The natural filter of a hazy atmosphere offered this recognizable architecture and sunset view on March 27. Dark against the solar disk, large sunspots in solar active regions 2975 and 2976 are wedged between the Duomo of Pisa and its famous Leaning Tower. Only one day later, Sun-staring spacecraft watched active region 2975 unleash a […]
NASA astronaut and SpaceX Crew-4 pilot Bob Hines is pictured during a training session inside a mockup of the Crew Dragon vehicle at SpaceX Headquarters. via NASA https://ift.tt/kmVlpfU
Some 60 million light-years away in the southerly constellation Corvus, two large galaxies are colliding. Stars in the two galaxies, cataloged as NGC 4038 and NGC 4039, very rarely collide in the course of the ponderous cataclysm that lasts for hundreds of millions of years. But the galaxies’ large clouds of molecular gas and dust […]
NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei, left, and cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov, center, and Pyotr Dubrov are seen inside their Soyuz MS-19 spacecraft after landing. via NASA https://ift.tt/gFx560o
What do you call a cosmic puzzle that no one expected to see? In this case, Odd Radio Circles, aka ORCs. ORC-1 typifies the enigmatic five objects, only visible at radio frequencies, that were serendipitously discovered in 2019 using the new Australian SKA Pathfinder radio array. The final image in the featured video uses 2021 […]
Astronaut Mark Vande Hei arrived at the International Space Station on April 9, 2021, and will return home March 30, 2022, after spending 355 days in low-Earth orbit. via NASA https://ift.tt/DUjwRE0
When two planets pass on the night sky, they can usually be seen near each other for a week or more. In the case of this planetary conjunction, Venus and Mars passed within 4 degrees of each other earlier this month. The featured image was taken a few days prior, when Venus was slowing rising […]
Major smashups between rocky bodies shaped our solar system. Observations of a similar crash give clues about how frequent these events are around other stars. via NASA https://ift.tt/2Znm6Kr
The southernmost part of the Milky Way contains not only the stars of the Southern Cross, but the closest star system to our Sun — Alpha Centauri. The Southern Cross itself is topped by the bright, yellowish star Gamma Crucis. A line from Gamma Crucis through the blue star at the bottom of the cross, […]
Why would the surface of Titan light up with a blinding flash? The reason: a sunglint from liquid seas. Saturn’s moon Titan has numerous smooth lakes of methane that, when the angle is right, reflect sunlight as if they were mirrors. Pictured here in false-color, the robotic Cassini spacecraft that orbited Saturn from 2004 to […]