On February 22, a young Moon shared the western sky at sunset with bright planets Venus and Jupiter along the ecliptic plane. The beautiful celestial conjunction was visible around planet Earth. But from some locations Jupiter hid for a while, occulted by the crescent lunar disk. The Solar System’s ruling gas giant was captured here […]
The sun rises on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft on Thursday, Feb. 23, 2023, at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. via NASA https://ift.tt/csRdmfw
Planetary nebula Jones-Emberson 1 is the death shroud of a dying Sun-like star. It lies some 1,600 light-years from Earth toward the sharp-eyed constellation Lynx. About 4 light-years across, the expanding remnant of the dying star’s atmosphere was shrugged off into interstellar space, as the star’s central supply of hydrogen and then helium for fusion […]
Astronaut John Glenn enters the Mercury spacecraft, Friendship 7, prior to the launch of Mercury-Atlas 6 (MA-6) on Feb. 20, 1962. via NASA https://ift.tt/lVOMbaP
Peculiar spiral galaxy Arp 78 is found within the boundaries of the head strong constellation Aries. Some 100 million light-years beyond the stars and nebulae of our Milky Way galaxy, the island universe is an enormous 200,000 light-years across. Also known as NGC 772, it sports a prominent, outer spiral arm in this detailed cosmic […]
A blue halo glows around Pluto’s receding crescent in this parting image taken by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft on July 14, 2015. via NASA https://ift.tt/iWVFbmQ
Our Sun is becoming a busy place. Only two years ago, the Sun was emerging from a solar minimum so quiet that months would go by without even a single sunspot. In contrast, already this year and well ahead of schedule, our Sun is unusually active, already nearing solar activity levels seen a decade ago […]
As NASA celebrates National Engineers Week, NASA Glenn gets perspectives from materials research engineer Jamesa Stokes. via NASA https://ift.tt/3krpRM4
They are both falling. The water in Yosemite Falls, California, USA, is falling toward the Earth. Comet ZTF is falling toward the Sun. This double cosmic cascade was captured late last month as fading Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) had just passed its closest to planet Earth. The orange star just over the falls is Kochab. […]
There is nothing like this ball of stars in our Milky Way Galaxy. This is surprising because, at first glance, this featured image by the Hubble Space Telescope suggests that star cluster NGC 1850’s size and shape are reminiscent of the many ancient globular star clusters which roam our own Milky Way Galaxy’s halo. But […]