Comet ZTF may become visible to the unaided eye. Discovered early last year, this massive snowball has been brightening as it approaches the Sun and the Earth. C/2022 E3 (ZTF) will be closest to the Sun later this week, at which time it may become visible even without binoculars to northern observers with a clear […]
The hydrogen in your body, present in every molecule of water, came from the Big Bang. There are no other appreciable sources of hydrogen in the universe. The carbon in your body was made by nuclear fusion in the interior of stars, as was the oxygen. Much of the iron in your body was made […]
On January 3, two space stations already illuminated by sunlight in low Earth orbit crossed this dark predawn sky. Moving west to east (left to right) across the composited timelapse image China’s Tiangong Space Station traced the upper trail captured more than an hour before the local sunrise. Seen against a starry background Tiangong passes […]
The Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) spacecraft is in this early morning photo from Dec. 14, 2022, as preparations for launch continued. via NASA https://ift.tt/IDa1OWp
The first Full Moon of 2023 is in the sky tonight opposite the Sun at 23:08 UTC. Big and beautiful, the Moon at its brightest phase should be easy to spot. Still, for quick reference images captured near the times of all the full moons of 2022 are aranged in this dedicated astro-imaging project from […]
On April 8, 2022, this 30-second exposure captured the International Space Station as it passed over the Space Launch System rocket and the Orion spacecraft at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. via NASA https://ift.tt/RZ0MSIc
Hurtling through a cosmic dust cloud a mere 400 light-years away, the lovely Pleiades or Seven Sisters open star cluster is well-known for its striking blue reflection nebulae. It lies in the night sky toward the constellation Taurus and the Orion Arm of our Milky Way galaxy. The sister stars are not related to the […]
Support teams work around the SpaceX Crew Dragon Endurance spacecraft shortly after it landed on Friday, May 6, 2022 with Crew-3 NASA astronauts Raja Chari, Kayla Barron, Tom Marshburn, and European Space Agency astronaut Matthias Maurer aboard. via NASA https://ift.tt/7aFrkOd
Can a gas cloud eat a galaxy? It’s not even close. The “claw” of this odd looking “creature” in the featured photo is a gas cloud known as a cometary globule. This globule, however, has ruptured. Cometary globules are typically characterized by dusty heads and elongated tails. These features cause cometary globules to have visual […]
An osprey is seen in front of NASA’s Space Launch System rocket with the Orion spacecraft aboard is seen atop a mobile launcher at Launch Pad 39B as launch preparations continued Friday, Sept. 2, 2022, at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. via NASA https://ift.tt/AZW7XrL