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This is not a screen from a video game . Nestled below the tree-line, the small mountain church does look like it might be hiding from Moon though. In the well-composed telephoto snapshot, taken on November 23, the church walls are partly reflecting light from terrestrial flood lights. Of course, the Moon is reflecting light from the Sun. At any given time the Sun illuminates fully half of the Moon's surface, also known as the lunar dayside, but on that night only a sliver of its sunlit surface was visible. About three days after New Moon, the Moon was in a waxing crescent phase . The single exposure was captured shortly after sunset in skies near Danta di Cadore, northern Italy, planet Earth. from NASA https://ift.tt/FBo3v6R

NGC 6888, also known as the Crescent Nebula, is a about 25 light-years across, a cosmic bubble blown by winds from its central, massive star. This deep telescopic image includes narrowband image data, to isolate light from hydrogen and oxygen atoms . The oxygen atoms produce the blue-green hue that seems to enshroud the nebula's detailed folds and filaments. Visible within the nebula, NGC 6888's central star is classified as a Wolf-Rayet star (WR 136). The star is shedding its outer envelope in a strong stellar wind , ejecting the equivalent of the Sun's mass every 10,000 years. In fact, the Crescent Nebula's complex structures are likely the result of this strong wind interacting with material ejected in an earlier phase. Burning fuel at a prodigious rate and near the end of its stellar life, this star should ultimately go out with a bang in a spectacular supernova explosion. Found in the nebula rich constellation Cygnus, NGC 6888 is about 5,000 light-years awa...

Big, beautiful spiral galaxy NGC 1055 is a dominant member of a small galaxy group a mere 60 million light-years away toward the aquatically intimidating constellation Cetus . Seen edge-on, the island universe spans over 100,000 light-years, a little larger than our own Milky Way galaxy. The colorful, spiky stars decorating this cosmic portrait of NGC 1055 are in the foreground, well within the Milky Way. But telltale pinkish star forming regions and young blue star clusters are scattered through winding dust lanes along the distant galaxy's thin disk. With a smattering of even more distant background galaxies, the deep image also reveals a boxy halo that extends far above and below the central bulge and disk of NGC 1055. The halo itself is laced with faint, narrow structures, and could represent the mixed and spread out debris from a satellite galaxy disrupted by the larger spiral some 10 billion years ago . from NASA https://ift.tt/TK5lAwP

Stars, like bees, swarm around the center of bright globular cluster M15. The central ball of over 100,000 stars is a relic from the early years of our Galaxy , and continues to orbit the Milky Way's center . M15 , one of about 150 globular cluster s remaining, is noted for being easily visible with only binoculars , having at its center one of the densest concentrations of stars known, and containing a high abundance of variable stars and pulsars . The featured image of M15 was taken by combining very long exposures -- 122 hours in all -- and so brings up faint wisps of gas and dust in front of the giant ball of stars. M15 lies about 35,000 light years away toward the constellation of the Winged Horse ( Pegasus ). from NASA https://ift.tt/8I2A9iE

What did Comet Lemmon look like when it was at its best? One example is pictured here, featuring three celestial spectacles all at different distances. The closest spectacle is the snowcapped Meili Mountains , part of the Himalayas in China . The middle marvel is Comet Lemmon near its picturesque best early this month, showing not only a white dust tail trailing off to the right but its blue solar wind-distorted ion tail trailing off to the left. Far in the distance on the left is the magnificent central plane of our Milky Way Galaxy , featuring dark dust , red nebula , and including billions of Sun -like stars. Comet C/2025 A6 (Lemmon) is already fading as it heads back into the outer Solar System, while the Himalayan mountains will gradually erode over the next billion years. The Milky Way Galaxy , though, will live on -- forming new mountains and comets -- for many billions of years into the future. from NASA https://ift.tt/CIqRDG0

What created this unusual space sculpture? Stars . This unusual system of swirls and shells, known as Apep , was observed in unprecedented detail by NASA ’s James Webb Space Telescope in infrared light in 2024. Observations indicate that the unusual shape originates from two massive Wolf-Rayet star s orbiting each other every 190 years with each close passes causing a new shell of dust and gas to be expelled . Holes in these shells are thought to be caused by a third orbiting star . This stellar dust dance will likely continue for hundreds of thousands of years, possibly ending only when one of the massive stars runs out of internal nuclear fuel and explodes in a supernova punctuated by a burst of gamma-rays . from NASA https://ift.tt/KztZqMY

How far can you see? Everything you can see, and everything you could possibly see, right now, assuming your eyes could detect all types of radiations around you -- is the observable universe . In light, the farthest we can see comes from the cosmic microwave background , a time 13.8 billion years ago when the universe was opaque like thick fog. Some neutrinos and gravitational waves that surround us come from even farther out, but humanity does not yet have the technology to detect them. The featured image illustrates the observable universe on an increasingly compact scale , with the Earth and Sun at the center surrounded by our Solar System , nearby stars , nearby galaxies , distant galaxies , filaments of early matter , and the cosmic microwave background . Cosmologists typically assume that our observable universe is just the nearby part of a greater entity known as "the universe" where the same physics applies. However, there are several lines of popular but sp...

Seen to the left of Saturn's banded planetary disk, small icy moons Dione and Rhea are caught passing in front of the gas giant's extensive ring system in this sharp telescopic snapshot. The remarkable image was recorded on November 20 , when Saturn's rings were nearly edge-on when viewed from planet Earth. In fact, every 13 to 16 years the view from planet Earth aligns with Saturn's ring plane to produce a series of ring plane crossings . During a ring plane crossing, the interplanetary edge-on perspective makes the thin but otherwise bright rings seem to disappear. By November 23rd Saturn's rings will have reached a minimum angle for now, at their narrowest for viewing from planet Earth, but then start to widen again. Of course, Dione and Rhea orbit Saturn near the ring plane once every 2.7 and 4.5 days respectively, while the next series of Saturn ring plane crossings as seen from Earth will begin again in 2038. from NASA https://ift.tt/pwHcMtm

Now outbound after its perihelion or closest approach to the Sun on October 29, Comet 3I/ATLAS is only the third known interstellar object to pass through our fair Solar System. Its greenish coma and faint tails are seen against a background of stars in the constellation Virgo in this view from planet Earth , recorded with a small telescope on November 14. But this interstellar interloper is the subject of an on-going, unprecedented Solar System-wide observing campaign involving spacecraft and space telescopes from Earth orbit to the surface of Mars and beyond . And while the comet from another star-system has recently grown brighter , you'll still need a telescope if you want to see 3I/ATLAS from planet Earth. It's now above the horizon in November morning skies and will make its closest approach to Earth, a comfortable 270 million kilometers distant, around December 19. from NASA https://ift.tt/yDtjAsd

Alnitak , Alnilam , and Mintaka are the bright bluish stars from east to west (upper right to lower left) along the diagonal in this cosmic vista . Otherwise known as the Belt of Orion , these three blue supergiant stars are hotter and much more massive than the Sun. They lie from 700 to 2,000 light-years away , born of Orion's well-studied interstellar clouds. In fact, clouds of gas and dust adrift in this region have some surprisingly familiar shapes, including the dark Horsehead Nebula and Flame Nebula near Alnitak at the upper right. The famous Orion Nebula itself is off the right edge of this colorful starfield. The telescopic frame spans almost 4 degrees on the sky . from NASA https://ift.tt/q2UnGok

Sometimes the dark dust of interstellar space has an angular elegance. Such is the case toward the far-south constellation of Chamaeleon . Normally too faint to see , dark dust is best known for blocking visible light from stars and galaxies behind it. In this 11.4-hour exposure , however, the dust is seen mostly in light of its own, with its strong red and near- infrared colors creating a brown hue. Contrastingly blue, a bright star Beta Chamaeleontis is visible on the upper right of the V, with the dust that surrounds it preferentially reflecting blue light from its primarily blue-white color. All of the pictured stars and dust occur in our own Milky Way Galaxy with one notable exception : a white spot just below Beta Chamaeleontis is the galaxy IC 3104 , which lies far in the distance. Interstellar dust is mostly created in the cool atmospheres of giant stars and dispersed into space by stellar light, stellar winds , and stellar explosions such as supernovas . from NASA h...

What has happened to Comet Lemmon's tail? The answer is blowing in the wind — the wind from the Sun in this case. This continuous outflow of charged particles from the Sun has been quite variable of late, as the Sun emits bursts of energy, CME s, that push out and deflect charged particles emitted by the comet itself. The result is a blue hued ion tail for Comet C/2025 A6 (Lemmon) that is not only impressively intricate but takes some unusual turns. This long-duration composite image taken from Alfacar , Spain last month captured this inner Solar System ionic tumult. Comet Lemmon is now fading as it heads out away from the Earth and Sun and back into the outer Solar System . from NASA https://ift.tt/2Zj8AFI

If this is Saturn, where are the rings? When Saturn's "appendages" disappeared in 1612, Galileo did not understand why. Later that century, it became understood that Saturn 's unusual protrusion s were rings and that when the Earth crosses the ring plane , the edge-on rings will appear to disappear . This is because Saturn's rings are confined to a plane many times thinner , in proportion, than a razor blade . In modern times, the robotic Cassini spacecraft that orbited Saturn frequently crossed Saturn's ring plane during its mission to Saturn, from 2004 to 2017. A series of plane crossing images from 2005 February was dug out of the vast online Cassini raw image archive by interested Spanish amateur Fernando Garcia Navarro. Pictured here , digitally cropped and set in representative colors, is the striking result. Saturn's thin ring plane appears in blue, bands and clouds in Saturn's upper atmosphere appear in gold. Details of Saturn's rin...

This magnificent extragalactic skyscape looks toward the Andromeda Galaxy, the closest large spiral galaxy to the Milky Way. It also accomplishes a Messier catalog trifecta by including Andromeda, cataloged as Messier 31 (M31) , along with Messier 32 (M32) , and Messier 110 (M110) in the same telescopic field of view . In this frame, M32 is just left of the Andromeda Galaxy's bright core with M110 below and to the right. M32 and M110 are both elliptical galaxies themselves and satellites of the larger spiral Andromeda. By combining 60 hours of broadband and narrowband image data, the deep telescopic view also reveals tantalizing details of dust lanes, young star clusters, and star-forming regions along Andromeda's spiral arms, and faint, foreground clouds of glowing hydrogen gas. For now , Andromeda and friends are some 2.5 million light-years from our own large spiral Milky Way. from NASA https://ift.tt/O3ph7EB

Few cosmic vistas can excite the imagination like The Great Nebula in Orion . Visible as a faint, bland celestial smudge to the naked-eye, the nearest large star-forming region sprawls across this sharp colorful telescopic image . Designated M42 in the Messier Catalog, the Orion Nebula's glowing gas and dust surrounds hot, young stars . About 40 light-years across, M42 is at the edge of an immense interstellar molecular cloud only 1,500 light-years away that lies within the same spiral arm of our Milky Way galaxy as the Sun. Including dusty bluish reflection nebula NGC 1977 , also known as the Running Man nebula at left in the frame, the natal nebulae represent only a small fraction of our galactic neighborhood's wealth of star-forming material. Within the well-studied stellar nursery, astronomers have also identified what appear to be numerous infant solar systems . from NASA https://ift.tt/kBahS7M

Ten thousand years ago, before the dawn of recorded human history, a new light would suddenly have appeared in the night sky and faded after a few weeks. Today we know this light was from a supernova, or exploding star , and record the expanding debris cloud as the Veil Nebula , a supernova remnant . This sharp telescopic view is centered on a western segment of the Veil Nebula cataloged as NGC 6960 but less formally known as the Witch's Broom Nebula. Blasted out in the cataclysmic explosion, an interstellar shock wave plows through space sweeping up and exciting interstellar material. Imaged with narrow band filters, the glowing filaments are like long ripples in a sheet seen almost edge on, remarkably well separated into atomic hydrogen (red) and oxygen (blue-green) gas. The complete supernova remnant lies about 1400 light-years away towards the constellation Cygnus . This Witch's Broom actually spans about 35 light-years. The bright star in the frame is 52 Cygni , vis...

Comet Lemmon is brightening and moving into morning northern skies. Besides Comet SWAN25B and Comet ATLAS , Comet C/2025 A6 (Lemmon) is now the third comet currently visible with binoculars and on long camera exposures. Comet Lemmon was discovered early this year and is still headed into the inner Solar System . The comet will round the Sun on November 8, but first it will pass its nearest to the Earth -- at about half the Earth-Sun distance -- on October 21. Although the brightnesses of comets are notoriously hard to predict , optimistic estimates have Comet Lemmon then becoming visible to the unaided eye. The comet should be best seen in predawn skies until mid-October, when it also becomes visible in evening skies. The featured image showing the comet's split and rapidly changing ion tail was taken in Texas , USA late last week. from NASA https://ift.tt/MPm1p3s

It may look like these comets are racing, but they are not. Comets C/2025 K1 ATLAS (left) and C/2025 R2 SWAN (right) appeared near each other by chance last week in the featured image taken from France's Reunion Island in the southern Indian Ocean . Fainter Comet ATLAS is approaching our Sun and will reach its closest approach in early October when it is also expected to be its brightest -- although still only likely visible with long exposures on a camera. The brighter comet, nicknamed SWAN25B , is now headed away from our Sun , although its closest approach to Earth is expected in mid-October, when optimistic estimates have it becoming bright enough to see with the unaided eye. Each comet has a greenish coma of expelled gas and an ion tail pointing away from the Sun. from NASA https://ift.tt/bvJaqmN

What is creating these unusual spots? Light-colored spots on Martian rocks , each surrounded by a dark border, were discovered last year by NASA 's Perseverance Rover currently exploring Mars . Dubbed leopard spots because of their seemingly similarity to markings on famous Earth-bound predators , these curious patterns are being studied with the possibility they were created by ancient Martian life . The pictured spots measure only millimeter s across and were discovered on a larger rock named Cheyava Falls . The exciting but unproven speculation is that long ago, microbe s generated energy with chemical reactions that turned rock from red to white while leaving a dark biosignature ring, like some similarly appearing spots on Earth rocks . Although other non-biological explanations have not been ruled out, speculation focusing on this potential biological origin is causing much intrigue . from NASA https://ift.tt/yYoldgq

On the morning of September 24 a rocket crosses the bright solar disk in this long range telescopic snapshot captured from Orlando, Florida. That's about 50 miles north of its Kennedy Space Center launch site. This rocket carried three new space weather missions to space. Signals have now been successfully acquired from all three - NASA's Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe, NASA’s Carruthers Geocorona Observatory, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Space Weather Follow-On Lagrange 1 (SWFO-L1) - as they begin their journey to L1, an Earth-Sun lagrange point. L1 is about 1.5 million kilometers in the sunward direction from planet Earth. Appropriately, major space weather influencers, aka dark sunspots in active regions across the Sun, are posing with the transiting rocket. In fact, large active region AR4225 is just right of the rocket's nose. from NASA https://ift.tt/neWrOZF