Copyright: Zev Hoover On June 10 a New Moon passed in front of the Sun. In silhouette only two days after reaching apogee, the most distant point in its elliptical orbit, the Moon’s small apparent size helped create an annular solar eclipse. The brief but spectacular annular phase of the eclipse shows a bright solar […]
Copyright: Helmut Eder This moon appears multiply strange. This moon was a full moon, specifically called a Flower Moon at this time of the year. But that didn’t make it strange — full moons occur once a month (moon-th). This moon was a supermoon, meaning that it reached its full phase near its closest approach to the […]
Copyright: What do you see in the clouds of Jupiter? On the largest scale, circling the planet, Jupiter has alternating light zones and reddish-brown belts. Rising zone gas, mostly hydrogen and helium, usually swirls around regions of high pressure. Conversely, falling belt gas usually whirls around regions of low pressure, like cyclones and hurricanes on […]
Copyright: Chuck Ayoub What’s that new spot of light in Cassiopeia? A nova. Although novas occur frequently throughout the universe, this nova, known as Nova Cas 2021 or V1405 Cas, became so unusually bright in the skies of Earth last month that it was visible to the unaided eye. Nova Cas 2021 first brightened in […]
Copyright: The weathered and layered face of Mount Mercou looms in the foreground of this mosaic from the Curiosity Mars rover’s Mast Camera. Made up of 21 individual images the scene was recorded just after sunset on March 19, the 3,063rd martian day of Curiosity’s on going exploration of the Red Planet. In the martian […]
Copyright: Chirag Upreti On May 26, the Full Flower Moon was caught in this single exposure as it emerged from Earth’s shadow and morning twilight began to wash over the western sky. Posing close to the horizon near the end of totality, an eclipsed lunar disk is framed against bare oak trees at Pinnacles National […]
Copyright: What’s going on near the center of our galaxy? To help find out, a newly detailed panorama has been composed that explores regions just above and below the galactic plane in radio and X-ray light. X-ray light taken by the orbiting Chandra Observatory is shown in orange (hot), green (hotter), and purple (hottest) and […]
Copyright: What are those streaks across Orion? Most are reflections of sunlight from numerous Earth-orbiting Starlink satellites. Appearing by eye as a series of successive points floating across a twilight sky, the increasing number of SpaceX Starlink communication satellites are causing concern among many astronomers. On the positive side, Starlink and similar constellations make the […]
Copyright: Daniele Boffelli Auroras usually occur high above the clouds. The auroral glow is created when fast-moving particles ejected from the Sun impact the Earth’s magnetosphere, from which charged particles spiral along the Earth’s magnetic field to strike atoms and molecules high in the Earth’s atmosphere. An oxygen atom, for example, will glow in the […]
Copyright: Barden Ridge Observatory The reddened shadow of planet Earth plays across the lunar disk in this telescopic image taken on May 26 near Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. On that crisp, clear autumn night a Perigee Full Moon slid through the northern edge of the shadow’s dark central umbra. Short for a lunar eclipse, […]
Copyright: John Kraus May’s perigee Full Moon slid through Earth’s shadow yesterday entertaining night skygazers in regions around the Pacific. Seen from western North America, it sinks toward the rugged Sierra Nevada mountain range in this time-lapse series of the total lunar eclipse. Low on the western horizon the Moon was captured at mid-eclipse with […]
Copyright: What created these unusual clouds? At the center of this 2021 Hubble image sits AG Carinae, a supergiant star located about 20,000 light-years away in the southern constellation Carina. The star’s emitted power is over a million times that of the Sun, making AG Carinae one of the most luminous stars in our Milky […]
Copyright: How does the Moon’s appearance change during a total lunar eclipse? The featured time-lapse video was digitally processed to keep the Moon bright and centered during the 5-hour eclipse of 2018 January 31. At first the full moon is visible because only a full moon can undergo a lunar eclipse. Stars move by in […]
Copyright: Chris KotsiopoulosGreekSky Thunderstorms almost spoiled this view of the spectacular 2011 June 15 total lunar eclipse. Instead, storm clouds parted for 10 minutes during the total eclipse phase and lightning bolts contributed to the dramatic sky. Captured with a 30-second exposure the scene also inspired one of the more memorable titles (thanks to the […]
Copyright: César Vega Toledano Rollover Annotation: Judy Schmidt First came the trees. In the town of Salamanca, Spain, the photographer noticed how distinctive a grove of oak trees looked after being pruned. Next came the galaxy. The photographer stayed up until 2 am, waiting until the Milky Way Galaxy rose above the level of a […]
