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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

This moon is doomed. Mars , the red planet named for the Roman god of war , has two tiny moons, Phobos and Deimos , whose names are derived from the Greek for Fear and Panic . These Martian moons may well be captured asteroids originating in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter or perhaps from even more distant reaches of our Solar System . The larger moon, Phobos , is indeed seen to be a cratered, asteroid-like object in this stunning color image from the robotic Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter , which can image objects as small as 10 meters. But Phobos orbits so close to Mars - about 5,800 kilometers above the surface compared to 400,000 kilometers for our Moon - that gravitational tidal forces are dragging it down. In perhaps 50 million years, Phobos is expected to disintegrate into a ring of debris. from NASA https://ift.tt/Nt3DBYS