Light pollution is usually not a problem in Qeqertaq. In western Greenland the remote coastal village boasted a population of 114 in 2020. Lights still shine in its dark skies though. During planet Earth’s recent intense geomagnetic storm, on November 6 these beautiful curtains of aurora borealis fell over the arctic realm. On the eve […]
NASA’s Space Launch System carrying the Orion spacecraft lifts off the pad at Launch Complex 39B at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 1:47 a.m. EST on Nov. 16, 2022. via NASA https://ift.tt/LgeS0wT
Venus now appears as Earth’s brilliant morning star, shining above the southeastern horizon before dawn. For early morning risers, the silvery celestial beacon rose predawn in a close pairing with a waning crescent Moon on Thursday, November 9. But from some northern locations, the Moon was seen to occult or pass in front of Venus. […]
A 35mm camera, operated by astronaut William R. Pogue, Skylab 4 pilot, recorded this wide scene of his Skylab 4 crewmates on the other end of the orbital workshop. Astronauts Jerry P. Carr (right), commander, and Edward G. Gibson, science pilot, pose for the snapshot. Also in the frame are parts of three Extravehicular Mobility […]
Cataloged as M1, the Crab Nebula is the first on Charles Messier’s famous list of things which are not comets. In fact, the Crab Nebula is now known to be a supernova remnant, an expanding cloud of debris from the death explosion of a massive star. The violent birth of the Crab was witnessed by […]
NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility C-130 aircraft delivered the agency’s Galactic/Extragalactic ULDB Spectroscopic Terahertz Observatory (GUSTO) payload to McMurdo Station, Antarctica, on Oct. 28, 2023. The GUSTO mission will launch on a scientific balloon in December 2023. via NASA https://ift.tt/a9LGpq4
In the fading darkness before dawn, a tilted triangle appeared to balance atop a rock formation off the southern tip of Sicily. Making up the points of the triangle are three of the four brightest objects visible in Earth’s sky: Jupiter, Venus and the Moon. Though a thin waning crescent, most of the moon’s disk […]
In this photo from Nov. 9, 2023, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket illuminates the water as it launches at night from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The 29th commercial resupply mission of the Cargo Dragon spacecraft brought new scientific research, technology demonstrations, crew supplies, and hardware to the International Space Station, including NASA’s Integrated […]
Have you ever seen the Andromeda galaxy? Although M31 appears as a faint and fuzzy blob to the unaided eye, the light you see will be over two million years old, making it likely the oldest light you ever will see directly. The featured image captured Andromeda just before it set behind the Swiss Alps […]
This is a gibbous Moon. More Earthlings are familiar with a full moon, when the entire face of Luna is lit by the Sun, and a crescent moon, when only a sliver of the Moon’s face is lit. When more than half of the Moon is illuminated, though, but still short of full illumination, the […]