On Sept. 21, 2022, the James Webb Space Telescope delivered the clearest view of Neptune’s rings in more than 30 years. via NASA https://ift.tt/CIjX65k

Fifteen days before impact, the DART spacecraft deployed a small companion satellite to document its historic planetary defense technology demonstration. Provided by the Italian Space Agency, the Light Italian CubeSat for Imaging Asteroids, aka LICIACube, recorded this image of the event’s aftermath. A cloud of ejecta is seen near the right edge of the frame […]

Astronaut Ellen Ochoa, STS-110 flight engineer, wears a launch and entry suit as part of water survival training in the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory in 2001. via NASA https://ift.tt/VEv0TYQ

Is the sky angry with Mount Shasta? According to some ancient legends, the spirits of above and below worlds fight there, sometimes quite actively during eruptions of this enormous volcano in California, USA. Such drama can well be imagined in this deep sky image taken in late June. Evident above the snow-covered peak is the […]

In this image from Sept. 26, 2022, the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) team, Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen, and guests at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory cheer as they receive confirmation of DART’s collision with Dimorphos. via NASA https://ift.tt/moeUzlh

Could humanity deflect an asteroid headed for Earth? Yes. Deadly impacts from large asteroids have happened before in Earth’s past, sometimes causing mass extinctions of life. To help protect our Earth from some potential future impacts, NASA tested a new planetary defense mechanism yesterday by crashing the robotic Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft into […]

Technicians prepare to move NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft from a shipping container onto a work stand inside the Astrotech Space Operations Facility at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California in this image from Oct. 4, 2021. via NASA https://ift.tt/wDXKzjn

How much of planet Earth is made of water? Very little, actually. Although oceans of water cover about 70 percent of Earth’s surface, these oceans are shallow compared to the Earth’s radius. The featured illustration shows what would happen if all of the water on or near the surface of the Earth were bunched up […]

The dust sculptures of the Eagle Nebula are evaporating. As powerful starlight whittles away these cool cosmic mountains, the statuesque pillars that remain might be imagined as mythical beasts. Featured here is one of several striking dust pillars of the Eagle Nebula that might be described as a gigantic alien fairy. This fairy, however, is […]

The defining astronomical moment for this September’s equinox was on Friday, September 23, 2022 at 01:03 UTC, when the Sun crossed the celestial equator moving south in its yearly journey through planet Earth’s sky. That marked the beginning of fall for our fair planet in the northern hemisphere and spring in the southern hemisphere, when […]