula can be seen with a small telescope toward the constellation of Monoceros , the Unicorn. This natural appearing telescopic portrait of the Rosette Nebula was made using broadband color filters, but sometimes roses aren't red . from NASA https://ift.tt/mW06lGS

Riding high in the constellation of Auriga, beautiful, blue VdB 31 is the 31st object in Sidney van den Bergh's 1966 catalog of reflection nebulae . It shares this well-composed celestial still life with dark, obscuring clouds B26, B27, and B28, recorded in Edward E. Barnard's 1919 catalog of dark markings in the sky. All are these nebulae are interstellar dust clouds. Barnard's dark nebulae block the light from background stars. For VdB 31 the dust preferentially reflects bluish starlight from embedded, hot, variable star AB Aurigae. Exploring the environs of AB Aurigae with the Hubble Space Telescope has revealed the several million year young star is itself surrounded by a flattened dusty disk with evidence for the ongoing formation of a planetary system. AB Aurigae is about 470 light-years away. At that distance this cosmic canvas would span about eight light-years. from NASA https://ift.tt/q8j7NW2