South is up in this dramatic telescopic view of the lunar terminator and the Moon’s rugged southern highlands. The lunar landscape was captured on July 7 with the moon at its first quarter phase. The Sun shines at a low angle from the right as dawn comes to the region’s young and old craters Tycho […]
A SpaceX Falcon 9 soars upward after lifting off from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on July 14, 2022. via NASA https://ift.tt/YhO5JsT
On July 13 this well-planned telephoto view recorded a Full Moon rising over Lubovna Castle in eastern Slovania. The photographer was about 3 kilometers from the castle walls and about 357,000 kilometers from this Full Moon near perigee, the closest point in its elliptical orbit. Known to some as supermoons, full moons near perigee are […]
Cataloged as NGC 3132 the Southern Ring Nebula is a planetary nebula, the death shroud of a dying sun-like star some 2,500 light-years from Earth. Composed of gas and dust the stunning cosmic landscape is nearly half a light-year in diameter, explored in unprecedented detail by the James Webb Space Telescope. In this NIRCam image […]
Senior Project Scientist John Mather speaks with the media after the release of the first images from the James Webb Space Telescope . via NASA https://ift.tt/iUjTbDG
This is the deepest, sharpest infrared image of the cosmos so far. The view of the early Universe toward the southern constellation Volans was achieved in 12.5 hours of exposure with the NIRCam instrument on the James Webb Space Telescope. Of course the stars with six visible spikes are well within our own Milky Way. […]
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson describes the first full-color image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. via NASA https://ift.tt/RDBrgbG
It’s northern noctilucent cloud season. Composed of small ice crystals forming only during specific conditions in the upper atmosphere, noctilucent clouds may become visible at sunset during late summer when illuminated by sunlight from below. Noctilucent clouds are the highest clouds known and now established to be polar mesospheric clouds observed from the ground. Although […]
Within the tempestuous Carina Nebula lies “Mystic Mountain.” This three-light-year-tall cosmic pinnacle, imaged by Hubble in 2010. via NASA https://ift.tt/pZdCoFM
What is the oldest thing you can see? At 2.5 million light years distant, the answer for the unaided eye is the Andromeda galaxy, because its photons are 2.5 million years old when they reach you. Most other apparent denizens of the night sky — stars, clusters, and nebulae — appear as they were only […]