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The defining astronomical moment of the equinox today is at 14:46 UTC (March 20). That's when the Sun crosses the celestial equator moving north in its yearly journey through planet Earth's sky, marking the beginning of spring for our fair planet in the northern hemisphere and fall in the southern hemisphere. Then, day and night are nearly equal around the globe . In fact, both day and nighttime exposures from a spring equinox at the Observatorio del Teide in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, are used in this composited skyscape. Over 1,000 images were taken with a fisheye lens and merged in the ambitious equinox project. The apparent motion of the Sun setting along the celestial equator on the equinox date follows the bright linear, diagonal track from the sequence of daytime exposures taken over 6 hours. After sunset, nighttime exposures recorded startrails, with the celestial equator as a linear track and concentric arcs circling the north celestial pole near Polaris at ...

Even if you live with your head in the clouds , you won’t find a jellyfish like this one very often. The featured image shows a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launch from Cape Canaveral in Florida on March 4. The launch happened 52 minutes before sunrise , and the second stage rocket exhaust plume was high enough in the sky to catch the light of the rising sun , while the photographer was still in the dark. This combination of light and shadow, possible at dawn or dusk , makes the exhaust, mostly water vapor and carbon dioxide , appear as a glowing cloud. It only looks like it's going down, as the rocket follows the curvature of the Earth on its way to space . A related effect is the twilight phenomenon , which causes colorful contrails sometimes mistaken for UFOs . But, in case you are wondering: real jellyfish were sent to space by NASA in the 1990s as part of a science experiment . from NASA https://ift.tt/vmlbN7Y

A lone tree stands in a quiet meadow in Guadalajara, Spain , silhouetted against the Cygnus region rising above like flames in the night sky. This deep night skyscape is a composite of exposures that reveals a range of brightness and color human eyes can't quite see on their own. Spanning over a thousand times the angular size of the full moon, Cygnus sets the sky afire with active star formation where clouds of gas and dust collapse under gravity until nuclear fusion ignites and new stars are born. These stars ionize the surrounding hydrogen gas, causing it to glow crimson , while tendrils of interstellar dust absorb some of that light and cast dark shadows across the sky. Cygnus is a trove of celestial treasures, notably the Veil , Crescent , and Pelican nebulae, as well as Cygnus X-1 , the first confirmed black hole . Cygnus continues to yield fresh science, including a new three-dimensional model of the Cygnus Loop made possible by the Chandra X-ray Observatory . f...

This telescopic close-up shows off the central regions of otherwise faint emission nebula IC 410, captured under backyard skies. Presented in a Hubble color palette, the image combines visible broadband and narrowband data with data from the near-infrared. Below and right of center are two remarkable inhabitants of the interstellar pond of gas and dust. the Tadpoles of IC 410. Partly obscured by foreground dust, the nebula itself surrounds NGC 1893, a young galactic cluster of stars. Formed in the interstellar cloud a mere 4 million years ago, the intensely hot, bright cluster stars energize the glowing gas. But the cosmic tadpoles themselves are composed of denser cooler gas and dust. Around 10 light-years long they are likely sites of ongoing star formation . Sculpted by stellar winds and radiation their heads are outlined by bright ridges of ionized gas while their tails trail away from the cluster's central young stars. IC 410 lies some 10,000 light-years away, toward th...

To see the feathered serpent descend the Mayan pyramid requires exquisite timing. You must visit El Castillo -- in Mexico 's Yucatán Peninsula -- near an equinox . Then, during the late afternoon if the sky is clear, the pyramid 's own shadows create triangles that merge into the famous illusion of a slithering viper . Also known as the Temple of Kukulkan , the impressive step-pyramid stands 30 meters tall and 55 meters wide at the base. Built up as a series of square terraces by the pre-Columbian civilization between the 9th and 12th century, the structure can be used as a calendar and is noted for astronomical alignments . The featured composite image was captured in 2019 with Jupiter and Saturn straddling the diagonal central band of our Milky Way galaxy . In a few days another equinox will occur -- not only at Temple of Kukulcán, but all over planet Earth . from NASA https://ift.tt/E2wnAdr

Want to visit a planet that has 3.14 days in a year? Then plan a trip to K2-315b, an earth-sized planet orbiting around a cool, red, M dwarf star about once every 3.14 days. The exoplanet's discovery , based on publicly available data from the planet-hunting Kepler Space Telescope's extended K2 mission, was announced in 2020. K2-315b's measured orbital period in days is nearly equal to the extremely popular irrational number Pi. That puts the exoplanet so close to its parent star that its surface is likely very warm, baking-hot in fact . And this Pi planet is over 185 light-years away. So instead of trying to arrange for an interstellar vacation to K2-315b, there may be easier and more comfortable ways for you to celebrate Pi day on planet Earth . from NASA https://ift.tt/uFCQ2Mn

In this composited night skyscape, stacked exposures trace graceful star trails above Lake Toolondo, Victoria, Australia, planet Earth. Captured while the lunar eclipse of March 3 was in progress , the exposures used were made during the hour-long total eclipse phase . So faint star trails are easily visible along with the trail of the reddened Moon in the eclipse-darkened skies above the lake and trees. Of course, the apparent motion of Moon and stars revealed in the timelapse composite reflect the Earth's daily rotation around its axis . Dramatically punctuating the Moon's trail as totality ended, a single, separate telephoto image of the totally eclipsed Moon was scaled and blended into the scene. from NASA https://ift.tt/AbQgh8n

Is this a cosmic monster ready to devour an unsuspecting galaxy? Thankfully, that is not the case. The red “monster” shown in the featured image is Cometary Globule CG 4 , 1,300 light-years away in the Constellation Puppis . CG 4 is a molecular cloud , where hydrogen becomes cold enough to form molecules that can be brought together by gravity to create stars . The shape of CG 4 resembles that of a comet , but its head is 1.5 light-year in diameter and its tail is 8 light-years long; for comparison, the distance from the Earth to the sun is only 8 light-minutes . Astronomers believe that the tail of a cometary globule could have been shaped by a nearby supernova explosion or by irradiation from hot, massive stars. Indeed, CG 4 and other nearby globules point away from the Vela Supernova Remnant , at the center of the Gum Nebula . The edge-on spiral galaxy , ESO 257-19, is more than a hundred million light-years beyond CG 4, and is completely safe from the “ monster ”. from NA...

Are lasers from giant telescopes being used to defend the Earth? No. Lasers shot from telescopes are now commonly used to help increase the accuracy of astronomical observations. In some directions, Earth atmosphere-induced fluctuations in starlight can indicate how the air mass over a telescope is changing, but in other directions, no bright star exists. In these directions, astronomers can create an artificial star with a laser . Subsequent observations of the artificial laser guide star can reveal information so detailed about the changing blurring effects of the Earth's atmosphere that much of it can be removed by rapidly flexing a telescope's mirror. Such adaptive optics techniques allow high-resolution ground-based observations of real star s, planets , and nebulas . Pictured here , telescopes at Paranal Observatory in Chile study a colorful sky filled with green airglow and the Magellanic Clouds on the left, red airglow on the right, and the majestic cent...

Yes, but can your tree do this? Pictured is a visual coincidence between the dark branches of a nearby tree and bright glow of a distant aurora. The beauty of the aurora -- combined with how it seemed to mimic a tree right nearby -- mesmerized the photographer to such a degree that he momentarily forgot to take pictures. When viewed at the right angle , it seemed that this tree had aurora for leaves. Fortunately, before the aurora morphed into a different overall shape , he came to his senses and captured the awe-inspiring momentary coincidence . Typically triggered by solar explosions , aurora are caused by high energy electrons impacting the Earth's atmosphere around 150 kilometers up. The unusual Earth-sky collaboration was witnessed in March of 2017 in Iceland . from NASA https://ift.tt/xXbMjfW

Centered on maximum eclipse, these two total lunar eclipse sequences look almost identical. Yet the one shown on top is composed of images recorded in February 2008, while at the bottom is the recent March 2026 total eclipse of the Moon. Why are they so similar? Because these two total lunar eclipses are from the same Saros cycle. The Saros cycle was discovered historically from observations of the Moon's orbit. With a period of 18 years, 11 and 1/3 days, the cycle predicts when the Sun, Earth, and Moon all return to the same relative geometry for a lunar ( or solar ) eclipse. Eclipses separated by one Saros period belong to the same numbered Saros series, in this case Saros 133. So expect the next lunar eclipse in Saros 133 to be a repeat of this year's March 3 eclipse. You can watch the next Saros 133 total lunar eclipse on March 13, 2044 . from NASA https://ift.tt/r0nNI4G

Do young stars blow bubbles? The larger view shows a stellar field observed with the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile, and the inset highlights HD 61005 , a star like our Sun , only 120 light-years away. Much younger than the Sun, at just about 100 million years old, it blows a fast and dense stellar wind that pushes out the cooler dust and gas that surrounds it, forming a bubble called an astrosphere . The star-blown bubble was detected with the Chandra X-ray Observatory , and it has a diameter roughly 200 times the Earth-Sun distance . Our Sun has a bubble too, called the heliosphere , which protects the planets from cosmic radiation . Also shown in the inset is debris left behind from star formation, observed by Hubble . The debris appears as wings , giving the star its nickname: the Moth . from NASA https://ift.tt/b5vghaU

Earlier this week, Earth’s shadow swept across the full Moon in the year’s only total lunar eclipse . This stunning sequence combines images showing the Moon’s path across the night sky. Each lunar image captures our planet’s shadow gradually engulfing the Moon, culminating in its red glow. Sunlight scatters and refracts as it passes through Earth’s atmosphere toward the Moon. Shorter wavelength light (blue and green) scatters more efficiently , leaving red, orange, and yellow hues to paint the lunar surface. Tsé Bit'a'í (”rock with wings”, also known as Shiprock), located in Navajo Nation , provides a powerful volcanic foreground central to this photo and to stories of Navajo origin, adventure, and heroism . As the first full moon of the lunar new year , this eclipse held significance across cultures. Visible from East Asia to North America , this eclipse united observers across great distances, a cosmic reminder that we share the same sky. from NASA https://ift.tt/hjK...

What’s looking back at you isn’t a cosmic eye, but Shapley 1 , a beautifully symmetric planetary nebula . Shapley 1, also known as the Fine Ring Nebula or PLN 329+2.1 , bejewels the southern sky constellation of the Carpenter's Square ( Norma ). The nebula is the result of a star near the mass of our Sun running out of fuel and shedding its outer layers . Glowing oxygen from those expelled layers makes up the circular halo. The bright central point is actually a binary: a white dwarf , the remaining stellar core after the outer layers are expelled into space, and another star, orbiting each other every 2.9 days. Shapley 1’s annular shape is due to our top-down view of the system and provides insight into the influence of central stars on planetary nebula structures . from NASA https://ift.tt/vDaNb8X

How well do you know the night sky? OK, but how well can you identify famous sky objects in a very deep image? Either way, here is a test: see if you can find some well-known night-sky icons in a deep image filled with filaments of normally faint dust and gas. This image contains the Pleiades star cluster , Barnard's Loop , Orion Nebula , Aldebaran , Betelgeuse , Witch Head Nebula , Eridanus Loop , and the California Nebula . To find their real locations, here is an annotated image version . The reason this task might be difficult is similar to the reason it is initially hard to identify familiar constellations in a very dark sky : the tapestry of our night sky has an extremely deep hidden complexity . The featured composite reveals some of this complexity in a 16 hours of sky exposure in dark skies over Granada , Spain . from NASA https://ift.tt/d0wK8Hx

Fans of the western sky after sunset have lately enjoyed this month's remarkable array of bright planets. Witnessed from some locations, on February 18 planet Mercury even appeared to slide behind the Moon, an event known as a lunar occultation. These two snapshots, taken in early evening skies show before and after telescopic views of the rare disappearance of innermost planet behind young Moon. The top panel finds bright Mercury just visible at the northern (right) edge of the earthshine-illuminated lunar disk. In the bottom panel the bright planet has emerged in darker skies beyond the Moon's sunlit crescent. As seen south of Sallisaw, Oklahoma, planet Earth, this lunar occultation of Mercury lasted only about 3 minutes ( video ). But you can still check out a parade of planets tonight . from NASA https://ift.tt/Mkel3r9

Normally faint and elusive, the Jellyfish Nebula is caught in this alluring telescopic field of view . Floating in the interstellar sea, the nebula is anchored right and left by two bright stars, Mu and Eta Geminorum, at the foot of the celestial twins . The Jellyfish Nebula itself is right of center, seen as a brighter arcing ridge of emission with dangling tentacles. In fact, this cosmic jellyfish is part of bubble-shaped supernova remnant IC 443 , the expanding debris cloud from a massive star that exploded . Light from the explosion first reached planet Earth over 30,000 years ago. Like its cousin in astrophysical waters the Crab Nebula supernova remnant, the Jellyfish Nebula is known to harbor a neutron star, the ultradense remnant of the collapsed stellar core. An emission nebula cataloged as Sharpless 249 fills the field at the upper left. The Jellyfish Nebula is about 5,000 light-years away. At that distance, this image would be about 300 light-years across. from NASA...

What does the universe look like through infrared goggles ? Our eyes can only see visible light , but astronomers want to see more. Today’s APOD shows spiral galaxy IC 5332 as seen by two NASA telescopes: Webb in mid- infrared and Hubble in ultraviolet and visible light. To toggle between the two space-based views just slide your cursor over the image (or follow this link ). The Hubble image highlights the spiral arms of the galaxy separated by dark regions, whereas the Webb image reveals a finer, more tangled structure. Interstellar dust scatters and absorbs light from the stars in the galaxy, causing the dark dust lanes in the Hubble image, and then emits heat in infrared light, so dust glows in this Webb image. The Mid-InfraRed Instrument on Webb needs to operate at a chilling temperature of -266ºC (or - 447ºF), otherwise it would detect infrared radiation from the telescope itself. Combining these observations, astronomers connect the “small scale” of gas and stars t...

Ever wonder what it would look like to crack open the Sun? The Egg Nebula , a dying Sun-like star , can unscramble this question. Pictured is a combination of several visible and infrared images of the nebula (also known as RAFGL 2688 or CRL 2688 ) taken with the Hubble Space Telescope . The star has shed its outer layers, and a bright, hot core (or "yolk") now illuminates the milky "egg white" shells of gas and dust surrounding the center. The central lobes and rings are structures of gas and dust recently ejected into space, with the dust being dense enough to block our view of the stellar core . Light beams emanate from that blocked core , escaping through holes carved in the older ejected material by newer, faster jets expelled from the star’s poles . Astronomers are still trying to figure out what causes the disks, lobes, and jets during this short (only a few thousand years!) phase of the star’s evolution , making this an egg-cellent image to study! ...

Look up this week and see a whole bunch of planets. Just after sunset, looking west (mostly), planets Mercury , Venus , Saturn , and Jupiter will all be visible to the unaided eye simultaneously. If you have a telescope, planets Uranus and Neptune can also be seen. In order up from the horizon, the lineup this week will be Venus (the brightest), Mercury , Saturn , Neptune, Uranus, and Jupiter (second brightest). It doesn't matter where on Earth you live because this early evening planet parade will be visible through clear skies all around the globe. The planets will appear to be nearly in a line because they all orbit the Sun in nearly the same plane: the ecliptic . The featured image shows a similar planet parade that occurred in 2022, captured over the Sydney Opera House in southern Australia . Although visible all week , the planets will be most easily seen together this weekend. from NASA https://ift.tt/A05tO4Q

Have you ever seen the Pleiades star cluster? Even if you have, you probably have never seen it as large and clear as this. Perhaps the most famous star cluster on the sky, the bright stars of the Pleiades can be seen with the unaided eye even from the depths of a light-polluted city . With a long exposure from a dark location, though, the dust cloud surrounding the Pleiades star cluster becomes very evident. The featured 18-hour exposure , taken from Bory Tucholskie , Poland covers a sky area several times the size of the full moon . Also known as the Seven Sisters and M45 , the Pleiades lies about 400 light years away toward the constellation of the Bull ( Taurus ). A common legend with a modern twist is that one of the brighter stars faded since the cluster was named, leaving only six of the sister stars visible to the unaided eye. The actual number of Pleiades stars visible, however, may be more or less than seven, depending on the darkness of the surrounding sky and t...

What if you saw your shadow on Mars and it wasn't human ? Then you might be the Opportunity rover exploring Mars. Opportunity explored the Red Planet from 2004 to 2018, finding evidence of ancient water , and sending breathtaking images across the inner Solar System . Pictured here in 2004, Opportunity looks opposite the Sun into Endurance Crater and sees its own shadow . Two wheels are visible on the lower left and right, while the floor and walls of the unusual crater are visible in the background. Caught in a dust storm in 2018 , Opportunity stopped responding, and NASA stopped trying to contact it in 2019 and declared the ground-breaking mission , originally planned for only 92 days, complete . from NASA https://ift.tt/KgYbCZ0

Only two days after the February New Moon's annular eclipse of the Sun, a slender lunar crescent poses above the western horizon after sunset in this wintry twilight skyscape. Its nightside faintly illuminated by earthshine, the young Moon is joined by three bright planets in the mostly clear, early evening skies above the village of Kirazli, Turkiye. Inner planet Venus appears closest to the horizon. Near the beginning of its 2026 performance as planet Earth's evening star, brilliant Venus is seen through the warm sunset glare near picture center. Straight above Venus, innermost planet Mercury is easy to spot as it stands remarkably high above the horizon even as the twilight sky is growing dark. Outer planet Saturn , most distant of the naked-eye planets, is found just left of the Moon's sunlit crescent. from NASA https://ift.tt/rVQ48mX

"A ghost in the Milky Way…” says Christian Bertincourt, the astrophotographer behind this striking image of Barnard 93 (B93). The 93rd entry in Barnard’s Catalogue of Dark Nebula e, B93 lies within the Small Sagittarius Star Cloud ( Messier 24 ), where its darkness stands in stark contrast to bright stars and gas in the background. In some ways, B93 is really like a ghost , because it contains gas and dust that was dispersed by the deaths of stars , like supernovas . B93 appears as a dark void not because it is empty, but because its dust blocks the light emitted by more distant stars and glowing gas. Like other dark nebulas, some gas from B93 , if dense and massive enough, will eventually gravitationally condense to form new stars . If so, then once these stars ignite , B93 will transform from a dark ghost into a brilliant cradle of newborn stars. from NASA https://ift.tt/mOSVjbG

Grand spiral galaxies often seem to get all the glory, flaunting their young, bright, blue star clusters in beautiful, symmetric spiral arms. But small, irregular galaxies form stars too. In fact, dwarf galaxy IC 2574 shows clear evidence of intense star forming activity in its telltale reddish regions of glowing hydrogen gas. Just as in spiral galaxies, the turbulent star-forming regions in IC 2574 are churned by stellar winds and supernova explosions spewing material into the galaxy's interstellar medium and triggering further star formation. A mere 12 million light-years distant, IC 2574 is part of the M81 group of galaxies, seen toward the northern constellation Ursa Major. Also known as Coddington's Nebula, the faint but intriguing island universe is about 50,000 light-years across, discovered by American astronomer Edwin Coddington in 1898. from NASA https://ift.tt/udcMthG

Cradled in red-glowing hydrogen gas, stars are being born in Orion. These stellar nurseries lie at the edge of the giant Orion molecular cloud complex , some 1,500 light-years away. This detailed view spans about 12 degrees across the center of the well-known constellation, with the Great Orion Nebula , the closest large star -forming region, visible toward the lower right. The deep mosaic also includes, near the top center, the Flame Nebula and the Horsehead Nebula . Image data acquired with a hydrogen-alpha filter adds other remarkable features to this wide-angle cosmic vista: pervasive tendrils of energized atomic hydrogen gas and portions of the surrounding Barnard's Loop . While the Orion Nebula and many stars in Orion are easy to see with the unaided eye, emission from the extensive interstellar gas is faint and much harder to record , even in telescopic views of the nebula-rich complex. from NASA https://ift.tt/PBA0YeI

Some comets are regular guests of our solar neighborhood; others come by only once, never to return. We won’t have another chance to see Comet C/2024 E1 (Wierzchoś ), which is currently making its way through the inner Solar System . The hyperbolic orbit of this comet indicates that it will likely become an interstellar traveler. Comet Wierzchoś is today near its closest approach to the Earth, passing roughly the same distance from the Earth as is the Sun . The featured 30-minute exposure was taken last week in Chile and shows a 5-degree long ion tail as well as three shorter dust tails . The green hue of the coma comes from the breakdown of dicarbon molecules by sunlight, but that process does not last long enough to also tinge the tails . On the far right lies a spiral galaxy far in the distance: NGC 300 . from NASA https://ift.tt/aXiwNK5

How is RXJ0528+2838 creating such shock waves? A recently discovered white dwarf star , the farther left of the two largest white spots, RXJ0528+2838 , was found 730 light-years away from Earth . Most stars, when done fusing nuclei in their cores for energy, become red giant stars, the cores of which live on as faint dense white dwarfs that slowly cool down for the rest of time. White dwarfs are so dense that the only thing that stops them from collapsing further is quantum mechanics . In about 5 billion years, our Sun will become a white dwarf , too. The featured image , obtained with the European Southern Observatory ’s Very Large Telescope , shows unexplained bow shocks around RXJ0528+2838, similar to the bow wave of water around a fast-moving ship. Astronomers don’t yet know what is powering these shocks , which have existed for at least 1,000 years. The red, green and blue colors represent trace amounts of glowing hydrogen , nitrogen and oxygen gas. from NASA https:/...

What would it be like to fly free in space? About 100 meters from the cargo bay of a space shuttle , Bruce McCandless II was living the dream -- floating farther out than anyone had ever been before. Guided by a Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU), astronaut McCandless, pictured , was floating free in space. During Space Shuttle mission 41-B in 1984, McCandless and fellow NASA astronaut Robert Stewart were the first to experience such an "un tether ed space walk ". The MMU worked by shooting jets of nitrogen and was used to help deploy and retrieve satellites . With a mass over 140 kilograms, an MMU is heavy on Earth , but, like everything, is weightless when drifting in orbit. The MMU was later replaced with the SAFER backpack propulsion unit. from NASA https://ift.tt/VwlHUOY

Roses are red, nebulas are too, and this Valentine's gift is a stunning view! Pictured is a loving look at the Rosette Nebula ( NGC 2237 ): a cosmic bloom of bright young stars sitting atop a stem of glowing hot gas. The rose’s blue-white speckles are among the most luminous stars in the galaxy , with some burning millions of times brighter than the Sun. Their stellar winds sculpt the famed rose shape by pushing gas and dust away from the center. Though only a few million years old, these massive stars are already nearing the end of their lives , while dimmer stars embedded in the nebula will burn for billions of years to come. The vibrant red hue comes from hydrogen gas , ionized by the ultraviolet light from the young stars . The rose’s blue-white center is color-mapped to indicate the presence of similarly ionized oxygen. The Rosette Nebula reminds us of the beauty and transformation woven into the fabric of the universe. from NASA https://ift.tt/Uo6k2uy

Dwarf galaxies NGC 147 (left) and NGC 185 stand side by side in this deep telescopic portrait. The two are not-often-imaged satellite galaxies of M31, the great spiral Andromeda Galaxy , some 2.5 million light-years away. Their separation on the sky, less than one degree across a pretty field of view toward the constellation Cassiopeia, translates to only about 35 thousand light-years at Andromeda's distance, but Andromeda itself is found well outside this frame. Brighter and more famous satellite galaxies of Andromeda, M32 and M110 , are seen much closer to the great spiral. NGC 147 and NGC 185 have been identified as binary galaxies, forming a gravitationally stable binary system. But recently discovered faint dwarf galaxy Cassiopeia II also seems to be part of their system, forming a gravitationally bound group within Andromeda's intriguing population of small satellite galaxies . from NASA https://ift.tt/HqDghxO

Dark, smooth regions that cover the Moon's familiar face are called by Latin names for oceans and seas. That naming convention is historical , though it may seem a little ironic to denizens of the space age who recognize the Moon as a mostly dry and airless world, and the smooth, dark areas as lava-flooded impact basins. For example, this telescopic lunar vista, looks over the expanse of the northwestern Mare Imbrium, or Sea of Rains and into the Sinus Iridum, the Bay of Rainbows . Ringed by the Jura Mountains (montes) , the bay is about 250 kilometers across. Seen after local sunrise, the mountains form part of the Sinus Iridum impact crater wall. Their rugged sunlit arc is bounded at the top by Cape (promontorium) Laplace reaching nearly 3,000 meters above the bay's surface. At the bottom of the arc is Cape Heraclides, depicted by Giovanni Cassini in his 1679 telescope-based drawings mapping the moon as a moon maiden seen in profile with long, flowing hair . from NAS...

How many sunspots can you see? The central image shows the many sunspots that occurred in 2025, month by month around the circle, and all together in the grand central image. Each sunspot is magnetically cooled and so appears dark -- and can last from days to months. Although the featured images originated from NASA 's Solar Dynamics Observatory , sunspots can be easily seen with a small telescope or binoculars equipped with a solar filter . Very large sunspot groups like recent AR 4366 can even be seen with eclipse glasses . Sunspots are still counted by eye , but the total number is not considered exact because they frequently change and break up . Last year, 2025, coincided with a solar maximum , the period of most intense magnetic activity during its 11-year solar cycle . Our Sun remains unpredictable in many ways, including when it ejects solar flare s that will impact the Earth , and how active the next solar cycle will be. from NASA https://ift.tt/NUJc0gV

Raise your arms if you see an aurora. With those instructions, two nights went by with, well, clouds -- mostly. On the third night of returning to same peaks, though, the sky not only cleared up but lit up with a spectacular auroral display . Arms went high in the air, patience and experience paid off , and the creative featured image was captured as a composite from three separate exposures. The setting is a summit of the Austnesfjorden (a fjord ) close to the town of Svolvear on the Lofoten islands in northern Norway . The year was 2014. This year, our Sun is just passing solar maximum , the peak in its 11-year surface activity cycle . As expected, some spectacular auroras have recently resulted . from NASA https://ift.tt/oLfR8cW

What is Miranda really like? Visually, old image s from NASA's Voyager 2 have been recently combined and remastered to result in the featured image of Uranus 's 500-kilometer-wide moon. In the late 1980s, Voyager 2 flew by Uranus , coming close to the cratered, fractured, and unusually grooved moon -- named after a character from Shakespeare ’s The Tempest . Scientifically, planetary scientists are using old data and clear images to theorize anew about what shaped Miranda's severe surface features. A leading hypothesis is that Miranda , beneath its icy surface, may have once hosted an expansive liquid water ocean which may be slowly freezing. Thanks to the legacy of Voyager 2, Miranda has joined the ranks of Europa , Titan , and other icy moons in the search for water, and, possibly, microbial life , in our Solar System . from NASA https://ift.tt/2QYXUMz

An unusually active sunspot region is now crossing the Sun. The region, labelled AR 4366 , is much larger than the Earth and has produced several powerful solar flare s over the past ten days. In the featured image, the region is marked by large and dark sunspots toward the upper right of the Sun's disk. The image captured the Sun over a hill in Zacatecas , Mexico , 5 days ago. AR 4366 has become a candidate for the most active solar region in this entire 11-year solar cycle . Active solar regions are frequently associated with increased auroral activity on the Earth . Now reaching the edge, AR 4366 will begin facing away from the Earth during the coming week. It is not known , though, if the active region will survive long enough to reappear in about two weeks' time, as the Sun rotates . from NASA https://ift.tt/cipr0KB

Peering from the shadows, the Saturn-facing hemisphere of tantalizing inner moon Enceladus poses in this Cassini spacecraft image. North is up in the dramatic scene captured during November 2016 as Cassini's camera was pointed in a nearly sunward direction about 130,000 kilometers from the moon's bright crescent. In fact, the distant world reflects over 90 percent of the sunlight it receives, giving its surface about the same reflectivity as fresh snow . A mere 500 kilometers in diameter, Enceladus is a surprisingly active moon. Data and images collected during Cassini's flybys have revealed water vapor and ice grains spewing from south polar geysers and evidence of an ocean of liquid water hidden beneath the moon's icy crust. from NASA https://ift.tt/bRvlciT

Massive stars in our Milky Way Galaxy live spectacular lives. Collapsing from vast cosmic clouds, their nuclear furnaces ignite and create heavy elements in their cores. After only a few million years for the most massive stars, the enriched material is blasted back into interstellar space where star formation can begin anew. The expanding debris cloud known as Cassiopeia A is an example of this final phase of the stellar life cycle . Light from the supernova explosion that created this remnant would have been first seen in planet Earth's sky about 350 years ago, although it took that light 11,000 years to reach us. This sharp NIRCam image from the James Webb Space Telescope shows the still-hot filaments and knots in the supernova remnant. The whitish, smoke-like outer shell of the expanding blast wave is about 20 light-years across. A series of light echoes from the massive star's cataclysmic explosion are also identified in Webb's detailed images of the surrounding ...

Active galaxy NGC 1275 is the central, dominant member of the large and relatively nearby Perseus Cluster of Galaxies . Wild-looking at visible wavelengths, the active galaxy is also a prodigious source of x-rays and radio emission. NGC 1275 accretes matter as entire galaxies fall into it, ultimately feeding a supermassive black hole at the galaxy's core. Narrowband image data used in this sharp telescopic image highlights the resulting galactic debris and filaments of glowing gas, some up to 20,000 light-years long. The filaments persist in NGC 1275, even though the turmoil of galactic collisions should destroy them. What keeps the filaments together? Observations indicate that the structures, pushed out from the galaxy's center by the black hole's activity, are held together by magnetic fields. Also known as Perseus A, NGC 1275 itself spans over 100,000 light years and lies about 230 million light years away. from NASA https://ift.tt/u3YPeCQ

Most galaxies don't have any rings -- why does this galaxy have three? To begin, a ring that's near NGC 1512 's center -- and so hard to see here -- is the nuclear ring which glows brightly with recently formed stars . Next out is a ring of stars and dust appearing both red and blue, called, counter-intuitively , the inner ring. This inner ring connects ends of a diffuse central bar of stars that runs horizontally across the galaxy. Farthest out in this wide field image is a ragged structure that might be considered an outer ring. This outer ring appears spiral-like and is dotted with clusters of bright blue stars. All these ring structures are thought to be affected by NGC 1512 's own gravitational asymmetries in a drawn-out process called secular evolution . The featured image was captured last month from a telescope at Deep Sky Chile in Chile . from NASA https://ift.tt/4JHkcGm

Oh what a tangled web a planetary nebula can weave. The Red Spider Planetary Nebula shows the complex structure that can result when a normal star ejects its outer gases and becomes a white dwarf star. Officially tagged NGC 6537 , this two-lobed symmetric planetary nebula houses one of the hottest white dwarfs ever observed, probably as part of a binary star system. Internal winds flowing out from the central stars, have been measured in excess of 1,000 kilometers per second. These winds expand the nebula, flow along the nebula's walls, and cause waves of hot gas and dust to collide. Atoms caught in these colliding shocks radiate light shown in the featured false-color infrared picture by the James Webb Space Telescope . The Red Spider Nebula lies toward the constellation of the Archer ( Sagittarius ). Its distance is not well known but has been estimated by some to be about 4,000 light-years . from NASA https://ift.tt/3ERPyIu

What part of Orion is this? Just north of the famous Orion Nebula is a picturesque star forming region in Orion's Sword that contains a lot of intricate dust -- some of which appears blue because it reflects the light of bright embedded stars . The region's popular name is the Running Man Nebula because, looked at from the right, part of the brown dust appears to be running legs. Cataloged as Sharpless 279 , the reflection nebula is not only part of the constellation of Orion , but part of the greater Orion molecular cloud complex . Light from the Running Man's bright stars, including 42 Orionis , the bright star closest to the featured image center, is slowly destroying and reshaping the surrounding dust, which will likely be completely gone in about 10 million years. The nebula spans about 15 light years and lies about 1,500 light years away. from NASA https://ift.tt/5rbxJAs

Mars has put on a happy face. The Martian crater Galle is famous because it has internal markings that make it look like a face that is both smiling and winking. These markings were originally discovered in the 1970s in pictures taken by the Viking Orbiter. The Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) spacecraft that orbited Mars from 1996 to 2006 captured the featured picture . Happy Face Crater and its iconic features were formed by chance billions of years ago when a city-sized asteroid slammed into the Martian surface. All rocky planets and moons in our Solar System show impact craters , with the highest number of craters found on Earth's Moon and the planet Mercury . Earth and Venus would show the most, though, were it not for weather and erosion . from NASA https://ift.tt/jikvqz7

On flight day 13 (November 28, 2022) of the Artemis 1 mission, the Orion spacecraft reached its maximum distance from Earth. At over 430,000 kilometers from Earth, its distant retrograde orbit also puts Orion nearly 70,000 kilometers from the Moon. In the same field of view in this video frame from flight day 13, planet and large natural satellite even appear about the same apparent size from the spacecraft's perspective. On flight day 26 (December 11, 2022), the uncrewed spacecraft splashed down on its home world concluding the historic Artemis I mission. The Artemis II mission , carrying 4 astronauts around the moon and back again, will launch no earlier than February 8. from NASA https://ift.tt/iE4q8vj

NGC 1333 is seen in visible light as a reflection nebula , dominated by bluish hues characteristic of starlight reflected by interstellar dust. A mere 1,000 light-years distant toward the heroic constellation Perseus , it lies at the edge of a large, star-forming molecular cloud . This telescopic close-up spans over two full moons on the sky or just over 15 light-years at the estimated distance of NGC 1333. It shows details of the dusty region along with telltale hints of contrasty red emission from Herbig-Haro objects, jets and shocked glowing gas emanating from recently formed stars. In fact, NGC 1333 contains hundreds of stars less than a million years old, most still hidden from optical telescopes by the pervasive stardust . The chaotic environment may be similar to one in which our own Sun formed over 4.5 billion years ago. from NASA https://ift.tt/b2Z7j3P

Distorted galaxy NGC 2442 can be found in the southern constellation of the flying fish, (Piscis) Volans . Located about 50 million light-years away, the galaxy's two spiral arms extending from a pronounced central bar give it a hook-shaped appearance in this deep and colorful image, with foreground stars scattered across the telescopic field of view. The image also reveals the distant galaxy's obscuring dust lanes, young blue star clusters and reddish star forming regions surrounding a core of yellowish light from an older population of stars. But the star forming regions seem more concentrated along the drawn-out (upper right) spiral arm. The distorted structure is likely the result of an ancient close encounter with a smaller galaxy that lies off top left of the frame. This telescopic field of view spans over 200,000 light-years at the estimated distance of NGC 2442. from NASA https://ift.tt/52YZxJv

In the vast Orion Molecular Cloud complex, several bright blue nebulas are particularly apparent. Pictured here in the center are two of the most prominent reflection nebulas - dust clouds lit by the reflecting light of bright embedded stars . The more famous nebula is M78 , in the image center, cataloged over 200 years ago. To its upper left is the lesser known NGC 2071 . Astronomers continue to study these reflection nebulas to better understand how interior stars form. The overall red glow is from diffuse hydrogen gas that covers much of the Orion complex that spans much of the constellation of Orion . Nearby in the greater complex , which lies about 1,500 light year s away, are the Orion Nebula , the Horsehead Nebula , and Barnard's Loop -- partially seen here as the white band on the upper left. from NASA https://ift.tt/jXFyVuc

Rising over a frozen valley in the Tatra Mountains , the familiar stars and nebulas of Orion dominate this wide-field nightscape. The featured deep photo was taken in southern Poland 's highest mountain range last month, where dark skies and alpine terrain combined to reveal both Earth's rugged beauty and the structure of our galaxy . Above the snowy mountains, Orion's bright belt stars anchor a region of glowing interstellar clouds. The Great Orion Nebula , a vast stellar nursery visible even to the unaided eye, shines near the center of the scene. Surrounding it is the enormous arc of Barnard's Loop , a faint shell of ionized hydrogen gas spanning much of the constellation . To the left, the round Rosette Nebula glows softly, while the grayish Witch Head Nebula hovers to the right, illuminated by nearby starlight. Near the top, the orange supergiant Betelgeuse marks the hunter's shoulder. from NASA https://ift.tt/JF0KdBc

Can you see nebulas in other galaxies? Yes, some nebulas shine brightly enough -- if you know how to look. Clouds of hydrogen and oxygen emit light at very specific colors, and by isolating them, astronomers and astrophotographers can reveal structures that would otherwise be too faint to notice. This deep, 50-hour exposure highlights glowing hydrogen (red) and oxygen (blue) across galaxy NGC 55 , viewed nearly edge-on . Also known as the String of Pearls Galaxy, NGC 55 is often compared to our Milky Way 's satellite galaxy the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), although NGC 55 lies much farther away at about 6.5 million light-years . The resulting image uncovers a sprinkling of emission nebula s within and sometimes above the galaxy's dusty disk , offering a detailed look at distant star -forming regions. from NASA https://ift.tt/jyUJ7ZW