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The dark-floored, 95 kilometer wide crater Plato and sunlit peaks of the lunar Alps (Montes Alpes) are highlighted in this this sharp telescopic snapshot of the Moon's surface. While the Alps of planet Earth were uplifted over millions of years as continental plates slowly collided, the lunar Alps were likely formed by a sudden collision that created the giant impact basin known as the Mare Imbrium or Sea of Rains. The mare's generally smooth, lava-flooded floor is seen below the bordering mountain range. The prominent straight feature cutting through the mountains is the lunar Alpine Valley (Vallis Alpes). Joining the Mare Imbrium and northern Mare Frigoris (Sea of Cold) the valley extends toward the upper right, about 160 kilometers long and up to 10 kilometers wide. Of course, the large, bright lunar alpine mountain below and right of Plato crater is named Mont Blanc . Lacking an atmosphere, not to mention snow , the lunar Alps are probably not an ideal location for ...

The Whirlpool Galaxy is a classic spiral galaxy. At only 30 million light years distant and fully 60 thousand light years across, M51 , also known as NGC 5194, is one of the brightest and most picturesque galaxies on the sky. The featured deep image is a digital combination of images taken in different colors over 58 hours with a telescope from Lijiang , China . Anyone with a good pair of binoculars , however, can see this Whirlpool toward the constellation of the Hunting Dogs ( Canes Venatici ). M51 is a spiral galaxy of type Sc and is the dominant member of a whole group of galaxies . Astronomers speculate that M51 's spiral structure is primarily due to its gravitational interaction with the smaller galaxy just above it. from NASA https://ift.tt/sDfaSrJ

What's happening to this meteor? It is shedding its outer layers as it passes through the Earth's atmosphere and heats up. The sudden high temperatures not only cause the bright glow along the dramatic streak but also melt and vaporize the meteor's component rock and ice , creating dust. Wind in the atmosphere typically blows this dust away over the next few seconds, leaving no visible trace after only a few minutes. Much of this dust will eventually settle down to the Earth . The featured image was captured in mid-December, coincident with the Geminids meteor shower . On the upper left is Sirius , the brightest star in the night sky , while in the foreground is fog-engulfed Huangshan , the Yellow Mountains of eastern China . from NASA https://ift.tt/qEFrOSR

This floating ring is the size of a galaxy. In fact, it is a galaxy -- or at least part of one: the photogenic Sombrero Galaxy , one of the largest galaxies in the nearby Virgo Cluster of Galaxies . The dark band of dust that obscures the mid-section of the Sombrero Galaxy in visible light actually glows brightly in infrared light. The featured image , digitally sharpened , shows the infrared glow, recently recorded by the orbiting Spitzer Space Telescope , superposed in false-color on an existing image taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope in visible light. The Sombrero Galaxy, also known as M104 , spans about 50,000 light years and lies 28 million light years away. M104 can be seen with a small telescope in the direction of the constellation Virgo . from NASA https://ift.tt/LEintJ6

Jupiter reaches its 2026 opposition today, January 10. That puts our Solar System's most massive planet opposite the Sun and near its closest and brightest for viewing from planet Earth. In fact, captured only 3 days ago this sharp telescopic snapshot reveals excellent details of the ruling gas giant's swirling cloudtops , in light zones and dark belts girdling the rapidly rotating outer planet. Jupiter's famous, persistent anticyclonic vortex, known as the Great Red Spot , is south of the equator at the lower right. But two smaller red spots are also visible, one near the top in the northernmost zone, and one close to Jupiter's south pole. And while Jupiter's Great Red Spot is known to be shrinking , it's still about the size of the Earth itself. from NASA https://ift.tt/Q0zFTZc

Both Moon and Sun create beautiful ice halos in planet Earth's sky. In fact, the two brightest celestial beacons are each surrounded by a complex of ice halos in these photos of the sky above Chamonix-Mont-Blanc in France. The panels were recorded one night (left) and the following day at the end of December 2025. Similar ice halos appear in moonlight and sunlight because they are all formed through the geometry of flat, hexagonal ice crystals. The ice crystals reflect and refract light as they flutter in the cold atmosphere above the mountain resort. In the pictures both Moon and Sun are surrounded by a more commonly seen 22 degree circular halo. Bright and sometimes colorful patches at the intersections of the 22 degree circular halos with the indicated parselenic and parhelic arcs are also known as Moon dogs and Sun dogs . from NASA https://ift.tt/q2yVCMt

Similar in size to large, bright spiral galaxies in our neighborhood, IC 342 is a mere 10 million light-years distant toward the long-necked, northern constellation Camelopardalis . A sprawling island universe , IC 342 would otherwise be a prominent galaxy in our night sky, but it is hidden from clear view and only glimpsed through the veil of stars, gas and dust clouds along the plane of our own Milky Way galaxy . Even though IC 342's light is dimmed and reddened by intervening cosmic clouds , this sharp telescopic image traces the galaxy's own obscuring dust, young star clusters, and glowing star forming regions along spiral arms that wind far from the galaxy's core . IC 342 has undergone a recent burst of star formation activity and is close enough to have influenced the evolution of the local group of galaxies and the Milky Way. from NASA https://ift.tt/xUn3u1d

Its popular nickname is the Spaghetti Nebula. Officially cataloged as Simeis 147 and Sharpless 2-240, it is easy to get lost following the looping and twisting filaments of this intricate supernova remnant . Seen toward the boundary of the constellations of the Bull ( Taurus ) and the Charioteer ( Auriga ), the impressive gas structure covers nearly 3 degrees on the sky, equivalent to 6 full moons . That's about 150 light-year s at the stellar debris cloud's estimated distance of 3,000 light-years. The supernova remnant has an estimated age of about 40,000 years, meaning light from this powerful stellar explosion first reached the Earth when woolly mammoths roamed free. Besides the expanding remnant, this cosmic catastrophe left behind a pulsar , a fast-spinning neutron star that is the remnant of the original star's core. The featured image was captured last month from Forca Canapine , Italy . from NASA https://ift.tt/zuyR6W8

How complex is Jupiter? NASA's Juno mission to Jupiter is finding the Jovian giant to be more complicated than expected . Jupiter's magnetic field has been discovered to be much different from our Earth's simple dipole field , showing several poles embedded in a complicated network more convoluted in the north than the south. Further, Juno's radio measurements show that Jupiter's atmosphere shows structure well below the upper cloud deck -- even hundreds of kilometers deep. Jupiter 's newfound complexity is evident also in southern clouds, as shown in the texture and color enhanced featured image taken last month. There, planet-circling zones and belts that dominate near the equator decay into a complex miasma of continent-sized storm swirls. Juno continues in its looping elliptical orbit, swooping near the huge planet every month and exploring a slightly different sector each time around. from NASA https://ift.tt/0iCszD6

How was the unusual Red Rectangle nebula created? At the nebula's center is an aging binary star system that surely powers the nebula but does not, as yet, explain its colors. The unusual shape of the Red Rectangle is likely due to a thick dust torus which pinches the otherwise spherical outflow into tip-touching cone shapes . Because we view the torus edge-on, the boundary edges of the cone shape s seem to form an X . The distinct rungs suggest the outflow occurs in fits and starts. The unusual colors of the nebula are less well understood , however, and speculation holds that they are partly provided by hydrocarbon molecules that may actually be building blocks for organic life. The Red Rectangle nebula lies about 2,300 light years away towards the constellation of the Unicorn ( Monoceros ). The nebula is shown here in great detail as a reprocessed image from Hubble Space Telescope . In a few million years, as one of the central stars becomes further depleted of nuc...

Most galaxies have a single nucleus -- does this galaxy have four? The strange answer leads astronomers to conclude that the nucleus of the surrounding galaxy is not even visible in this image . The central cloverleaf is rather light emitted from a background quasar . The gravitational field of the visible foreground galaxy breaks light from this distant quasar into four distinct images. The quasar must be properly aligned behind the center of a massive galaxy for a mirage like this to be evident. The general effect is known as gravitational lensing , and this specific case is known as the Einstein Cross . Stranger still, the images of the Einstein Cross vary in relative brightness, enhanced occasionally by the additional gravitational microlensing effect of specific stars in the foreground galaxy. from NASA https://ift.tt/U9a3DNq

The Full Moon is the brightest lunar phase, and tonight you can stand in the light of the first Full Moon of 2026. In fact, the Moon's full phase occurs on January 3 at 10:03 UTC, while only about 7 hours later planet Earth reaches its 2026 perihelion, the closest point in its elliptical orbit around the Sun, at 17:16 UTC. January's Full Moon was also not far from its own perigee, or closest approach to planet Earth. For this lunation the Moon's perigee was on January 1 at 21:44 UTC. You can also spot planet Jupiter, near its brightest for 2026 and close on the sky to the Full Moon tonight. But while you're out skygazing don't forget to look for rare, bright fireballs from the Quadrantid meteor shower. from NASA https://ift.tt/sXNp24u

In 2011, on January 20, NASA's NanoSail-D2 unfurled a very thin and very reflective 10 square meter sail becoming the first solar sail spacecraft in low Earth orbit. Often considered the stuff of science fiction , sailing through space was suggested 400 years ago by astronomer Johannes Kepler, who had observed comet tails blown by the solar wind. But modern solar sail spacecraft designs, like NanoSail-D2, Japan's interplanetary spacecraft IKAROS , or the Planetary Society's Lightsail A , rely on the small but continuous pressure from sunlight itself for thrust. Glinting in the sunlight as it circled planet Earth, NanoSail-D2's solar sail was periodically bright and visible to the eye. These remarkably detailed images were captured by manually tracking the orbiting solar sail spacecraft with a small telescope. from NASA https://ift.tt/ARgnPkE

Cycle 25 solar maximum made 2025 a great year for aurora borealis (or aurora australis ) on planet Earth. And the high level of solar activity should extend into 2026. So, while you're celebrating the arrival of the new year, check out this spectacular auroral display that erupted in starry night skies over Kirkjufell , Iceland. The awesome auroral corona, energetic curtains of light streaming from directly overhead, was witnessed during a strong geomagnetic storm triggered by intense solar activity near the March 2025 equinox. This northland and skyscape captures the evocative display in a 21 frame panoramic mosaic. from NASA https://ift.tt/yBaIoXS

What created the Waterfall Nebula? The origin is still being researched. The structure, officially designated Herbig-Haro 222, appears in the region of NGC 1999 in the Great Orion Molecular Cloud complex. The elongated gaseous stream stretches about ten light years but appears similar to a long waterfall on Earth. Recent observations indicate that HH-222 is likely a gigantic gaseous bow shock , similar to a wave of water caused by a fast-moving ship. The origin of this shock wave is thought to be a jet outflow from the multiple star system V380 Orionis off the lower left of the frame. Therefore, gas does not flow along the waterfall, but rather the entire structure moves toward the upper right. The Waterfall Nebula lies about 1,500 light year s away toward the constellation of Orion. The featured image was captured earlier this month from El Sauce Observatory in Chile . from NASA https://ift.tt/ld2wTB8

Yes, but can your comet tail do this? No, and what you are seeing is not the tail of a comet . The picture features a cleverly overlayed time-lapse sequence of a group of satellites orbiting Earth together in June. Specifically, these are Starlink communications satellites in low Earth orbit reflecting back sunlight before sunrise to Inner Mongolia , China . Although the satellites appear to the human eye as points, the 20-second-long camera exposures caused them to appear as short streaks . Currently there are over 9000 Starlinks in orbit , with more being launched nearly every week. Other satellite constellations are also being planned. from NASA https://ift.tt/1PdOltW

This is the mess that is left when a star explodes. The Crab Nebula , the result of a supernova seen in 1054 AD , is filled with mysterious filaments. The filaments are not only tremendously complex but appear to have less mass than expelled in the original supernova and a higher speed than expected from a free explosion. The featured image was taken by an amateur astronomer in Leesburg , Florida , USA over three nights last month. It was captured in three primary colors but with extra detail provided by specific emission by hydrogen gas. The Crab Nebula spans about 10 light year s. In the Nebula's very center lies a pulsar: a neutron star as massive as the Sun but with only the size of a small town . The Crab Pulsar rotates about 30 times each second. from NASA https://ift.tt/gSczinN

Jewels don't shine this bright -- only stars do. And almost every spot in this jewel-box of an image from the Hubble Space Telescope is a star. Now, some stars are more red than our Sun , and some more blue -- but all of them are much farther away. Although it takes light about 8 minutes to reach Earth from the Sun, NGC 1898 is so far away that it takes light about 160,000 years to get here. This huge ball of stars, NGC 1898 , is called a globular cluster and resides in the central bar of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) -- a satellite galaxy of our Milky Way Galaxy . The featured multi-colored image includes light from the infrared to the ultraviolet and was taken to help determine if the stars of NGC 1898 all formed at the same time or at different times. There are increasing indications that most globular clusters formed stars in stages , and that, in particular, stars from NGC 1898 formed shortly after ancient encounter s with the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) and ...

Awkward and angular looking, Apollo 17's lunar module Challenger was designed for flight in the near vacuum of space. Digitally enhanced and reprocessed, this picture taken from Apollo 17's command module America shows Challenger's ascent stage in lunar orbit. Small reaction control thrusters are at the sides of the moonship with the bell of the ascent rocket engine underneath. The hatch that allowed access to the lunar surface is seen at the front, with a round radar antenna at the top. Mission commander Gene Cernan is clearly visible through the triangular window. This spaceship performed gracefully, landing on the Moon and returning the Apollo astronauts to the orbiting command module in December of 1972. So where is Challenger now? While its descent stage remains at the Apollo 17 landing site in the Taurus-Littrow valley, the ascent stage pictured was intentionally crashed nearby after being jettisoned from the command module prior to the astronauts' return to...

Attention grabbing interstellar visitor 3I/ATLAS made its not-so-close flyby of our fair planet on December 19 at a distance of 1.8 astronomical units. That's about 900 light-seconds. Still, this deep exposure captures the comet from another star system as it gently swept across a faint background of stars in the constellation Leo about 4 days earlier, on the night of December 15. Though faint, colors emphasized in the image data, show off the comet's yellowish dust tail and bluish ion tail along with a greenish tinged coma. And even while scrutinized by arrays of telescopes and spacecraft from planet Earth, 3I ATLAS is headed out of the Solar System. It's presently moving outward along a hyperbolic trajectory at about 64 kilometers per second relative to the Sun, too fast to be bound the Sun's gravity. from NASA https://ift.tt/VOerFWJ