Today’s solstice brings summer to planet Earth’s northern hemisphere. But the northern summer solstice arrived for ringed planet Saturn over three years ago on May 24, 2017. Orbiting the gas giant, Saturn’s moon Titan experiences the Saturnian seasons. Larger than inner planet Mercury, Titan was captured in this Cassini spacecraft image about two weeks after […]

It may look like Earthrise, but it’s actually Venus-set. Just after sunrise two days ago, both the Moon and Venus also rose. But then the Moon overtook Venus. In the featured image sequence centered on the Moon, Venus is shown increasingly angularly close to the Moon. In the famous Earthrise image taken just over 50 […]

Pilots Troy Asher and Wayne Ringelberg walk out of NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center’s (AFRC) hangar in Palmdale, California, toward the flight line. via wordpress https://wp.me/p4wJUi-6Pv

Transfusing sunlight through a darkened sky, this beautiful display of noctilucent clouds was captured earlier this week, reflected in calm waters from Nykobing Mors, Denmark. From the edge of space, about 80 kilometers above Earth’s surface, the icy clouds themselves still reflect sunlight, though the Sun is below the horizon as seen from the ground. […]

This telescopic close-up shows off the central regions of otherwise faint emission nebula IC 410, captured under backyard suburban skies with narrowband filters. It also features two remarkable inhabitants of the cosmic pond of gas and dust. Below and right of center are the tadpoles of IC 410. Partly obscured by foreground dust, the nebula […]

This artist’s concept shows an astronaut on Mars, as viewed through the window of a spacecraft. via wordpress https://wp.me/p4wJUi-6P7

What role do magnetic fields play in interstellar physics? Analyses of observations by ESA’s Planck satellite of emission by small magnetically-aligned dust grains reveal previously unknown magnetic field structures in our Milky Way Galaxy — as shown by the curvy lines in the featured full-sky image. The dark red shows the plane of the Milky […]

Seen here in incredible detail is the starburst galaxy formally known as PLCK G045.1+61.1. The galaxy, which appears as multiple reddish dots near the center of the image, is being gravitationally lensed by a cluster of closer galaxies, also seen in the image. via wordpress https://wp.me/p4wJUi-6OM

Welcome to the quadranscentennial year of the Astronomy Picture of the Day. Perhaps a source of consistency for some, APOD is still here. To help celebrate APOD’s Silver Anniversary, some of APOD’s TVAoTaSMD have recorded a birthday greeting and thanks to APOD’s readership in today’s featured video. Many have also highlighted a few of their […]

Launched on April 20, 2004, Gravity Probe B (GP-B) was a collaboration between Stanford University and NASA designed to test two previously untested aspects of Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity. via wordpress https://wp.me/p4wJUi-6OB