An adult osprey, carrying a fish in its talons, prepares to land in its nest atop a platform in the press site parking lot at Kennedy Space Center. via NASA https://ift.tt/KI0tymj

Imaged on June 20 2022, comet C/2017 K2 (PanSTARRS) shares this wide telescopic field of view with open star cluster IC 4665 and bright star Beta Ophiuchi, near a starry edge of the Milky Way. On its maiden voyage to the inner Solar System from the dim and distant Oort cloud, this comet PanSTARRS was […]

Brightly glowing plumes of the Large Magellanic Cloud appear almost like an ocean current. via NASA https://ift.tt/osDhWeN

Yes, but have you ever seen all of the planets at once? A rare roll-call of planets has been occurring in the morning sky for much of June. The featured fisheye all-sky image, taken a few mornings ago near the town of San Pedro de Atacama in Chile, caught not only the entire planet parade, […]

The CAPSTONE mission launched at 5:55 a.m. EDT (09:55 UTC) on Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket from New Zealand. via NASA https://ift.tt/9gfk7c0

Which part of the Moon is this? No part — because this is the planet Mercury. Mercury’s old surface is heavily cratered like that of Earth’s Moon. Mercury, while only slightly larger than Luna, is much denser and more massive than any Solar System moon because it is made mostly of iron. In fact, our […]

The Gum Nebula is so large and close it is actually hard to see. This interstellar expanse of glowing hydrogen gas frequently evades notice because it spans 35 degrees — over 70 full Moons — while much of it is quite dim. This featured spectacular 90-degree wide mosaic, however, was designed to be both wide […]

What caused this outburst of V838 Mon? For reasons unknown, star V838 Mon’s outer surface suddenly greatly expanded with the result that it became one of the brighter stars in the Milky Way Galaxy in early 2002. Then, just as suddenly, it shrunk and faded. A stellar flash like this had never been seen before […]

Simultaneous images from four cameras were combined to construct this atmospheric predawn skyscape. The cooperative astro-panorama captures all the planets of the Solar System, just before sunrise on June 24. That foggy morning found innermost planet Mercury close to the horizon but just visible against the twilight, below and left of brilliant Venus. Along with […]

CAPSTONE, the pathfinder for NASA’s lunar outpost, will test an orbit around the Moon that has never been flown before. via NASA https://ift.tt/xabVvWA