While drifting through the cosmos, a magnificent interstellar dust cloud became sculpted by stellar winds and radiation to assume a recognizable shape. Fittingly named the Horsehead Nebula, it is embedded in the vast and complex Orion Nebula (M42). A potentially rewarding but difficult object to view personally with a small telescope, the featured gorgeously detailed […]
What’s happening in the Statue of Liberty nebula? Bright stars and interesting molecules are forming and being liberated. The complex nebula resides in the star forming region called RCW 57, and besides the iconic monument, to some looks like a flying superhero or a weeping angel. By digitally removing the stars, this re-assigned color image […]
This cloudy, turbulent scene shows a stellar nursery within the Large Magellanic Cloud known as N159. via NASA https://ift.tt/pZi0ghb
The beauty in this image comes in layers. On the bottom layer is the picturesque village of Manlleu in Barcelona, Spain. The six-minute exposure makes car lights into streaks. The next layer is a mountain — Serra de Bellmunt — of Europe’s famous Pyrenees. Next up is a tremendous lightning storm emanating from a classically-shaped […]
If you went outside at the same time every day and took a picture that included the Sun, how would the Sun’s position change? A more visual answer to that question is an analemma, a composite image taken from the same spot at the same time over the course of a year. The featured analemma […]
The Perseverance rover’s Mastcam-Z captured images to create this mosaic on August 4, 2022. The car-sized robot was continuing its exploration of the fan-shaped delta of a river that, billions of years ago, flowed into Jezero Crater on Mars. Sedimentary rocks preserved in Jezero’s delta are considered one of the best places on Mars to […]
The Tarantula Nebula, also known as 30 Doradus, is more than a thousand light-years in diameter, a giant star forming region within nearby satellite galaxy the Large Magellanic Cloud. About 180 thousand light-years away, it’s the largest, most violent star forming region known in the whole Local Group of galaxies. The cosmic arachnid sprawls across […]
Astronaut Michael E. López-Alegría, mission specialist, is photographed in this close-up view during one of the STS-92 sessions of extravehicular activity on Oct. 18, 2000. via NASA https://ift.tt/jUCYeb5
For northern hemisphere dwellers, September’s Full Moon was the Harvest Moon. Reflecting warm hues at sunset it rises over the historic town of Castiglione di Sicilia in this telephoto view from September 9. Famed in festival, story, and song Harvest Moon is just the traditional name of the full moon nearest the autumnal equinox. According […]
A little blue heron is seen in front of the Vehicle Assembly Building as preparations for launch continue, Friday, Sept. 2, 2022, at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. via NASA https://ift.tt/fdUeu72