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Galaxies of the Virgo Cluster are scattered across this nearly 4 degree wide telescopic field of view. About 50 million light-years distant, the Virgo Cluster is the closest large galaxy cluster to our own local galaxy group. Prominent here are Virgo's bright elliptical galaxies from the Messier catalog , M87 at bottom left, and M86 and M84 near center right. M86 and M84 are recognized as part of Markarian's Chain , the visually striking line-up of galaxies on the that runs through the upper portion of this frame. Near the middle of the chain lies an intriguing interacting pair of galaxies, NGC 4438 and NGC 4435, known to some as Markarian's Eyes . Still, giant elliptical galaxy M87 dominates the Virgo cluster. It's the home of a super massive black hole, the first black hole ever imaged by planet Earth's Event Horizon Telescope . from NASA https://ift.tt/KLdsjHg

What created the unusual halo around the Cat's Eye Nebula? No one is sure. What is sure is that the Cat's Eye Nebula (NGC 6543) is one of the best known planetary nebulae on the sky. Although haunting symmetries are seen in the bright central region , this image was taken to feature its intricately structured outer halo, which spans over three light-years across. Planetary nebulae have long been appreciated as a final phase in the life of a Sun-like star. Only recently however, have some planetaries been found to have expansive halos , likely formed from material shrugged off during earlier puzzling episodes in the star's evolution . While the planetary nebula phase is thought to last for around 10,000 years, astronomers estimate the age of the outer filamentary portions of the Cat's Eye Nebula 's halo to be 50,000 to 90,000 years. from NASA https://ift.tt/10oB8uE

What happens when a star runs out of nuclear fuel ? For stars like our Sun , the center condenses into a white dwarf while the outer atmosphere is expelled into space to appear as a planetary nebula . The expelled outer atmosphere of planetary nebula NGC 1514 appears to be a jumble of bubbles -- when seen in visible light . But the view from the James Webb Space Telescope in infrared , as featured here , confirms a different story: in this light the nebula shows a distinct hourglass shape , which is interpreted as a cylinder seen along a diagonal. If you look closely at the center of the nebula, you can also see a bright central star that is part of a binary system . More observations might better reveal how this nebula is evolving and how the central stars are working together to produce the interesting cylinder and bubbles observed. from NASA https://ift.tt/SpYFc4e

What's happening at the center of our galaxy? It's hard to tell with optical telescopes since visible light is blocked by intervening interstellar dust. In other bands of light, though, such as radio , the galactic center can be imaged and shows itself to be quite an interesting and active place . The featured picture shows an image of our Milky Way's center by the MeerKAT array of 64 radio dishes in South Africa . Spanning four times the angular size of the Moon (2 degrees ), the image is impressively vast, deep, and detailed. Many known sources are shown in clear detail, including many with a prefix of Sgr, since the galactic center is in the direction of the constellation Sagittarius . In our galaxy's center lies Sgr A , found here in the image center, which houses the Milky Way's central supermassive black hole . Other sources in the image are not as well understood, including the Arc , just to the left of Sgr A , and numerous filamentary threads. The in...

What created this unusual hole in Mars? Actually, there are numerous holes pictured in this Swiss cheese-like landscape , with all-but-one of them showing a dusty, dark, Martian terrain beneath evaporating, light, carbon dioxide ice . The most unusual hole is on the upper right, spans about 100 meters, and seems to punch through to a lower level. Why this hole exists and why it is surrounded by a circular crater remains a topic of speculation , although a leading hypothesis is that it was created by a meteor impact. Holes such as this are of particular interest because they might be portals to lower levels that extend into expansive underground caves . If so, these naturally occurring tunnels are relatively protected from the harsh surface of Mars, making them relatively good candidates to contain Martian life . These pits are therefore also prime targets for possible future spacecraft, robots , and even human interplanetary explorers . from NASA https://ift.tt/cMlRrLg

Most of us watch the Moon at night. But the Moon spends nearly as many daylight hours above our horizon, though in bright daytime skies the lunar disk looks pale and can be a little harder to see. Of course in daytime skies the Moon also appears to cycle through its phases , shining by reflected sunlight as it orbits our fair planet. For daytime moonwatchers, the Moon is probably easier to spot when the visible sunlit portion of the lunar disk is large and waxing following first quarter or waning approaching its third quarter phase. And though it might look unusual, a daytime moon is often seen even in urban skies. Captured here in a telephoto snapshot taken on March 12, a waxing daytime Moon is aligned near the edge of a popular observation deck that overlooks New York City's borough of Manahattan. from NASA https://ift.tt/P10dJVT

Made with a telescope shaded from bright sunlight by an umbrella, on April 5 a well-planned video captured a crescent Venus shining in clear daytime skies from Shoreline, Washington, USA at 11:57AM Pacific Time. It also caught the International Space Station in this single video frame . In close conjunction with the bright planet, the faint outline of the orbital outpost seen at a range of about 400 kilometers appears to be similar in size to the slender planetary crescent. Of course the ISS is much smaller than Venus. Now appearing as planet Earth's brilliant morning star and climbing above the eastern horizon in predawn skies, inner planet Venus was nearly 45 million kilometers from Shoreline. from NASA https://ift.tt/f4LnqVG

From a garden on planet Earth, 38 hours of exposure with a camera and small telescope produced this cosmic photo of the M81 galaxy group. In fact, the group's dominant galaxy M81 is near the center of the frame sporting grand spiral arms and a bright yellow core. Also known as Bode's galaxy, M81 itself spans some 100,000 light-years. Near the top is cigar-shaped irregular galaxy M82 . The pair have been locked in gravitational combat for a billion years. Gravity from each galaxy has profoundly affected the other during a series of cosmic close encounters. Their last go-round lasted about 100 million years and likely raised density waves rippling around M81, resulting in massive star forming regions arrayed along M81 's spiral arms. M82 was left with violent star forming regions too, and colliding gas clouds so energetic that the galaxy glows in X-rays . In the next few billion years, their continuing gravitational encounters will result in a merger, and a single galaxy ...

What's at the tip of this interstellar jet? First let's consider the jet: it is being expelled by a star system just forming and is cataloged as Herbig-Haro 49 (HH 49). The star system expelling this jet is not visible -- it is off to the lower right. The complex conical structure featured in this infrared image by the James Webb Space Telescope also includes another jet cataloged as HH 50. The fast jet particles impact the surrounding interstellar gas and form shock waves that glow prominently in infrared light -- shown here as reddish-brown ridges. This JWST image also resolved the mystery of the unusual object at HH 49 's tip: it is a spiral galaxy far in the distance. The blue center is therefore not one star but many, and the surrounding circular rings are actually spiral arm s. from NASA https://ift.tt/gWS4hH3

Sometimes, the Moon visits the Pleiades. Technically, this means that the orbit of our Moon takes it directly in front of the famous Pleiades star cluster , which is far in the distance. The technical term for the event is an occultation , and the Moon is famous for its rare occultations of all planets and several well-known bright star s. The Moon's tilted and precessing orbit makes its occultations of the Seven Sisters star cluster bunchy, with the current epoch starting in 2023 continuing monthly until 2029. After that, though, the next occultation won't occur until 2042. Taken from Cantabria , Spain on April 1, the featured image is a composite where previous exposures of the Pleiades from the same camera and location were digitally added to the last image to bring up the star cluster's iconic blue glow . from NASA https://ift.tt/C9TIxhW

How much mass do flocculent spirals hide? The featured image of flocculent spiral galaxy NGC 4414 was taken with the Hubble Space Telescope to help answer this question. Flocculent spirals -- galaxies without well-defined spiral arms -- are a quite common form of galaxy, and NGC 4414 is one of the closest. Stars and gas near the visible edge of spiral galaxies orbit the center so fast that the gravity from a large amount of unseen dark matter must be present to hold them together. Understanding the matter and dark matter distribution of NGC 4414 helps humanity calibrate the rest of the galaxy and, by deduction, flocculent spirals in general. Further, calibrating the distance to NGC 4414 helps humanity calibrate the cosmological distance scale of the entire visible universe . from NASA https://ift.tt/jFZcgfN

Why are there so many moonquakes? Analyses of seismometers left on the moon during the Apollo moon landings reveal a surprising number of moonquake s occurring within 100 kilometers of the surface. In fact, 62 moonquakes were detected in data recorded between 1972 and 1977. Many of these moonquakes are not only strong enough to move furniture in a lunar apartment , but the stiff rock of the moon continues to vibrate for many minutes, significantly longer than the softer rock earthquakes on Earth . The cause of the moonquakes remains unknown, but a leading hypothesis include tidal gravity from -- and relative heating by -- our Earth. Regardless of the source, future moon dwellings need to be built to withstand the frequent shakings. Pictured here , Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin stands beside a recently deployed lunar seismometer , looking back toward the lunar landing module . from NASA https://ift.tt/AekENlT

In dramatic silhouette against a cloudy daytime sky over Paris, France, gargoyles cast their monstrous gaze outward from the west facade of Notre Dame Cathedral. Taken on March 29 , this telephoto snapshot also captures the dramatic silhouette of a New Moon against the bright solar disk in a partial solar eclipse. Happening high in Parisian skies, the partial eclipse was close to its maximum phase of about 23 percent. Occurring near the end of the first eclipse season of 2025, this partial solar eclipse followed the total eclipse of the Full Moon on March 13/14. The upcoming second eclipse season of 2025 will see a total lunar eclipse on September 7/8 and partial solar eclipse on September 21. The partial solar eclipse will be seen only from locations in planet Earth's southern hemisphere. from NASA https://ift.tt/nKFbz7e

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