Have you ever seen the Man in the Moon? This common question plays on the ability of humans to see pareidolia — imagining familiar icons where they don’t actually exist. The textured surface of Earth’s full Moon is home to numerous identifications of iconic objects, not only in modern western culture but in world folklore […]
At night you can follow this road as it passes through the Dark Sky Alqueva reserve not too far from Alentejo, Portugal. Or you could stop, look up, and follow the Milky Way through the sky. Both stretch from horizon to horizon in this 180 degree panorama recorded on June 3. Our galaxy’s name, the […]
Unlike most globular clusters, Ruprecht 106 may be what astronomers call a single population globular cluster. via NASA https://ift.tt/C2H1uk8
This colorful telescopic field of view features a trio of interacting galaxies almost 90 million light-years away, toward the constellation Virgo. On the right two spiky, foreground Milky Way stars echo the extragalactic hues, a reminder that stars in our own galaxy are like those in distant island universes. With sweeping spiral arms and obscuring […]
Galaxy clusters contain hundreds of galaxies and huge amounts of hot gas and dark matter. via NASA https://ift.tt/yZAxpeb
These cosmic clouds of gas and dust drift through rich star fields along the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy toward the high flying constellation Cygnus. They’re too faint to be seen with the unaided eye though, even on a clear, dark night. Image data from a camera and telephoto lens using narrowband filters was […]
The International Space Station orbits into a dawn 261 miles above a cloudy Pacific Ocean in this image from April 2022. via NASA https://ift.tt/xH9A8UT
What are those unusual streaks? Some images of planet Earth show clear bright streaks that follow the paths of ships. Known as ship tracks, these low and narrow bands are caused by the ship’s engine exhaust. Water vapor condenses around small bits of exhaust known as aerosols, which soon grow into floating water drops that […]
This November 1996 image from Magellan shows Dickinson, an impact crater in the northeastern Atalanta Region of Venus. via NASA https://ift.tt/GBvKVmM
Do dragons fight on the altar of the sky? Although it might appear that way, these dragons are illusions made of thin gas and dust. The emission nebula NGC 6188, home to the glowing clouds, is found about 4,000 light years away near the edge of a large molecular cloud unseen at visible wavelengths, in […]