The spectacular aurora borealis, or the “northern lights,” over Canada is sighted from the space station near the highest point of its orbital path. The station’s main solar arrays are seen in the left foreground. via NASA https://ift.tt/VQlASEw
This eagle ray glides across a cosmic sea. Officially cataloged as SH2-63 and LBN 86, the dark nebula is composed of gas and dust that just happens to appear shaped like a common ocean fish. The interstellar dust nebula appears light brown as it blocks and reddens visible light emitted behind it. Dark nebulas glow […]
Where do comet tails come from? There are no obvious places on the nuclei of comets from which the jets that create comet tails emanate. In 2016, though, ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft not only imaged a jet emerging from Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, but flew right through it. Featured is a telling picture showing a bright plume emerging […]
Immersed in an eerie greenish light, this rugged little planet appears to be home to stunning water falls and an impossibly tall mountain. It’s planet Earth of course. On the night of November 9 the nadir-centered 360 degree mosaic was captured by digital camera from the Kirkjufell mountain area of western Iceland. Curtains of shimmering […]
A disk of hot gas swirls around a black hole in this illustration from Dec. 20, 2022. A long stream of hot gas on the right, coming from a star that was pulled apart by the black hole, feeds into the disk. via NASA https://ift.tt/6CHtnEQ
Jupiter looks sharp in these two rooftop telescope images. Both were captured on November 17 from Singapore, planet Earth, about two weeks after Jupiter’s 2023 opposition. Climbing high in midnight skies the giant planet was a mere 33.4 light-minutes from Singapore. That’s about 4 astronomical units away. Jupiter’s planet girdling dark belts and light zones […]
The cosmic brush of star formation composed this interstellar canvas of emission, dust, and dark nebulae. A 5 degree wide telescopic mosaic, it frames a region found north of bright star Aldebaran on the sky, at an inner wall of the local bubble along the Taurus molecular cloud. At lower left, emission cataloged as Sh2-239 […]
NASA astronauts Michael Hopkins (left) and Rick Mastracchio, both Expedition 38 flight engineers, pose for a photo with a Thanksgiving meal in the Unity node of the International Space Station. via NASA https://ift.tt/ifEy1BS
Similar in size to large, bright spiral galaxies in our neighborhood, IC 342 is a mere 10 million light-years distant in the long-necked, northern constellation Camelopardalis. A sprawling island universe, IC 342 would otherwise be a prominent galaxy in our night sky, but it is hidden from clear view and only glimpsed through the veil […]
NASA astronaut and Expedition 68 flight engineer Nicole Mann is pictured during a fit check of her spacesuit ahead of a planned spacewalk to upgrade the International Space Station’s power generation system. via NASA https://ift.tt/lxWv5Fq