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Why is the Moon on top of this building? Planning . It took the astrophotographer careful planning -- including figuring out exactly where to place the camera and exactly when to take the shot -- to create this striking superposition . The single image featured was taken in the early morning hours of November 19, near the peak of the partial lunar eclipse that was occurring as the Moon passed through the Earth's shadow . At this time, almost the entire Moon -- 99.1 percent of its area -- was in the darkest part of the Earth's shadow . The building is the Gran Torre Santiago building in Chile , the tallest building in South America . Although the entire eclipse lasted an impressive six hours, this image had to be taken within just a few seconds to get the alignment right -- the Earth's rotation soon moved the building out of alignment. The next Earth-Moon eclipse will be a total eclipse of the Sun that will occur on December 4 -- but only be visible from the bottom...

Here comes Comet Leonard. Comet C/2021 A1 (Leonard) was discovered as a faint smudge in January 2021 when it was out past Mars -- but its orbit will take the giant shedding ice-ball into the inner Solar System, passing near both Earth and Venus in December before it swoops around the Sun in early January 2022. Although comets are notoriously hard to predict , some estimations have Comet Leonard brightening to become visible to the unaided eye in December. Comet Leonard was captured just over a week ago already sporting a green-tinged coma and an extended dust tail . The featured picture was composed from 62 images taken through a moderate-sized telescope -- one set of exposures tracking the comet, while another set tracking the background stars. The exposures were taken from the dark skies above the Eastern Sierra Mountains , near June Lake in California , USA . Soon after passing near the Earth in mid-December, the comet will shift from northern to southern skies. from NA...

Predawn hours of November 19 found the Moon in partly cloudy skies over Cancun, Mexico. Captured in this telephoto snapshot , the lunar disk is not quite entirely immersed in Earth's dark umbral shadow during a long partial lunar eclipse. The partial eclipse was deep though, deep enough to show the dimmed but reddened light in Earth's shadow. That's a sight often anticipated by fans of total lunar eclipses. Wandering through the constellation Taurus, the eclipsed Moon's dimmer light also made it easier to spot the Pleiades star cluster. The stars of the Seven Sisters share this frame at the upper right, with the almost totally eclipsed Moon . from NASA https://ift.tt/3DEpv1E

By Michael Roston and Matt McCann from NYT Science https://ift.tt/3qT7LMr

In visible light the stars have been removed from this narrow-band image of NGC 281 , a star forming region some 10,000 light-years away toward the constellation Cassiopeia. Stars were digitally added back to the resulting starless image though. But instead of using visible light image data, the stars were added with X-ray data (in purple) from the Chandra X-ray Observatory and infrared data (in red) from the Spitzer Space Telescope. The merged multiwavelength view reveals a multitude of stars in the region's embedded star cluster IC 1590 . The young stars are normally hidden in visible light images by the natal cloud's gas and obscuring dust. Also known to backyard astro-imagers as the Pacman Nebula for its overall appearance in visible light, NGC 281 is about 80 light-years across. from NASA https://ift.tt/3kRcyKd

By Joey Roulette from NYT Science https://ift.tt/3x3mXHF

A photographer in silhouette stands in bright moonlight as the Full Moon rises in this well-planned telephoto image. Of course, the Full Moon is normally the brightest lunar phase. But on November 18/19, the Full Moon's light will be dimmed during a deep partial lunar eclipse seen across much of planet Earth. At maximum eclipse only a few percent of the lunar disk's diameter should remain outside the Earth's dark umbral shadow when the Moon slides close to the shadow's southern edge. Near apogee, the farthest point in its orbit, the Moon's motion will be slow. That should make this second lunar eclipse of 2021 an exceptionally long partial lunar eclipse. For most of North America the eclipse partial phases will be visible in predawn hours. Since eclipses tend to come in pairs, this lunar eclipse will be followed by a solar eclipse in two weeks on December 4. from NASA https://ift.tt/3CyHTrq

Why doesn't the nearby galaxy create a gravitational lensing effect on the background galaxy? It does, but since both galaxies are so nearby, the angular shift is much smaller than the angular size s of the galaxies themselves. The featured Hubble image of NGC 3314 shows two large spiral galaxies which happen to line up exactly. The foreground spiral NGC 3314a appears nearly face-on with its pinwheel shape defined by young bright star clusters. Against the glow of the background galaxy NGC 3314b, though, dark swirling lanes of interstellar dust can also be seen tracing the nearer spiral's structure. Both galaxies appear on the edge of the Hydra Cluster of Galaxies , a cluster that is about 200 million light years away. Gravitational lens distortions are much easier to see when the lensing galaxy is smaller and further away. Then, the background galaxy may even be distorted into a ring around the nearer. Fast gravitational lens flashes due to stars in the foreground ...

By Joey Roulette from NYT Science https://ift.tt/3kFmruJ

By Robin George Andrews from NYT Science https://ift.tt/3okUJEp

Where are all of these meteors coming from? In terms of direction on the sky, the pointed answer is the constellation of Gemini. That is why the major meteor shower in December is known as the Geminids -- because shower meteors all appear to come from a radiant toward Gemini . Three dimensionally, however, sand-sized debris expelled from the unusual asteroid 3200 Phaethon follows a well-defined orbit about our Sun, and the part of the orbit that approaches Earth is superposed in front of the constellation of Gemini . Therefore, when Earth crosses this orbit , the radiant point of falling debris appears in Gemini. Featured here, a composite of many images taken during the 2020 Geminids meteor shower shows over 200 bright meteors s that streaked through the sky during the night December 14. The best meteor shower in November, the Leonids , peaks tonight and tomorrow. Unfortunately , this year, dim meteors during the early-morning peak will be hard to see against a sky lit by ...

What happening above that volcano? Something very unusual -- a volcanic light pillar . More typically, light pillars are caused by sunlight and so appear as a bright column that extends upward above a rising or setting Sun . Alternatively, other light pillars -- some quite colorful -- have been recorded above street and house lights. This light pillar , though, was illuminated by the red light emitted by the glowing magma of an erupting volcano . The volcano is Italy 's Mount Etna , and the featured image was captured with a single shot a few hours after sunset in mid-June. Freezing temperatures above the volcano's ash cloud created ice-crystals either in cirrus clouds high above the volcano -- or in condensed water vapor expelled by Mount Etna . These ice crystals -- mostly flat toward the ground but fluttering -- then reflected away light from the volcano's caldera . from NASA https://ift.tt/3CkbBA2

What is that light in the sky? Perhaps one of humanity's more common questions, an answer may result from a few quick observations. For example -- is it moving or blinking? If so, and if you live near a city , the answer is typically an airplane, since planes are so numerous and so few stars and satellites are bright enough to be seen over the din of artificial city lights . If not, and if you live far from a city, that bright light is likely a planet such as Venus or Mars -- the former of which is constrained to appear near the horizon just before dawn or after dusk. Sometimes the low apparent motion of a distant airplane near the horizon makes it hard to tell from a bright planet , but even this can usually be discerned by the plane's motion over a few minutes. Still unsure? The featured chart gives a sometimes-humorous but mostly-accurate assessment. Dedicated sky enthusiasts will likely note -- and are encouraged to provide -- polite corrections. from NASA https:/...

Returning along its 6.4 year orbit, periodic comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko (67P) is caught in this telescopic frame from November 7. Sweeping past background stars in the constellation Gemini the comet's dusty tail stretches toward the upper right to Upsilon Geminorum. Also known as Pollux , Beta Geminorum, Gemini's brightest star, shines just off the upper left edge of the field-of-view. Churyumov-Gerasimenko reached its 2021 perihelion or closest approach to the Sun on November 2. At perigee, its closest approach to planet Earth on November 12, this comet was about 0.42 astronomical units away, though it remains too faint to be seen by eye alone. The well-studied comet was explored by robots from planet Earth during its last trip through the inner solar system. It's now famous as the final resting place for the historic Rosetta spacecraft and Philae lander . from NASA https://ift.tt/3Faz9ZX

The small, northern constellation Triangulum harbors this magnificent face-on spiral galaxy, M33. Its popular names include the Pinwheel Galaxy or just the Triangulum Galaxy . M33 is over 50,000 light-years in diameter, third largest in the Local Group of galaxies after the Andromeda Galaxy (M31), and our own Milky Way. About 3 million light-years from the Milky Way, M33 is itself thought to be a satellite of the Andromeda Galaxy and astronomers in these two galaxies would likely have spectacular views of each other's grand spiral star systems. As for the view from planet Earth, this sharp image shows off M33's blue star clusters and pinkish star forming regions along the galaxy's loosely wound spiral arms. In fact, the cavernous NGC 604 is the brightest star forming region, seen here at about the 4 o'clock position from the galaxy center. Like M31, M33's population of well-measured variable stars have helped make this nearby spiral a cosmic yardstick for es...

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 about 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/3C7Jvbf

Many think it is just a myth . Others think it is true but its cause isn't known. Adventurers pride themselves on having seen it. It's a green flash from the Sun . The truth is the green flash does exist and its cause is well understood. Just as the setting Sun disappears completely from view, a last glimmer appears startlingly green . The effect is typically visible only from locations with a low, distant horizon, and lasts just a few seconds. A green flash is also visible for a rising Sun , but takes better timing to spot. A dramatic green flash was caught on video last month as the Sun set beyond the Ligurian Sea from Tuscany , Italy . The second sequence in the featured video shows the green flash in real time, while the first is sped up and the last is in slow motion . The Sun itself does not turn partly green -- the effect is caused by layers of the Earth's atmosphere acting like a prism . from NASA https://ift.tt/3H5iA3B

Why would you want to fake a universe? For one reason -- to better understand our real universe . Many astronomical project s seeking to learn properties of our universe now start with a robotic telescope taking sequential images of the night sky. Next, sophisticated computer algorithms crunch these digital images to find stars and galaxies and measure their properties. To calibrate these algorithms, it is useful to test them on fake images from a fake universe to see if the algorithms can correctly deduce purposely imprinted properties. The featured mosaic of fake images was created to specifically mimic the images that have appeared on NASA 's Astronomy Picture of the Day ( APOD ). Only one image of the 225 images is real -- can you find it ? The accomplished deceptors have made available individual fake APOD images that can be displayed by accessing their ThisIsNotAnAPOD webpage or Twitter feed . More useful for calibrating and understanding our distant universe , how...

Why, sometimes, does part of the Sun's atmosphere leap into space? The reason lies in changing magnetic field s that thread through the Sun 's surface. Regions of strong surface magnetism, known as active regions , are usually marked by dark sunspots . Active regions can channel charged gas along arching or sweeping magnetic fields -- gas that sometimes falls back , sometimes escapes , and sometimes not only escapes but impacts our Earth . The featured one-hour time-lapse video -- taken with a small telescope in France -- captured an eruptive filament that appeared to leap off the Sun late last month. The filament is huge: for comparison, the size of the Earth is shown on the upper left. Just after the filament lifted off , the Sun emitted a powerful X-class flare while the surface rumbled with a tremendous solar tsunami . A result was a cloud of charged particles that rushed into our Solar System but mostly missed our Earth -- this time. However, enough solar plasma did...

To some it looks like a cat's eye. To others, perhaps like a giant cosmic conch shell. It is actually one of brightest and most highly detailed planetary nebula known, composed of gas expelled in the brief yet glorious phase near the end of life of a Sun-like star. This nebula 's dying central star may have produced the outer circular concentric shells by shrugging off outer layers in a series of regular convulsions. The formation of the beautiful, complex-yet-symmetric inner structures , however, is not well understood . The featured image is a composite of a digitally sharpened Hubble Space Telescope image with X-ray light captured by the orbiting Chandra Observatory . The exquisite floating space statue spans over half a light-year across. Of course, gazing into this Cat's Eye , humanity may well be seeing the fate of our sun, destined to enter its own planetary nebula phase of evolution ... in about 5 billion years. from NASA https://ift.tt/3GUtbOG

By Jonathan O’Callaghan from NYT Science https://ift.tt/3CQJOZ3

On an August night two friends enjoyed this view after a day's hike on the Plateau d'Emparis in the French Alps. At 2400 meters altitude the sky was clear. Light from a setting moon illuminates the foreground captured in the simple vertical panorama of images. Along the plane of our Milky Way galaxy stars of Cassiopeia and Perseus shine along the panorama's left edge. But seen as a faint cloud with a brighter core, the Andromeda galaxy , stands directly above the two friends in the night. The nearest large spiral galaxy, Andromeda is about 2.5 million light-years beyond the stars of the Milky Way. Adding to the evening's shared extragalactic perspective, the fainter fuzzy spot in the sky right between them is M33, also known as the Triangulum galaxy . Third largest in the local galaxy group , after Andromeda and Milky Way, the Triangulum galaxy is about 3 million light-years distant. On that night, the two friends stood about 3 light-nanoseconds apart. from NASA h...

Light-years across, this suggestive shape known as the Seahorse Nebula appears in silhouette against a rich, luminous background of stars. Seen toward the royal northern constellation of Cepheus, the dusty, obscuring clouds are part of a Milky Way molecular cloud some 1,200 light-years distant. It is also listed as Barnard 150 (B150), one of 182 dark markings of the sky cataloged in the early 20th century by astronomer E. E. Barnard . Packs of low mass stars are forming within , but their collapsing cores are only visible at long infrared wavelengths . Still, the colorful stars of Cepheus add to this pretty, galactic skyscape . from NASA https://ift.tt/3o5NRuG

Dwarf galaxies NGC 147 (left) and NGC 185 stand side by side in this sharp telescopic portrait. The two are not-often-imaged satellites 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, 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 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/3q5uhkA

By Franz Lidz from NYT Science https://ift.tt/3CCr8Mx

By Andrew Jacobs from NYT Science https://ift.tt/3CHYERy

We've seen this same supernova three times -- when will we see it a fourth? When a distant star explodes in a supernova , we're lucky if we see it even once. In the case of AT 2016jka ("SN Requiem"), because the exploding star happened to be lined up behind the center of a galaxy cluster (MACS J0138 in this case), a comparison of Hubble Space Telescope images demonstrate that we saw it three times. These three supernova images are highlighted in circles near the bottom of the left frame taken in 2016. On the right frame, taken in 2019, the circles are empty because all three images of the single supernova had faded. Computer modeling of the cluster lens, however, indicates that a fourth image of the same supernova should eventually appear in the upper circle on the right image. But when? The best models predict this will happen in 2037 , but this date is uncertain by about two years because of ambiguities in the mass distribution of the cluster lens and the b...

The dream was to capture both the waterfall and the Milky Way together. Difficulties included finding a good camera location, artificially illuminating the waterfall and the surrounding valley effectively, capturing the entire scene with numerous foreground and background shots, worrying that fireflies would be too distracting , keeping the camera dry, and avoiding stepping on a poisonous snake. Behold the result -- captured after midnight in mid-July and digitally stitched into a wide-angle panorama. The waterfall is the picturesque Zhulian waterfall in the Luoxiao Mountains in eastern Hunan Province , China . The central band of our Milky Way Galaxy crosses the sky and shows numerous dark dust filaments and colorful nebulas . Bright stars dot the sky -- all residing in the nearby Milky Way -- including the Summer Triangle with bright Vega visible above the Milky Way's arch . After capturing all 78 component exposures for you to enjoy, the photographer and friends enjoyed ...

By William J. Broad from NYT Science https://ift.tt/3bmY1B9

Is our universe haunted? It might look that way on this dark matter map. The gravity of unseen dark matter is the leading explanation for why galaxies rotate so fast , why galaxies orbit clusters so fast , why gravitational lenses so strongly deflect light , and why visible matter is distributed as it is both in the local universe and on the cosmic microwave background . The featured image from the American Museum of Natural History 's Hayden Planetarium Space Show Dark Universe highlights one example of how pervasive dark matter might haunt our universe. In this frame from a detailed computer simulation , complex filaments of dark matter, shown in black, are strewn about the universe like spider webs , while the relatively rare clumps of familiar baryon ic matter are colored orange. These simulations are good statistical matches to astronomical observations. In what is perhaps a scarier turn of events, dark matter -- although quite strange and in an unknown form -- is ...

By Eduardo Medina from NYT Science https://ift.tt/3GAwuui

If you see this as a monster's face, don't panic. It's only pareidolia , often experienced as the tendency to see faces in patterns of light and shadow. In fact, the startling visual scene is actually a 180 degree panorama of Northern Lights , digitally mirrored like inkblots on a folded piece of paper. Frames used to construct it were captured on a September night from the middle of a waterfall-crossing suspension bridge in Jamtland, Sweden. With geomagnetic storms triggered by recent solar activity , auroral displays could be very active at planet Earth's high latitudes in the coming days. But if you see a monster's face in your own neighborhood tomorrow night, it might just be Halloween. from NASA https://ift.tt/3bvoA6V

Spooky shapes seem to haunt this dusty expanse, drifting through the night in the royal constellation Cepheus . Of course, the shapes are cosmic dust clouds visible in dimly reflected starlight. Far from your own neighborhood , they lurk above the plane of the Milky Way at the edge of the Cepheus Flare molecular cloud complex some 1,200 light-years away. Over 2 light-years across and brighter than most of the other ghostly apparitions, vdB 141 or Sh2-136 is also known as the Ghost Nebula , seen at the right of the starry field of view. Inside the nebula are the telltale signs of dense cores collapsing in the early stages of star formation . With the eerie hue of dust reflecting bluish light from hot young stars of NGC 7023, the Iris Nebula stands out against the dark just left of center. In the broad telescopic frame , these fertile interstellar dust fields stretch almost seven full moons across the sky. from NASA https://ift.tt/31dQlPN

By Sabrina Imbler from NYT Science https://ift.tt/3jJoSMe

As far as ghosts go , Mirach's Ghost isn't really that scary . Mirach's Ghost is just a faint, fuzzy galaxy, well known to astronomers, that happens to be seen nearly along the line-of-sight to Mirach , a bright star. Centered in this star field, Mirach is also called Beta Andromedae. About 200 light-years distant, Mirach is a red giant star, cooler than the Sun but much larger and so intrinsically much brighter than our parent star. In most telescopic views, glare and diffraction spikes tend to hide things that lie near Mirach and make the faint, fuzzy galaxy look like a ghostly internal reflection of the almost overwhelming starlight. Still, appearing in this sharp image just above and to the right of Mirach, Mirach's Ghost is cataloged as galaxy NGC 404 and is estimated to be some 10 million light-years away. from NASA https://ift.tt/3GwBSyi

Do you see the bat? It haunts this cosmic close-up of the eastern Veil Nebula . The Veil Nebula itself is a large supernova remnant, the expanding debris cloud from the death explosion of a massive star . While the Veil is roughly circular in shape and covers nearly 3 degrees on the sky toward the constellation of the Swan ( Cygnus ), NGC 6995, known informally as the Bat Nebula, spans only 1/2 degree, about the apparent size of the Moon . That translates to 12 light-years at the Veil's estimated distance, a reassuring 1,400 light-years from planet Earth . In the composite of image data recorded through narrow band filters, emission from hydrogen atoms in the remnant is shown in red with strong emission from oxygen atoms shown in hues of blue. Of course, in the western part of the Veil lies another seasonal apparition: the Witch's Broom Nebula. from NASA https://ift.tt/3nuu8o8

By Sabrina Imbler from NYT Science https://ift.tt/3m7fvHH

Observe the graceful twirl of our Solar System's largest planet. Many interesting features of Jupiter's enigmatic atmosphere , including dark belts and light zones , can be followed in detail. A careful inspection will reveal that different cloud layers rotate at slightly different speeds . The famous Great Red Spot is not visible at first -- but soon rotates into view. Other smaller storm systems occasionally appear. As large as Jupiter is, it rotates in only 10 hours. Our small Earth , by comparison, takes 24 hours to complete a spin cycle . The featured high-resolution time-lapse video was captured over five nights earlier this month by a mid-sized telescope on an apartment balcony in Paris , France . Since hydrogen and helium gas are colorless, and those elements compose most of Jupiter's expansive atmosphere , what trace elements create the observed colors of Jupiter's clouds remains a topic of research. from NASA https://ift.tt/30W0K2h

Does the road to our galaxy's center go through Monument Valley ? It doesn't have to, but if your road does -- take a picture. In this case, the road is US Route 163 and iconic buttes on the Navajo Nation al Reservation populate the horizon. The band of Milky Way Galaxy stretches down from the sky and appears to be a continuation of the road on Earth . Filaments of dust darken the Milky Way , in contrast to billions of bright stars and several colorful glowing gas clouds including the Lagoon and Trifid nebulas. The featured picture is a composite of images taken with the same camera and from the same location -- Forest Gump Point in Utah , USA . The foreground was taken just after sunset in early September during the blue hour , while the background is a mosaic of four exposures captured a few hours later. from NASA https://ift.tt/3vEQarI

Halloween's origin is ancient and astronomical. Since the fifth century BC, Halloween has been celebrated as a cross-quarter day , a day halfway between an equinox (equal day / equal night) and a solstice (minimum day / maximum night in the northern hemisphere). With a modern calendar however, even though Halloween occurs next week, the real cross- quarter day will occur the week after . Another cross-quarter day is Groundhog Day . Halloween's modern celebration retains historic roots in dressing to scare away the spirits of the dead. Perhaps a fitting tribute to this ancient holiday is this view of the Ghost Head Nebula taken with the Hubble Space Telescope . Similar to the icon of a fictional ghost , NGC 2080 is actually a star forming region in the Large Magellanic Cloud , a satellite galaxy of our own Milky Way Galaxy . The Ghost Head Nebula ( NGC 2080 ) spans about 50 light-years and is shown in representative colors. from NASA https://ift.tt/3jy3l9f

Put on your red/blue glasses and float next to asteroid 101955 Bennu . Shaped like a spinning toy top with boulders littering its rough surface, the tiny Solar System world is about one Empire State Building (less than 500 meters) across. Frames used to construct this 3D anaglyph were taken by PolyCam on the OSIRIS_REx spacecraft on December 3, 2018 from a distance of about 80 kilometers. With a sample from the asteroid's rocky surface on board, OSIRIS_REx departed Bennu's vicinity this May and is now enroute to planet Earth. The robotic spacecraft is scheduled to return the sample to Earth in September 2023 . from NASA https://ift.tt/3jw0Bce

This pretty field of view spans over 2 degrees or 4 full moons on the sky, filled with stars toward the constellation Taurus, the Bull. Above and right of center in the frame you can spot the faint fuzzy reddish appearance of Messier 1 (M1), also known as the Crab Nebula . M1 is the first object in 18th century comet hunter Charles Messier's famous catalog of things which are definitely not comets. Made from image data captured this October 11, there is a comet in the picture though. Below center and left lies the faint greenish coma and dusty tail of periodic comet 67P Churyumov-Gerasimenko , also known as Rosetta's comet. In the 21st century, it became the final resting place of robots from planet Earth . Rosetta's comet is now returning to the inner solar system, sweeping toward its next perihelion or closest approach to the Sun, on November 2. Too faint to be seen by eye alone, the comet's next perigee or closest approach to Earth will be November 12. from NAS...

Blown by fast winds from a hot, massive star, this cosmic bubble is huge. Cataloged as Sharpless 2-308 it lies some 5,000 light-years away toward the constellation of the Big Dog ( Canis Major ) and covers slightly more of the sky than a Full Moon. That corresponds to a diameter of 60 light-years at its estimated distance. The massive star that created the bubble, a Wolf-Rayet star , is the bright one near the center of the nebula. Wolf-Rayet stars have over 20 times the mass of the Sun and are thought to be in a brief, pre-supernova phase of massive star evolution. Fast winds from this Wolf-Rayet star create the bubble-shaped nebula as they sweep up slower moving material from an earlier phase of evolution. The windblown nebula has an age of about 70,000 years . Relatively faint emission captured by narrowband filters in the deep image is dominated by the glow of ionized oxygen atoms mapped to a blue hue. Presenting a mostly harmless outline, SH2-308 is also known as The Dol...

By Katherine Kornei from NYT Science https://ift.tt/3n4Y8Xa

Why would this mission go out as far as Jupiter -- but then not visit Jupiter? Lucy's plan is to follow different leads about the origin of our Solar System than can be found at Jupiter -- where Juno now orbits . Jupiter is such a massive planet that its gravity captures numerous asteroids that orbit the Sun ahead of it -- and behind. These trojan asteroids formed all over our Solar System and some may have been trapped there for billions of years. Flying by these trojan asteroids enables studying them as fossils that likely hold unique clues about our early Solar System. Lucy , named after a famous fossil skeleton which was named after a famous song , is scheduled to visit eight asteroids from 2025 to 2033. Pictured, Lucy 's launch was captured with reflection last week aboard a powerful Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral , Florida , USA . from NASA https://ift.tt/3pdBiQ2

Where did this big ball of stars come from? Palomar 6 is one of about 200 globular cluster s of stars that survive in our Milky Way Galaxy . These spherical star-balls are older than our Sun as well as older than most stars that orbit in our galaxy's disk . Palomar 6 itself is estimated to be about 12.5 billion years old, so old that it is close to -- and so constrains -- the age of the entire universe . Containing about 500,000 stars, Palomar 6 lies about 25,000 light years away, but not very far from our galaxy's center . At that distance, this sharp image from the Hubble Space Telescope spans about 15 light-years. After much study including images from Hubble, a leading origin hypothesis is that Palomar 6 was created -- and survives today -- in the central bulge of stars that surround the Milky Way's center , not in the distant galactic halo where most other globular clusters are now found. from NASA https://ift.tt/2Z3AHFC

By Robin George Andrews from NYT Science https://ift.tt/3ATPY97

Why can we see the entire face of this Moon? When the Moon is in a crescent phase, only part of it appears directly illuminated by the Sun . The answer is earthshine , also known as earthlight and the da Vinci glow . The reason is that the rest of the Earth-facing Moon is slightly illuminated by sunlight first reflected from the Earth. Since the Earth appears near full phase from the Moon -- when the Moon appears as a slight crescent from the Earth -- earthshine is then near its brightest. Featured here in combined, consecutively-taken, HDR images taken earlier this month, a rising earthshine Moon was captured passing slowly near the planet Venus , the brightest spot near the image center. Just above Venus is the star Dschubba (catalogued as Delta Scorpii ), while the red star on the far left is Antares . The celestial show is visible through scenic cloud decks. In the foreground are the lights from Palazzolo Acreide , a city with ancient historical roots in Sicily , Italy...

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/3AOvUVE

By Joey Roulette from NYT Science https://ift.tt/3aIYFsk