e85ed75286cb7747...

e85ed75286cb7747...

npub

npub1ap0dw55xedm5w4mkcyq8m7xyluwfc680lywrvfe50vr9ckl5m3uqtf5l75

pubkey (hex)

e85ed75286cb77475776c1007df8c4ff1c9c68eff91c3627347b065c5bf4dc78

nprofile

nprofile1qqswshkh22rvka682amvzqralrz078yudrhlj8pkyu68kpjut06dc7qprf58garswvaz7tmjv4kxz7fwva6kcat8w4k82tnddajsqul934

动态 (114)

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 30 June 2026 **Unusually Smooth Sections of Asteroid Itokawa** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2606/itokaw...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 30 June 2026 **Unusually Smooth Sections of Asteroid Itokawa** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2606/itokawa07_hayabusa_1080.jpg Image Credit: JAXA , ISAS Why are parts of this asteroid's surface so smooth? The answer seems likely to do with the dynamics of an asteroid that is a loose pile of rubble rather than a solid rock. The unusual asteroid Itokawa was visited by the Japan ese spacecraft Hayabusa in 2005 which imaged and documented its unusual structure and mysterious lack of craters . Analyses of the border regions between smooth and rugged sections indicate that jostling of the asteroid might be creating segregation between large and small rocks near the surface, like the Brazil nut effect . The robotic Hayabusa actually touched down on one of the smooth patches, dubbed the MUSES Sea , and collected soil samples . These samples were returned to Earth and are not only giving clues to the ancient history of this unusual asteroid , but also about the early years of our entire Solar System . Computer simulations show that 500-meter asteroid Itokawa may impact the Earth within the next few million years. #APOD #Asteroid #Itokawa #Hayabusa #RubblePile #SurfaceSmoothness https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260630.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-06-30T04:05:32Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 29 June 2026 **M82: Galaxy with a Supergalactic Wind** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2606/M82_HubbleWebb...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 29 June 2026 **M82: Galaxy with a Supergalactic Wind** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2606/M82_HubbleWebb_5000.jpg Image Credit: NASA , ESA , CSA , A. Smercina (STScI, Tufts), T. Williams (U. Manchester); Image Processing: A. Pagan (STScI) Why is the Cigar Galaxy billowing red smoke? M82 , as this starburst galaxy is also known, was stirred up by a recent pass near large spiral galaxy M81 . This doesn't fully explain the source of the red-glowing outwardly expanding gas and dust, however. Evidence indicates that this gas and dust is being driven out by the combined emerging particle winds of many stars, together creating a galactic superwind . The dust particles are thought to originate in M82's interstellar medium and are actually similar in size to particles in cigar smoke. The featured photographic mosaic combines images taken in visible light from the Hubble Space Telescope and images taken in infrared light from James Webb Space Telescope . It shows the light-colored central galaxy nearly edge on across the image center with tremendous orange and red colored filaments of gas and dust extending both up and down. The filaments extend for over 10,000 light year s. The 12-million light-year distant Cigar Galaxy is the brightest galaxy in the sky in infrared light and can be seen in visible light with a small telescope towards the constellation of the Great Bear ( Ursa Major ). #APOD #M82 #CigarGalaxy #SupergalacticWind #StarburstGalaxy #M81 https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260629.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-06-29T04:09:58Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 28 June 2026 **AR 4478: Giant Sunspot Group** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2606/AR4478_vidal_960.jpg C...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 28 June 2026 **AR 4478: Giant Sunspot Group** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2606/AR4478_vidal_960.jpg Credit: Not provided Right now, one of the largest sunspot groups in recent history is crossing the Sun. Active Region 4478 is not only big -- it's violent, showing tangled magnetic fields capable of throwing off huge clouds of particles into the Solar System . Some of these CME s might impact the Earth. At the extreme, these solar storm s could cause some Earth-orbiting satellites to malfunction , the Earth's atmosphere to slightly distort, and electrical power grids to surge . When impacting Earth's upper atmosphere , these particles can produce beautiful auroras . Pictured here, AR 4478 and its dark sunspot s were captured in visible light a few days ago from Barcelona , Spain . Almost as large as AR 3664 was in 2024, the AR 4478 sunspot group is so big that it is visible just with glasses specially designed to view solar eclipse s. This week, skygazing enthusiasts all over the globe will not only be tracking AR 4478 during the day -- but keenly watching night skies for its corresponding bright auroras . #APOD #SunSpot #SolarStorm #SolarPhysics #SpaceWeather #SolarObservation https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260628.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-06-28T04:09:34Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 27 June 2026 **Mars Marathon by Perseverance** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2606/PIA26726.jpg Image Cr...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 27 June 2026 **Mars Marathon by Perseverance** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2606/PIA26726.jpg Image Credit: NASA , LPL (U. Arizona) , MRO , HiRISE In this recent HiRISE view from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the little green dot indicated on the surface of the big Red Planet is the Perseverance Mars rover. Recorded on June 13, the car-sized, six-wheeled robot was imaged a day before completing a Martian marathon, traveling a total distance of 26.218 miles ( 42.195 kilometers ) since it began exploring the surface of Mars. That equivalent marathon distance was achieved by Perseverance on its mission sol (Martian day) 1,890, after about 5 Earth years and 4 Earth months of driving. Perseverance is continuing to hunt for biosignatures. In the HiRISE image, the Mars rover's tracks can be seen leading to its location in an area west of its landing site in Jezero crater near an ancient river delta . #APOD #Cosmos #Universe #Astrogeek #Astrophoto https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260627.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-06-27T04:08:55Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 26 June 2026 **Milky Way Urban Style** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2606/MilkyWaySeoulShingooLee800.jpg...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 26 June 2026 **Milky Way Urban Style** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2606/MilkyWaySeoulShingooLee800.jpg Credit: Shingoo Lee Explanation: In a cosmic vista you can never see, the Milky Way arcs through the night above Seoul, South Korea. Remarkably, this urban night skyscape reveals our galaxy's faintly luminous central region and dark obscuring dust clouds in spite of the brilliant city lights . To overcome the extreme light pollution of the metropolitan area and record faint cosmic details, an infrared filter was used to capture the night scene in a single exposure. While the filter transmits predominately infrared light, it still passes some visible light to give the scene a natural appearance. The view is from Seoul's Ttukseom Hangang Park, with the Han River and a well lit railway bridge across the foreground. The 123 story Lotte World Tower looms in the distance, the tallest building in South Korea. #APOD #MilkyWay #UrbanAstronomy #SeoulSky #InfraredImaging #LightPollution https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260626.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-06-26T04:06:09Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 25 June 2026 **Anticrepuscular Rays over Sicily** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2606/crepuscular2.jpg C...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 25 June 2026 **Anticrepuscular Rays over Sicily** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2606/crepuscular2.jpg Credit: Not provided The Sun has just set... in the opposite side of the sky. Pictured here are anticrepuscular rays apparently converging in the east in this image of the limestone plateau in the heart of the Hyblaean Mountains of southeastern Sicily , in Italy. How were these anticrepuscular rays formed, if the Sun wasn't there ? After the Sun set (in the west, as usual) its light still illuminated a cloud higher up in the sky. Partially blocked by the cloud, the sunlight produced patterns of light and shadow, crossing the sky in parallel lines. Perspective makes it look like they converge in the east, in the same way that train tracks appear to meet in the distance. This effect can also happen at sunrise , only the directions are exchanged. In rare cases, both crepuscular and anticrepuscular rays can be seen at the same time . #APOD #AnticrepuscularRays #SicilySky #HyblaeanMountains #LimestonePlateau #AstronomyPhotography https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260625.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-06-25T04:05:50Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 24 June 2026 **SDO Observes a Coronal Mass Ejection** Video: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2606/sdo_cme.mp4 Vi...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 24 June 2026 **SDO Observes a Coronal Mass Ejection** Video: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2606/sdo_cme.mp4 Video Credit: NASA , SDO , AIA ; Processing: Richard Petarius III ( MTU ) Text: Keighley Rockcliffe ( NASA GSFC , UMBC CSST , CRESST II ) Why does the Sun throw stuff at us? The Sun’s surface is a churning soup of energetic electrons and ions called plasma . The motion of those charged particles creates magnetic field loops that are larger than the Earth . These loops twist, turn, and trap plasma. The featured time-lapse, taken over 2 hours on April 24th, 2026 by the Solar Dynamics Observatory , shows what happens when those magnetic fields become too stressed: they snap and expel billions of tons (trillions of kilograms) of plasma into space at millions of miles (or kilometers) per hour in what is called a coronal mass ejection (CME). The Sun releases a few CMEs each day when it is at the peak of its activity cycle , which passed in 2025. Some of these eruptions hit Earth and can disrupt power grids, disable satellites, and endanger astronauts, which is why space weather monitoring is so important. #APOD #SDO #SolarDynamicsObservatory #CME #CoronalMassEjection #SolarPhysics https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260624.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-06-24T04:05:30Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 23 June 2026 **Flying Past Neptune's Moon Triton** Image: https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/british-shortha...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 23 June 2026 **Flying Past Neptune's Moon Triton** Image: https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/british-shorthair-cat-hiding-under-260nw-1655111092.jpg Image Credit: NASA ; JPL , Voyager 2, Digital composition: Paul Schenk ( LPI , USRA ) What would it look like to fly past Triton , the largest moon of planet Neptune ? Only one spacecraft has ever done this -- and the images of this dramatic encounter have been gathered into a video . In 1989, the Voyager 2 robotic spacecraft shot through the Neptune system with cameras blazing. Triton is slightly smaller than Earth's Moon but has ice volcanoes and a surface rich in frozen nitrogen . The first sequence in the video shows Voyager's approach to Triton , which, with the exception of an overall false green tint , appears in approximately true color. The mysterious cantaloupe terrain seen under the spacecraft soon changed from light to dark, with the terminator of night crossing underneath . After closest approach, Voyager pivoted to see the departing moon, now visible as a diminishing crescent . In 2015, the robotic New Horizons spacecraft famously flew past Pluto , an orb of similar size to Triton. #APOD #Voyager2 #Triton #Neptune #IcyMoons #FrozenNitrogen https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260623.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-06-23T04:05:28Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 22 June 2026 **M27: The Dumbbell Nebula** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2606/M27_antonucci_3090.jpg Cre...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 22 June 2026 **M27: The Dumbbell Nebula** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2606/M27_antonucci_3090.jpg Credit: Not provided Is this what will become of our Sun? Quite possibly. The first hint of our Sun 's future was discovered inadvertently in 1764 . At that time, Charles Messier was compiling a list of diffuse objects not to be confused with comets. The 27th object on Messier's list , now known as M27 or the Dumbbell Nebula, is a planetary nebula , one of the brightest planetary nebula s on the sky and visible with binoculars toward the constellation of the Fox ( Vulpecula ). It takes light about 1000 years to reach us from M27, featured here in colors enhanced by red for hydrogen and blue for oxygen . We now know that in about 6 billion years, our Sun will shed its outer gases into a planetary nebula like M27, while its remaining center will become an X-ray hot white dwarf star. Understanding the physics and significance of M27 was well beyond 18th century science, though. Even today, many things remain mysterious about planetary nebulas , including how their intricate shapes are created. #APOD #M27 #DumbbellNebula #PlanetaryNebula #MessierObjects #StellarEvolution https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260622.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-06-22T04:10:03Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 21 June 2026 **Keogram: The Sky in 2025** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2606/Keogram2025_Bassa_960.jpg ...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 21 June 2026 **Keogram: The Sky in 2025** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2606/Keogram2025_Bassa_960.jpg Credit: Not provided What if you could see the entire sky -- all at once -- for an entire year? That, very nearly, is what is pictured here. Every 15 seconds during 2025, an all-sky camera took an image of the sky over the Netherlands . Central columns from these images were then aligned and combined to create the featured keogram , with January at the top, December at the bottom, and the middle of the night running vertically just left of center. What do we see? Most obviously, the daytime sky is mostly blue , while the nighttime sky is mostly black. The twelve light bands crossing the night sky are caused by the glow of the Moon . The thinnest part of the black hourglass shape occurs during the summer solstice , like today , when days are the longest, while the thickest part occurs at the winter solstice . Equinoxes can also be located in the keogram, for example the northern-spring equinox from one year ago is about three-quarters of the way up. #APOD #Keogram #AllSkyCamera #NightSky #DaySky #MoonGlow https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260621.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-06-21T04:08:31Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 20 June 2026 **Daytime Moon Meets Evening Star** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2606/Venus_Moon_2026_06_1...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 20 June 2026 **Daytime Moon Meets Evening Star** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2606/Venus_Moon_2026_06_17.jpg Credit: Not provided Venus is now appearing on the celestial stage as Earth's brilliant evening star, performing with the Moon, other wandering planets, and bright stars in western skies. For evening sky gazers on June 17, the celestial beacon rose after sunset close by a young, slender, crescent Moon. But from some locations the Moon could be seen to occult or pass in front of Venus. And from a backyard observatory in southern British Columbia, Canada, the lunar occultation was played out in daylight. This stunning telescopic snapshot captured a scene in dramatically cloudy skies , following Venus' hour long disappearance, as the evening star emerged beyond the bright lunar limb. #APOD #DaytimeMoon #EveningStar #VenusEncounter #LunarOccultation #MoonPhase https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260620.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-06-20T04:07:02Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 19 June 2026 **Starry Night II** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2606/StarryNight2_Guerra_4080.jpg Credit...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 19 June 2026 **Starry Night II** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2606/StarryNight2_Guerra_4080.jpg Credit: Not provided Does this scene look familiar? It is a modern recreation of the famous painting Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh . Both the image and the painting depict a tall tree on the left, a crescent moon on the upper right, the planet Venus just to the right of the tree, a foreground horizon rising from left to right, and clouds above the horizon. Differences include that the photograph was taken in mid-April earlier this year in Cascavel , Brazil , while the painting was composed in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence , France , in 1889. The original Starry Night is considered by many to be one of the three most famous paintings in the world today and a statement about the wonders of the night sky. Today is (roughly) the anniversary of the morning that van Gogh saw the sky that he later painted in his version of Starry Night . #APOD #StarryNight #VanGogh #NightSky #Astronomy #AstronomyLovers https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260619.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-06-19T04:06:47Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 18 June 2026 **Possible Supernova Remnant in Galactic Center** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2606/sgrc_l...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 18 June 2026 **Possible Supernova Remnant in Galactic Center** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2606/sgrc_lg.jpg Credit: Not provided Do you see that blue blob to the lower right of the image center? Astronomers think that it shows where a massive star exploded as a supernova whose light reached Earth 1,700 years ago . The image combines optical data from the PanSTARRS telescopes in Hawaii (background stars in red, green, and blue), radio from the MeerKAT telescope in South Africa (large red cloud) and X-rays from NASA 's Chandra X-ray Observatory and ESA ’s XMM-Newton (shown in blue). The large cloud is a star forming region called Sagittarius C , which is approximately 50 light-years in extent and about 26,000 light-years from Earth . It is located only about 260 light-years from the supermassive black hole in the center of the Galaxy (off to the left of the image). If the blue blob is confirmed to be a supernova remnant , it would be one of the closest ever discovered to the Galactic Center . In this dense region , the deaths of massive stars are connected to the birth of new stars through gas and magnetic fields in a complex way. #APOD #Supernova #SupernovaRemnant #SagittariusC #MilkyWay #GalacticCenter https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260618.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-06-18T04:06:40Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 17 June 2026 **Longmore 8: The Hamster Wheel Nebula** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2606/hamster.jpg Cr...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 17 June 2026 **Longmore 8: The Hamster Wheel Nebula** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2606/hamster.jpg Credit: Not provided How did a hamster wheel get into space? The Hamster Wheel Nebula (Longmore 8) was discovered by Andrew Longmore in 1976 as a part of a larger survey of the southern sky. This survey employed several improvements in photographic technology , including the use of highly sensitive film , to capture deeper and fainter objects on plates that were examined by eye and catalogued. The featured image , taken at Observatorio El Sauce in Chile, depicts an intricate wheel structure of glowing hydrogen that was thrown out into space by a dying star and ionized by the leftover white dwarf . This structure was barely visible on the original plate, emphasizing the power of modern telescopes and cameras. Two opposing clumps of red hydrogen gas encased in the blue veil of ionized oxygen hint at the presence of a companion to the bright white dwarf at the wheel’s center! #APOD #Astrophotography #Universe #Space #Astronomy https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260617.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-06-17T04:05:37Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 16 June 2026 **Moons, Rings, Shadows, Clouds: Saturn (Cassini)** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2606/Satu...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 16 June 2026 **Moons, Rings, Shadows, Clouds: Saturn (Cassini)** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2606/SaturnRingsMoons_Cassini_960.jpg Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, Space Science Institute Explanation: While cruising around Saturn, be on the lookout for picturesque arrangements of moons, rings, and shadows. One such striking sight occurred in 2005 and was captured by the then Saturn-orbiting Cassini spacecraft. In the featured image, moons Mimas (left) and Tethys (right) are visible on either side of Saturn's thin rings , which are seen nearly edge-on. Across the top of Saturn are dark shadows of the wide rings, exhibiting their impressive complexity. The violet-light image brings up the texture of the backdrop: Saturn's clouds . Cassini orbited Saturn from 2004 until mid-2017, when the robotic spacecraft was directed to dive into Saturn to keep it from contaminating any moons . #APOD #lookUp #Astronomy #NASA #Astrophotography https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260616.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-06-16T04:08:58Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 15 June 2026 **Triple Shockwave from Sun Crossing Rocket** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2606/TripleSunS...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 15 June 2026 **Triple Shockwave from Sun Crossing Rocket** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2606/TripleSunShock_Winkopp_960.jpg Credit: John Winkopp, WAI Media Explanation: What's happening to this Sun-crossing rocket? The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, visible on the upper left, launched only about one minute before this amazing image was captured. As it rose to low Earth orbit from Cape Canaveral , Florida , USA , in late May, the rocket became supersonic before it crossed the disk of the distant Sun -- from the perspective of the well-placed photographer. The spacecraft's high speed caused bow-shaped compressed-air shockwaves to form across leading surfaces, with at least three visible even outside the Sun 's disk because they refract sunlight . The trailing exhaust caused turbulence visible on the lower right. None of this was damaging to the robotic Starlink 10-53 mission , which delivered 29 communications satellites to low Earth orbit as planned. And if that isn't amazing enough - the Sun had spots ! #APOD #Astronomy #Science #NASAInspires https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260615.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-06-15T04:07:17Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 14 June 2026 **10 Days of Venus and Jupiter** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2606/VenusJupiter10_Pawar_10...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 14 June 2026 **10 Days of Venus and Jupiter** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2606/VenusJupiter10_Pawar_1080.jpg Credit: Not provided Venus and Jupiter may have caught your attention lately. The recent close conjunction of the two brightest planets in recent evening skies has been hard to miss . With Jupiter at the top, starting on May 30 and ending on June 8, their close approach was chronicled daily, left to right, in the featured panels from Maharashtra , India . Near the western horizon, the evening sky colors and exposures used for each panel depend on the local conditions near sunset. At their closest on June 9, the celestial pair appeared to be only about three times the width of a full moon apart. Of course, on that date, the two planets were physically separated by over 600 million kilometers in their orbits around the Sun . In the coming days, Jupiter will slowly settle into the sunset glare, but Venus will continue to move farther from the Sun in the western sky to excel in its current role as the brilliant evening star . #APOD #NASAInspires #lookUp #Astroeducation #Astronomy https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260614.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-06-14T04:08:00Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 13 June 2026 **Interplanetary Earth** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2606/earth_cassinimessenger_1799.jpg...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 13 June 2026 **Interplanetary Earth** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2606/earth_cassinimessenger_1799.jpg Image Credit: Cassini Imaging Team , SSI , JPL , ESA , NASA & NASA / JHU Applied Physics Lab / Carnegie Inst. Washington In an interplanetary first, on July 19, 2013 Earth was photographed on the same day from two other worlds of the Solar System, innermost planet Mercury and ringed gas giant Saturn. Pictured on the left, Earth is the pale blue dot just below the rings of Saturn, as captured by the robotic Cassini spacecraft then orbiting the outermost gas giant. On that same day people across planet Earth snapped many of their own pictures of Saturn. On the right, the Earth-Moon system is seen against the dark background of space as captured by the sunward MESSENGER spacecraft , then in Mercury orbit. MESSENGER took its image as part of a search for small natural satellites of Mercury, moons that would be expected to be quite dim. In the MESSENGER image , the brighter Earth and Moon are both overexposed and shine brightly with reflected sunlight. Destined not to return to their home world, both Cassini and MESSENGER have since retired from their missions of Solar System exploration. #APOD #Science #Astronomy #Space #Astrogeek https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260613.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-06-13T04:08:09Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 12 June 2026 **Venus and Jupiter: Conjunction from Avebury** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2606/CosmicKi...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 12 June 2026 **Venus and Jupiter: Conjunction from Avebury** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2606/CosmicKissTheCoveAveburyDury1024.jpg Credit: Josh Dury Explanation: To see Venus and Jupiter together this month, you won't need binoculars or even a telescope. Just look up after sunset and you'll find them emerging as the sky grows dark near the western horizon. In fact, on June 9 the two brightest planets were in close conjunction, separated on the sky by less than 2 degrees from our perspective. Since (brighter) inner planet Venus orbits the Sun faster than outer planet Jupiter, it catches up with and passes the outer planet along the ecliptic roughly every 13 months. But every three years or so their resulting conjunction can be viewed far enough from the Sun to be easily seen in Earth's twilight skies. On June 9, the two celestial beacon's close "cosmic kiss" was captured here next to the two large standing stones at the cove within a 4,000 year old stone circle at Avebury , UK. Larger than Stonehenge , the Avebury henge and stone circle complex is also recognized as one of the most significant neolithic ceremonial sites on planet Earth. #APOD #Science #Astronomy #Space #Astrophoto https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260612.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-06-12T04:05:44Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 11 June 2026 **The Mermaid Nebula Supernova Remnant** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2606/Mermaid.jpg Cr...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 11 June 2026 **The Mermaid Nebula Supernova Remnant** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2606/Mermaid.jpg Credit: Not provided Could the Little Mermaid turn into stardust instead of seafoam? It would seem so in this beautiful nebula . The featured image shows the Mermaid Nebula , also known as the Betta Fish Nebula, which is part of the G296.5+10.0 Supernova Remnant . The blue color visible here originates from doubly ionized oxygen (OIII) , while the deep red is emitted by hydrogen gas . Estimated to be located a few thousand light-years away and about 10,000 years old, this nebula was formed when a massive star exploded as a supernova . It left behind a peculiar pulsar , a young radio-quiet neutron star that spins around about twice every second . The bright stars shown in the image are unassociated with the nebula. The pulsar can be detected in the X-rays but it does not have a confirmed detection in the optical ( visible light ) so far. As a result, the pulsar itself is not visible in this image. #APOD #Astrophotography #NASA #Cosmos #Astronomy https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260611.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-06-11T04:05:32Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 10 June 2026 **The Eagle Nebula and Friends** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2606/eagle.jpg Credit: Not ...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 10 June 2026 **The Eagle Nebula and Friends** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2606/eagle.jpg Credit: Not provided What looks as if it is going to swallow the great Pillars of Creation ? The Eagle Nebula ( M16 ) is not a bird, a plane, or Superman . M16 is actually a combination of several celestial objects. NGC 6611 is the young star cluster that appears to peak out beneath the Eagle’s “wings”. The ultraviolet light from these stars ionizes the surrounding gas, creating the emission nebula IC 4703. The Stellar Spire is seen reaching towards the Pillars of Creation from the left. Both are structures of cold gas and dust that are optimal for star formation . Some astronomers previously thought the Pillars of Creation had been evaporated away by a supernova. Because M16 is 6,000 light years away, we would not be able to see the Pillars’ destruction for thousands more years. However, there is no conclusive evidence of the theorized supernova, so the Pillars of Creation will likely continue to create stars for millions of years . #APOD #Astrophoto #lookUp #NASA #Cosmos https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260610.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-06-10T04:05:27Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 09 June 2026 **Thor's Helmet** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2606/Thor_Drudis_4389.jpg Credit: Not prov...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 09 June 2026 **Thor's Helmet** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2606/Thor_Drudis_4389.jpg Credit: Not provided Thor not only has his own day (Thursday), but a helmet in the heavens. Popularly called Thor's Helmet, NGC 2359 is a hat-shaped cosmic cloud with wing -like appendages. Heroically sized even for a Norse god , Thor's Helmet is about 30 light-years across. In fact, the cosmic head-covering is more like an interstellar bubble , blown by a fast wind from the bright, massive star near the bubble's center. Known as a Wolf-Rayet star , the central star is an extremely hot giant thought to be in a brief, pre- supernova stage of evolution . NGC 2359 is located about 15,000 light-years away toward the constellation of the Great Overdog . This sharp image is a combination of deep images taken in light emitted by hydrogen (red) and oxygen (blue). The star in the center of Thor's Helmet is expected to explode in a spectacular supernova sometime within the next few thousand years. #APOD #Astrophotography #Science #NASAInspires #Space https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260609.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-06-09T04:10:12Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 08 June 2026 **Comet R3 PanSTARRS Through Time** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2606/R3Tails_Kurak_1973.j...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 08 June 2026 **Comet R3 PanSTARRS Through Time** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2606/R3Tails_Kurak_1973.jpg Credit: Not provided What happens to a comet as it leaves our inner Solar System? Now, the arrival of a comet into the inner Solar System is typically heralded with great fanfare and high hopes that the comet will become bright and photogenic . But on the way out, the comet's nucleus is less warmed by the Sun , less gas and dust are expelled , the bright coma around the nucleus shrinks and fades, and the tail length drops off. Many comets will then return to the outer Solar System and only return in hundreds or thousands of years. In contrast, some comets -- like Comet C/2025 R3 (PanSTARRS) -- receive a gravitational kick from the planets and so will never return. Pictured, Comet R3 PanSTARRs was imaged deeply many nights in early to mid-May near Cerro Paranal in Chile . Later images appear closer to the top and clearly show the shrinking ion tail . #APOD #Astronomy #Astrogeek #NASA #Astrophoto https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260608.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-06-08T04:09:51Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 07 June 2026 **Jupiter and Venus from Earth** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2606/JupiterPersonVenus_Niko...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 07 June 2026 **Jupiter and Venus from Earth** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2606/JupiterPersonVenus_Nikodem_960.jpg Credit: Not provided It was visible around the world. The sunset conjunction of Jupiter (left) and Venus (right) in 2012 was visible almost no matter where you lived on Earth. Anyone on our planet with a clear western horizon at sunset could see them. That year, a creative photographer traveled away from the town lights of Szubin , Poland to photograph a near closest approach of the two planets . The bright planets were then separated by only three degrees and his daughter struck a humorous pose . A faint red sunset still glowed in the background. Jupiter and Venus are together again this week after sunset, passing within a degree of each other about two days from today . #APOD #Astronomy #Astrogeek #NASA #Astrophotography https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260607.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-06-07T04:09:52Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 06 June 2026 **Charon: Moon of Pluto** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2606/Charon-Neutral-Bright-Release....

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 06 June 2026 **Charon: Moon of Pluto** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2606/Charon-Neutral-Bright-Release.jpg Image Credit: NASA , Johns Hopkins Univ./APL , Southwest Research Institute , U.S. Naval Observatory A darkened and mysterious north polar region known to some as Mordor Macula caps this premier view of Charon, Pluto's largest moon . The high-resolution image was captured by the interplanetary space probe New Horizons near its closest approach to distant Pluto on July 14, 2015. The combined blue, red, and infrared image data was processed to enhance colors and follow variations in Charon's surface properties with a resolution of about 2.9 kilometers (1.8 miles). A stunning image of Charon's Pluto-facing hemisphere, it also features a clear view of an apparently moon-girdling belt of fractures and canyons that seems to separate smooth southern plains from varied northern terrain. Charon is 1,214 kilometers (754 miles) across. That's about 1/10th the size of planet Earth but a whopping 1/2 the diameter of Pluto itself , and makes it the largest satellite relative to its parent body in the Solar System. Still, the moon appears as a small bump at about the 1 o'clock position on Pluto's disk in the grainy, negative, telescopic picture inset at upper left. That image was used by James Christy and Robert Harrington at the U.S. Naval Observatory in Flagstaff to discover Charon in June of 1978 . #APOD #Astroeducation #Astrophoto #lookUp #Universe https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260606.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-06-06T04:09:45Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 05 June 2026 **The Hydra Cluster of Galaxies** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2606/HydraClusterSampaio.jp...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 05 June 2026 **The Hydra Cluster of Galaxies** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2606/HydraClusterSampaio.jpg Credit: Not provided Within our own Milky Way galaxy, two bright, spiky stars stand like sentinels in the foreground of this cosmic snapshot . Far beyond them are the galaxies of the Hydra Cluster . In fact, while the spiky foreground stars are hundreds of light-years distant, the Hydra Cluster galaxies are well over 100 million light-years away. Three large galaxies near the cluster center, two yellow ellipticals (NGC 3311, NGC 3309) and one prominent blue spiral (NGC 3312), are the dominant galaxies, each about 150,000 light-years in diameter. An intriguing overlapping galaxy pair cataloged as NGC 3314 lies above and left of NGC 3312. Also known as Abell 1060, the Hydra galaxy cluster is one of three large galaxy clusters within 200 million light-years of the Milky Way. In the nearby universe , galaxies are gravitationally bound into clusters which themselves are loosely bound into superclusters . Superclusters in turn are seen to align over even larger scales . #APOD #Astrophotography #Universe #Astronomy #Astrogeek https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260605.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-06-05T04:09:51Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 04 June 2026 **A Planetary Nebula with Cosmic Buckyballs** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2606/buckyballs...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 04 June 2026 **A Planetary Nebula with Cosmic Buckyballs** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2606/buckyballs.jpg Image Credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / J. Cami ( Western University ); Image Processing: K. Beecroft Text: Jan Cami ( Western University ) & Cecilia Chirenti ( NASA GSFC , UMCP , CRESST II ) What is happening inside this unusual nebula? Planetary nebula Tc 1 , captured here in exquisite detail by the James Webb Space Telescope , is the celestial site where buckyballs were first identified in 2010. Buckminsterfullerene — as buckyballs are officially called — is a molecule with 60 carbon atoms (C 60 ) arranged in the shape of a soccer ball . The molecule is named for architect Buckminster Fuller because of its resemblance to the geodesic dome he helped popularize. Webb’s new data reveal where the C 60 molecules live in this nebula, and the geometry is striking: they populate a thin spherical shell around the central star, visible here as the bright edge of the nebula’s glowing orange central region. Look closely near the nebula’s heart and a more perplexing feature emerges: a delicate structure shaped uncannily like an upside-down question mark , fitting punctuation for the many questions this nebula still poses. #APOD #Astrophotography #lookUp #Science #Astronomy https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260604.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-06-04T04:09:55Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 03 June 2026 **Andromeda Through Gas and Dust** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2606/andromeda.png Credit...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 03 June 2026 **Andromeda Through Gas and Dust** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2606/andromeda.png Credit: Not provided Over 1000 years ago, Persian astronomer Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi published humanity’s oldest known record of the Andromeda Galaxy in "The Book of Fixed Stars" ( Bodleian Library MS. Marsh 144 p. 167 ). 800 years later, Andromeda became the 31st entry in Charles Messier’s " Catalogue of Nebulae and Star Clusters ". From “a small cloud” to “nebula” and now known to be our nearest major galaxy , Andromeda has remained a fundamental astronomical object. Today’s image , taken over 202 hours, shows how far we have come in our ability to observe our neighbor. The diffuse red and blue clouds are mostly foreground ionized hydrogen and oxygen well within our Milky Way . Pink-red clouds of hydrogen ionized by the energetic light of young stars trace the galaxy’s dusty spiral arms . M32 and M110 are satellite galaxies pictured orbiting the larger Andromeda. Despite its long history of observation through ancient unaided eyes to modern telescopes, Andromeda still holds countless secrets that astronomers will continue to search for, including how galaxies merge and evolve , as well as the nature of the dark matter that galaxies reside in. #APOD #Astronomy #NASA #Universe #lookUp https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260603.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-06-03T04:09:45Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 02 June 2026 **The Vela Supernova Remnant** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2606/Vela_Mtanous_2900.jpg Cr...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 02 June 2026 **The Vela Supernova Remnant** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2606/Vela_Mtanous_2900.jpg Credit: Not provided The explosion is over, but the consequences continue. About twelve thousand years ago, a relatively normal star in the constellation Vela suddenly exploded , creating a strange point of light briefly visible to humans living near the beginning of recorded history . The outer layers of the star crashed into the interstellar medium , driving a shock wave that is still visible today. The featured image , taken piecemeal over 60 hours from the Khomas Region of Namibia , captures some of that filamentary and gigantic shock in visible light , with details highlighted by hydrogen (red) and oxygen (blue) emissions. As gas flies away from the detonated star, it decays and reacts with the interstellar medium , producing light in many different colors and energy bands. Remaining at the center of the Vela Supernova Remnant is a pulsar , a star as dense as nuclear matter that spins around more than ten times in a single second. #APOD #VelaSupernova #VelaSupernovaRemnant #VelaConstellation #SupernovaRemnant #StellarExplosion https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260602.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-06-02T04:10:00Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 01 June 2026 **Saturn at Night** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2605/LastRingPortrait_Cassini_4472.jpg I...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 01 June 2026 **Saturn at Night** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2605/LastRingPortrait_Cassini_4472.jpg Image Credit: NASA , JPL-Caltech , Space Science Institute , Mindaugas Macijauskas Telescopic views of Saturn and its beautiful rings often make it the star of star parties . But this stunning view of the outer gas gaint planet's rings and night side just isn't possible from telescopes in the vicinity of planet Earth. Peering out from the inner Solar System they can only bring Saturn's day side into view. In fact, this image of Saturn's slender sunlit crescent with the planet's night shadow cast across its broad and complex ring system was captured by the robot spacecraft Cassini. After a seven year long journey from planet Earth, Cassini called Saturn orbit home for 13 years (from 2004 - 2017) before it was directed to dive into the atmosphere of the gas giant on September 15, 2017. This magnificent mosaic is composed of frames recorded by Cassini's wide-angle camera only two days before its grand final plunge . And Saturn's night will not be seen again until another spaceship from Earth calls. #APOD #Saturn #SaturnRings #Cassini #CassiniMission #Spacecraft https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260601.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-06-01T04:10:18Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 31 May 2026 **Eagle Nebula Pillars in Infrared from Hubble** Video thumbnail: _Link down bellow_ https://apod.nasa...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 31 May 2026 **Eagle Nebula Pillars in Infrared from Hubble** Video thumbnail: _Link down bellow_ https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2605/M16Ir_HubbleRomero_960.jpg Image Credit: NASA , ESA , Hubble , HLA ; Processing: Luis Romero Ventura Newborn stars are forming in the Eagle Nebula. They are gravitationally contracting in pillars of dense gas and dust. The intense radiation of these newly-formed bright stars is causing surrounding material to boil away. This image , taken with the Hubble Space Telescope in near infrared light , allows the viewer to see through much of the thick dust that makes the pillars opaque in visible light. The giant structures are light years in length and dubbed informally the Pillars of Creation . Associated with the open star cluster M16 , the Eagle Nebula lies about 6,500 light years away. The Eagle Nebula is a satisfying target for small telescopes in a nebula-rich part of the sky toward the split constellation Serpens Cauda (the tail of the snake). #APOD #EagleNebula #PillarsOfCreation #M16 #HubbleSpaceTelescope #InfraredObservation https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260531.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-05-31T04:10:17Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 30 May 2026 **Supermoon Versus Micromoon** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2605/SuperMicroMoon_Mukherjee_3...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 30 May 2026 **Supermoon Versus Micromoon** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2605/SuperMicroMoon_Mukherjee_3000.jpg Image Credit: Soumyadeep Mukherjee What is so micro about tonight's blue micromoon? Just after sunset, a full moon will appear slightly smaller and dimmer than usual. The reason is that the Moon's fully illuminated phase occurs within a short time of apogee - when the Moon is farthest from the Earth in its elliptical orbit . In fact, tonight's micromoon will be the farthest, smallest, and dimmest Moon this year. But tonight's micromoon is notable for yet another reason: it is also a blue moon , meaning that it is the second full moon in the same month ( moon-th ). Pictured here , a supermoon -- when the full moon appears near its largest -- is compared to a micromoon as photographed from Kolkata , India in May and December of 2021. Although the next micromoon occurs next month, and the next blue moon at the end of 2028, the next blue micromoon will not occur until 2053 . #APOD #supermoon #micromoon #bluemoon #lunarphase #lunarcycle https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260530.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-05-30T04:06:13Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 29 May 2026 **Messier 104** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2605/M104noirlab2612a_1024.jpg Credit: CTIO, ...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 29 May 2026 **Messier 104** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2605/M104noirlab2612a_1024.jpg Credit: CTIO, NOIRLab, DOE, NSF, AURA, T. A. Rector, U. Alaska Anchorage, M. Zamani Explanation: A gorgeous spiral galaxy, Messier 104 is famous for its nearly edge-on profile featuring a broad ring of obscuring dust lanes. Seen in silhouette against an extensive central bulge of stars, the swath of cosmic dust lends a broad brimmed hat-like appearance to the galaxy suggesting a more popular moniker, the Sombrero Galaxy. Also known as NGC 4594, the Sombrero galaxy can be seen across the spectrum and is host to a central supermassive black hole. About 50,000 light-years across and 28 million light-years away, M104 is one of the largest galaxies at the southern edge of the Virgo Galaxy Cluster. Still, the spiky foreground stars in this field of view lie well within our own Milky Way. This broad view of the well-known galaxy was processed to reveal M104's extended halo, as well as a faint tidal stellar stream . It was captured by the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) on the Blanco 4-meter telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory . #APOD #Messier104 #SombreroGalaxy #NGC4594 #SpiralGalaxy #DustLane https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260529.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-05-29T04:09:49Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 28 May 2026 **NGC 1514: The Crystal Ball Nebula** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2605/noirlab2613a_large....

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 28 May 2026 **NGC 1514: The Crystal Ball Nebula** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2605/noirlab2613a_large.jpg Image Credit: International Gemini Observatory / NOIRLab / NSF / AURA ; Image Processing: J. Miller & M. Rodriguez ( International Gemini Observatory / NSF NOIRLab ), T.A. Rector ( University of Alaska Anchorage / NSF NOIRLab ), D. de Martin & M. Zamani ( NSF NOIRLab ) Text: Cecilia Chirenti ( NASA GSFC , UMCP , CRESST II ) What do you see in this crystal ball? The featured image shows NGC 1514 , known as the Crystal Ball Nebula , observed by the Gemini North telescope on Maunakea , in Hawai'i . NGC 1514 is 1,500 light-years away and was discovered by William Herschel in 1790. This planetary nebula is formed when a star becomes a red giant and ejects its outer gas layers. The ejected shell of gas is heated up by the core of the star to temperatures hotter than the surface of our Sun : that makes the gas shine, creating beautiful images like this one. The slightly asymmetrical shape of the Crystal Ball Nebula reveals a secret: the bright star in the center has a companion. As the two stars orbit each other with a period of about nine years , they shape the gas around them. In about 10,000 - 25,000 years the nebula will be dissipated by their stellar winds. #APOD #Astrophoto #Cosmos #Science #Space https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260528.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-05-28T04:06:05Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 27 May 2026 **PK 164 +31.1: The Headphone Nebula** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2605/headphone_nebula.j...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 27 May 2026 **PK 164 +31.1: The Headphone Nebula** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2605/headphone_nebula.jpg Credit: Not provided What is a pair of headphones doing in the sky? Today’s image features the Headphone Nebula, also known as PK 164 +31.1 or Jones-Emberson 1 . This planetary nebula , the remnant of a dying Sun-like star, faintly occupies an angular region of the Lynx constellation about 1/5 th the diameter of the full moon. The red and blue-ish green colors trace hydrogen and oxygen atoms, respectively, that have been excited and ionized by the nebula's central white dwarf . The headphone shape, where two lobes of hydrogen puncture the inner region of oxygen, adds this object to a long list of oddly shaped nebulae . The morphology of such strange nebulae hint at the presence of a stellar or planetary companion , which can stir the material flowing out from the dying star. You can listen to Hubble and JWST sonifications of planetary nebulae through your very own headphones! #APOD #Astrogeek #Astroeducation #Universe #Astronomy https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260527.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-05-27T04:07:26Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 26 May 2026 **NGC 3660 and Burçin's Galaxy** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2605/Ngc3660Burcin_Block_1176...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 26 May 2026 **NGC 3660 and Burçin's Galaxy** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2605/Ngc3660Burcin_Block_1176.jpg Credit: Not provided The upper galaxy might be more photogenic, but the lower galaxy is more unusual. The galaxy up top is NGC 3660 , a spiral galaxy similar to our own Milky Way galaxy in that it has several bright blue spiral arms and a central bar of stars, dust, and gas. Captured by chance in the featured deep and colorful image , surprisingly, is SN 2026cff , a supernova found just to the right of the central bar. Farther in the distance is the bottom galaxy, known informally as Burçin’s galaxy , but formally cataloged as LEDA 1000714. The center of this galaxy appears to be an old elliptical galaxy , but it is strangely surrounded by not one but two rings of stars . What created Burçin's galaxy is a mystery and remains a continuing topic of research, but it likely involves the accretion of one or more smaller galaxies . #APOD #NGC3660 #BurcinGalaxy #LEDA1000714 #SpiralGalaxy #EllipticalGalaxy https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260526.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-05-26T04:08:43Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 25 May 2026 **Thackeray's Globules** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2605/ThackerayGlobs_Hayes_2664.jpg C...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 25 May 2026 **Thackeray's Globules** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2605/ThackerayGlobs_Hayes_2664.jpg Credit: Not provided What are these strange space globs? Situated in rich star field s and glowing hydrogen gas, these opaque clouds of interstellar dust and gas are so large they might be able to form stars. Their home is known as IC 2944 , a bright stellar nursery located about 7,600 light years away toward the constellation of the Centaur ( Centaurus ). The largest of these dark globules , first spotted by A. D. Thackeray in 1950 using a telescope in South Africa , is likely two separate but overlapping clouds, each more than one light-year wide. Along with other data, the featured Hubble palette image from the El Sauce Observatory in Chile, indicates that Thackeray's globules are fractured and churning as a result of intense ultraviolet radiation from young, hot stars already energizing and heating the bright emission nebula . These and similar dark globules known to be associated with other star forming regions may ultimately be dissipated by their hostile environment -- like cosmic lumps of butter in a hot frying pan . #APOD #ThackeraysGlobules #IC2944 #Centaurus #StarNursery #StarFormation https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260525.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-05-25T04:09:39Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 24 May 2026 **A Martian Eclipse: Phobos Crosses the Sun** Image: https://t4.ftcdn.net/jpg/08/74/51/69/360_F_874516...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 24 May 2026 **A Martian Eclipse: Phobos Crosses the Sun** Image: https://t4.ftcdn.net/jpg/08/74/51/69/360_F_874516932_itAmEASwXuIi97PUoP9Jz6w9mNKeMKHg.jpg Video Credit: NASA , JPL-Caltech , ASU MSSS , SSI What's that passing in front of the Sun? It looks like a moon, but it can't be Earth's Moon , because it isn't round. It's the Martian moon Phobos . The featured video was taken from the surface of Mars in 2022 by the Perseverance rover. Phobos , at 11.5 kilometers across, is 150 times smaller than Luna (our moon) in diameter, but also 50 times closer to its parent planet . In fact, Phobos is so close to Mars that it is expected to break up and crash into Mars within the next 50 million years. In the near term, the low orbit of Phobos results in more rapid solar eclipses than seen from Earth . The featured video is shown in real time -- the transit really took about 40 seconds, as shown. The videographer -- the robotic rover Perseverance (Percy) -- continues to explore Jezero Crater on Mars , searching not only for clues to the watery history of the now dry world , but evidence of ancient microbial life . #APOD #MartianEclipse #PhobosTransit #MarsEclipse #PerseveranceRover #SolarTransit https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260524.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-05-24T04:09:33Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 23 May 2026 **Messier 2** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2605/potw1913aa.jpg Image Credit: ESA/Hubble & ...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 23 May 2026 **Messier 2** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2605/potw1913aa.jpg Image Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA , G. Piotto et al. After the Crab Nebula , this giant star cluster is the second entry in 18th century astronomer Charles Messier's famous list of things that are not comets. M2 is one of the largest globular star clusters now known to roam the halo of our Milky Way galaxy. Though Messier originally described it as a nebula without stars, this stunning Hubble image resolves stars across the cluster's central 40 light-years. Its population of stars numbers close to 150,000, concentrated within a total diameter of around 175 light-years. About 55,000 light-years distant toward the constellation Aquarius, this ancient denizen of the Milky Way, also known as NGC 7089 , is 13 billion years old. An extended stellar debris stream, a signature of past gravitational tidal disruption, was recently found to be associated with Messier 2 . #APOD #Messier2 #NGC7089 #GlobularCluster #MilkyWay #Hubble https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260523.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-05-23T04:09:44Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 22 May 2026 **The Nebulous Realm of WR 134** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2605/WR134morrone2048.jpg Cr...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 22 May 2026 **The Nebulous Realm of WR 134** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2605/WR134morrone2048.jpg Credit: Not provided This cosmic snapshot covers a field of view over twice as wide as the full Moon within the boundaries of the high-flying constellation Cygnus. Made using astronomical narrowband filters, the image highlights the bright edge of a ring-like nebula traced by the glow of ionized hydrogen and oxygen gas. Embedded in the region's expanse of interstellar clouds , the complex, glowing arcs are sections of shells of material swept up by the wind from Wolf-Rayet star WR 134, the brightest star near image center. Distance estimates put WR 134 about 6,000 light-years away, making this telescopic frame over 100 light-years across. Shedding their outer envelopes in powerful stellar winds, massive Wolf-Rayet stars have burned through their nuclear fuel at a prodigious rate and end their final phase of massive star evolution in a spectacular supernova. Their stellar winds and final supernova explosion enrich the interstellar material with heavy elements to be incorporated in future generations of stars . #APOD #WR134 #WolfRayetStar #Nebula #Cygnus #AstroPhotography https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260522.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-05-22T04:06:00Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 21 May 2026 **A Collision of Galaxy Clusters** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2605/a2029_lg.jpg Image Cr...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 21 May 2026 **A Collision of Galaxy Clusters** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2605/a2029_lg.jpg Image Credit: X-ray: NASA / CXC / CfA / C. Watson et al. ; Optical: PanSTARRS ; Image Processing: NASA / CXC / SAO / N. Wolk and P. Edmonds Text: Cecilia Chirenti ( NASA GSFC , UMCP , CRESST II ) This big beautiful spiral shines in X-ray light . It is about 20 times larger than our Galaxy . It belongs to Abell 2029 , a galaxy cluster one billion light-years away. (To see only the galaxies, hover your cursor over the image, or follow this link .) Galaxy clusters are the largest structures in the universe that are supported by gravity. Abell 2029 is formed by thousands of galaxies , surrounded by a huge cloud of hot gas and the equivalent of hundreds of trillions times the mass of the Sun in dark matter . The spiral is made of gas, mostly hydrogen and helium, heated to tens of millions of degrees. It was found in a recent study that used data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory to show that Abell 2029 had a collision with a smaller cluster four billion years ago. The collision affected the gravitational field and caused the intracluster gas to slosh, like wine moving in a wine glass , shaping the spiral. #APOD #GalaxyCollision #Abell2029 #XRayAstronomy #GalaxyCluster #ClusterMerger https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260521.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-05-21T04:07:23Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 20 May 2026 **The Dark Wolf Nebula** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2605/dark_wolf.jpg Credit: Not provi...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 20 May 2026 **The Dark Wolf Nebula** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2605/dark_wolf.jpg Credit: Not provided A dark wolf lies in gum. No, this isn’t a riddle! Today's image features the Dark Wolf Nebula ( Sandqvist–Lindroos 17), a spooky dust cloud embedded within the Gum 55 ( RCW 113) Nebula in the Scorpius constellation . While dust is a pest to us, it serves a vital role in creating the necessary conditions for stars to be born . The Dark Wolf absorbs the intense ultraviolet and visible light emitted by young stars in Gum 55 and re-emits it at longer, mainly infrared , wavelengths. This prevents the higher energy light from heating up the gas in the region. When a region of gas is cool enough, gravity takes over and causes the gas to collapse into a star. Not only does dust act as an interstellar thermostat, but it is also the meet-cute for single hydrogen atoms forming molecular hydrogen, the building block for stars. The seemingly sinister Dark Wolf is actually a harbinger of cosmic life. #APOD #DarkWolfNebula #SandqvistLindroos17 #DustNebula #Gum55 #RCW113 https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260520.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-05-20T04:08:28Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 19 May 2026 **NGC 2170: The Angel Nebula** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2605/Angel_Marriott_1707.jpg C...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 19 May 2026 **NGC 2170: The Angel Nebula** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2605/Angel_Marriott_1707.jpg Credit: Not provided Is this a painting or a photograph? In this celestial abstract art composed with a cosmic brush, dusty nebula NGC 2170 , also known as the Angel Nebula, shines just above the image center. Reflecting the light of nearby hot stars, NGC 2170 is joined by other bluish reflection nebulae, a red emission region, many dark absorption nebulae , and a backdrop of colorful stars . Like the common household items that abstract painters often choose for their subjects, the clouds of gas, dust, and hot stars featured here are also commonly found in a setting like this one -- a massive, star-forming molecular cloud in the constellation of the Unicorn ( Monoceros ). The giant molecular cloud Mon R2 , is impressively close, estimated to be only 2,400 light-years or so away. At that distance, this canvas would be over 60 light-year s across. #APOD #NGC2170 #AngelNebula #Monoceros #MonR2 #ReflectionNebula https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260519.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-05-19T04:09:28Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 18 May 2026 **Unraveling NGC 3169** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2605/ngc3169_ngc3166_ngc3165.jpg Cred...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 18 May 2026 **Unraveling NGC 3169** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2605/ngc3169_ngc3166_ngc3165.jpg Credit: Not provided Spiral galaxy NGC 3169 looks to be unraveling like a ball of cosmic yarn. It lies some 70 million light-years away, south of bright star Regulus toward the faint constellation Sextans. Wound up spiral arms are pulled out into sweeping tidal tails as NGC 3169 (left) and neighboring NGC 3166 interact gravitationally . Eventually the galaxies will merge into one, a common fate even for bright galaxies in the local universe . Drawn out stellar arcs and plumes are clear indications of the ongoing gravitational interactions across the deep and colorful galaxy group photo. The telescopic frame spans about 20 arc minutes or about 400,000 light-years at the group's estimated distance, and includes smaller, bluish NGC 3165 to the right. NGC 3169 is also known to shine across the spectrum from radio to X-rays, harboring an active galactic nucleus that is the site of a supermassive black hole. #APOD #NGC3169 #NGC3166 #NGC3165 #SpiralGalaxy #TidalTails https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260518.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-05-18T04:09:52Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 17 May 2026 **NGC 1300: Barred Spiral Galaxy** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2605/NGC1300_HST_6637.jpg ...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 17 May 2026 **NGC 1300: Barred Spiral Galaxy** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2605/NGC1300_HST_6637.jpg Image Credit: NASA ESA , Hubble Heritage Across the center of this spiral galaxy is a bar . And at the center of this bar is smaller spiral . And at the center of that spiral is a supermassive black hole . This all happens in the big, beautiful, barred spiral galaxy cataloged as NGC 1300, a galaxy that lies some 70 million light-years away toward the constellation of the river Eridanus . This Hubble Space Telescope composite view of the gorgeous island universe is one of the most detailed Hubble images ever made of a complete galaxy. NGC 1300 spans over 100,000 light-years and the Hubble image reveals striking details of the galaxy's dominant central bar and majestic spiral arms. How the giant bar formed, how it remains, and how it affects star formation remains an active topic of research . #APOD #NGC1300 #BarredSpiralGalaxy #HubbleSpaceTelescope #SpiralGalaxy #SupermassiveBlackHole https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260517.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-05-17T04:06:08Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 16 May 2026 **Aurora Slathers Up the Sky** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2605/aurora_iss052e007857.jpg ...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 16 May 2026 **Aurora Slathers Up the Sky** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2605/aurora_iss052e007857.jpg Image Credit: Jack Fischer , Expedition 52 , NASA Like salsa verde on your favorite burrito, a green aurora slathers up the sky in this 2017 June 25 snapshot from the International Space Station. About 400 kilometers (250 miles) above Earth, the orbiting station is itself within the upper realm of the auroral displays. Aurorae have the signature colors of excited molecules and atoms at the low densities found at extreme altitudes. Emission from atomic oxygen dominates this view. The tantalizing glow is green at lower altitudes, but rarer reddish bands extend above the space station's horizon. The orbital scene was captured while passing over a point south and east of Australia, with stars above the horizon at the right belonging to the constellation Canis Major , Orion's big dog. Sirius , alpha star of Canis Major, is the brightest star near the Earth's limb. #APOD #Aurora #AuroraBorealis #ISS #SpaceStation #SpacePhotography https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260516.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-05-16T04:09:39Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 15 May 2026 **R3 PanSTARRS: An Orion Comet** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2605/R3Orion_Hall_2870.jpg C...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 15 May 2026 **R3 PanSTARRS: An Orion Comet** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2605/R3Orion_Hall_2870.jpg Credit: Not provided Comet R3 PanSTARRS might be best remembered as an Orion comet. A key reason is because Comet C/2025 R3 (PanSTARRS) was near its most spectacular -- in terms of tail visibility -- when passing in front of the iconic constellation . Although rare, other bright comets , too, have ventured across Orion, including Lovejoy in 2015 , Hale-Bopp in 1997 , and the Great Comet of 1264 . Best visible in long duration exposures, the featured image was captured last week from the Craigieburn Mountain Range in New Zealand . Visible in the deep background image are the Orion Nebula , Barnard's Loop , and through R3's tail, the bright star Saiph , the sixth brightest star in the constellation of Orion. Comet R3 PanSTARRS continues to fade as it moves further south, passing into the constellation of the Unicorn ( Monoceros ) in the next few days. #APOD #CometR3 #PanSTARRS #OrionComet #CometC2025R3 #OrionNebula https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260515.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-05-15T04:05:22Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 14 May 2026 **Messier Catalog at Uniform Scale** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2605/messier_portrait_300...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 14 May 2026 **Messier Catalog at Uniform Scale** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2605/messier_portrait_300px_160h.jpg Image Credit: Sylvain Villet Text: Cecilia Chirenti ( NASA GSFC , UMCP , CRESST II ) What are some of the most interesting astronomical objects you can see in the night sky? Armed with a good pair of binoculars or a small telescope, if you live in the Northern Hemisphere, you can look for the very popular objects in the Messier Catalog . Most of them, but not all, are also visible from the southern half of the Earth. The featured image shows all 110 objects in the catalog at uniform scale -- the same magnification. Charles Messier created the catalog in the 18th century. He was interested in comets , and his catalog was a list of known comet-like " objects to avoid " in the sky when observing or hunting for comets. The deep sky objects in the catalog include a supernova remnant (the Crab Nebula , M1), other galaxies (such as Andromeda , M31), nebulae (e.g. the Orion Nebula , M42, a star-forming region) and stellar clusters (such as the Pleiades , M45, a bright young open cluster ). #APOD #MessierCatalog #DeepSky #Astronomy #Skywatching #Stargazing https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260514.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-05-14T11:48:34Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 13 May 2026 **NGC 188: Old Cluster in the New General Catalog** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2605/Polar...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 13 May 2026 **NGC 188: Old Cluster in the New General Catalog** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2605/Polarissima.jpg Credit: Not provided The New General Catalog of star clusters and nebulae really isn't so new. In fact, it was published in 1888 - an effort by J. L. E. Dreyer to consolidate the work of astronomers William , Caroline , and John Herschel along with others into a useful single, complete catalog of astronomical discoveries and measurements. Dreyer's work was largely successful and is still important today, as this famous catalog continues to lend its "NGC" to bright clusters, galaxies, and nebulae. Take for example the star cluster known as NGC 188 (item number 188 in the NGC compilation). It lies about 6,000 light-years distant in the northern constellation Cepheus and represents a galactic or open star cluster . With an age of about 7 billion years, NGC 188 is old for an open cluster. Its old, evolved red giant stars have yellowish hues in this colorful, deep sky view . NGC 188 also enjoys the designation Caldwell 1 in a modern compilation of deep sky objects. Located well above the plane of the Milky Way and seen in the direction of planet Earth's north celestial pole, the ancient stellar group is known to some as the Polarissima Cluster . #APOD #NGC188 #StarCluster #OpenCluster #Cepheus #Stargazing https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260513.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-05-13T04:07:25Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 12 May 2026 **The Conjunction of Comet R3 PanSTARRS and the Orion Nebula** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 12 May 2026 **The Conjunction of Comet R3 PanSTARRS and the Orion Nebula** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2605/CometR3_Orion.jpg Credit: Not provided Today’s composite image features something old , something new, something borrowed, and something blue! Comet R3 PanSTARRS , streaking across the right of the image, likely originated from the Oort Cloud , meaning it is an old Solar System relic from billions of years ago. It’s bright extended ion tail glows blue as the gas escaping the comet’s core is ionized by sunlight. Astronomers are fascinated by comets for all sorts of reasons: comet compositions are untouched time capsules containing the building blocks of Solar System planets; comets may have delivered water to the young Earth; the behavior of cometary tails shed light on solar wind and radiation interactions. The background mosaic, featuring the Orion Nebula ( M42 ), was taken over two nights of observation with the comet captured on the third night. The Orion Nebula is our nearest stellar nursery and, at about 2 million years old , is our something (relatively) new! Now at around 127.5 million kilometers from Earth , we wave goodbye to the borrowed Comet R3 PanSTARRS as it leaves the Solar System. #APOD #CometR3 #PanSTARRS #OrionNebula #M42 #OortCloud https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260512.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-05-12T04:09:01Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 11 May 2026 **Moon Setting Behind Teide Volcano** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/1806/Telescope_Teide.jpg...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 11 May 2026 **Moon Setting Behind Teide Volcano** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/1806/Telescope_Teide.jpg Credit: Not provided These people are not in danger. What is coming down from the left is just the Moon, far in the distance. Luna appears so large here because she is being photographed through a telescopic lens . What is moving is mostly the Earth , whose spin causes the Moon to slowly disappear behind Mount Teide , a volcano in the Canary Islands of Spain off the northwest coast of Africa . The people pictured are 16 kilometers away and many are facing the camera because they are watching the Sun rise behind the photographer. It is not a coincidence that a full moon sets just when the Sun rises because the Sun is always on the opposite side of the sky from a full moon. The featured video was made in 2018 during a full Milk Moon . The video is not time-lapse -- this was really how fast the Moon was setting. #APOD #MoonSet #Teide #CanaryIslands #FullMoon #Luna https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260511.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-05-11T04:09:53Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 10 May 2026 **Comet R3 PanSTARRS and Orion** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2605/CometOrion_Perrot_960.jp...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 10 May 2026 **Comet R3 PanSTARRS and Orion** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2605/CometOrion_Perrot_960.jpg Credit: Not provided Orion never had a sword like this. As Comet C/2025 R3 (PanSTARRS) heads out of the inner Solar System, it is putting on quite a show for long exposure cameras . Currently seen toward the constellation of Orion the Hunter , the distant Orion Nebula is visible on the upper right. Comet R3 PanSTARRS is now showing two distinct tails : a short dust tail pointing toward the top of the image and a long and wavy ion tail trailing off toward the upper left. The ion tail points away from the Sun and glows blue from excited carbon monoxide . Large particles in the dust tail somewhat resist the radiation pressure that push them away from the Sun and so retain a bit of the comet's orbit. The dust tail shines by reflected sunlight . The featured image was taken a few days ago from France 's Reunion Island in the southern Indian Ocean . #APOD #CometR3 #PanSTARRS #CometC2025R3 #Orion #OrionNebula https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260510.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-05-10T04:09:55Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 09 May 2026 **Messier Craters in Stereo** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2605/MessierCrater3d_vantuyne.jp...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 09 May 2026 **Messier Craters in Stereo** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2605/MessierCrater3d_vantuyne.jpg Image Credit: Apollo 11 , NASA ; Stereo Image Copyright Patrick Vantuyne Many bright nebulae and star clusters in planet Earth's sky are associated with the name of astronomer Charles Messier from his famous 18th century catalog. His name is also given to these two large and remarkable craters on the Moon. Standouts in the dark , smooth lunar Sea of Fertility or Mare Fecunditatis, Messier (left) and Messier A have dimensions of 15 by 8 and 16 by 11 kilometers respectively. Their elongated shapes are explained by the extremely shallow-angle trajectory followed by an impactor, moving left to right, that gouged out the craters. The shallow impact also resulted in two bright rays of material extending along the surface to the right, beyond the picture. Intended to be viewed with red/blue glasses (red for the left eye), this striking stereo picture of the crater pair was recently created from high resolution scans of two images ( AS11-42-6304 , AS11-42-6305 ) taken during the Apollo 11 mission to the Moon. #APOD #MessierCraters #LunarCraters #MareFecunditatis #LunarSurface #StellarImpact https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260509.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-05-09T04:06:01Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 08 May 2026 **Comet R3 PanSTARRS Before Rigel** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2605/CometRigel_Karuk_2851...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 08 May 2026 **Comet R3 PanSTARRS Before Rigel** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2605/CometRigel_Karuk_2851.jpg Credit: Not provided Which way is Comet R3 PanSTARRS going? Not towards the star at the top of the image, because that is Rigel , which, being far in the background, is unrelated to the comet. Not through the nebula in the image middle, because that is the Witch Head Nebula and it, too, is far in the distance -- but not far from Rigel. Not into northern skies because over the past week Comet C/2025 R3 (PanSTARRS) has moved into southern skies and is now best visible in Earth 's Southern Hemisphere toward the west after sunset. Angularly, Comet R3 PanSTARRS is slowly moving toward the upper right, night by night, and will soon be in the constellation Orion . Spatially, the comet is now headed out of our Solar System but should remain visible to cameras in southern skies for about a week. The featured image was captured last week near Cerro Paranal in Chile . #APOD #CometR3 #PanSTARRS #Rigel #WitchHeadNebula #Orion https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260508.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-05-08T04:07:24Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 07 May 2026 **Supernova in a Sideways Spiral** Video: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2605/supernova.mp4 Video C...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 07 May 2026 **Supernova in a Sideways Spiral** Video: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2605/supernova.mp4 Video Credit: Hunter Outten & Kaleb Jordan Text: Cecilia Chirenti ( NASA GSFC , UMCP , CRESST II ) A long time ago, in a distant galaxy , a massive star was destroyed in a supernova explosion. The light of this event travelled for tens of millions of years and reached Earth last week as Supernova 2026kid . The featured video shows a time-lapse over three nights of the host galaxy NGC 5907 , an edge-on spiral also known as the Splinter or Knife Edge Galaxy, as the supernova appears and becomes brighter. (The occasional streaks are satellites in Earth orbit.) At its brightest, a supernova can outshine the sum of all other stars in its galaxy. Supernova 2026kid appears relatively dim , probably because we are seeing it through the edge-on disk of the galaxy. Such explosions typically happen about once per century in galaxies similar to the Milky Way , and their light can take months to fade away. The brightest supernova in recorded history was SN 1006 ; it is reported to have been brighter than Venus, and even visible in the sky during daytime. #APOD #Supernova #NGC5907 #EdgeOnSpiral #CosmicEvent #Astronomy https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260507.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-05-07T04:09:41Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 06 May 2026 **The Retrograde Dance of Saturn and Neptune** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2605/saturn_nep...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 06 May 2026 **The Retrograde Dance of Saturn and Neptune** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2605/saturn_neptune_retrograde.jpg Credit: Not provided What does it mean for Saturn and Neptune to be in retrograde? Featured is a composite of images taken over 34 nights from May 2025 to February 2026 tracing Saturn (brighter, foreground) and Neptune (dimmer, background). Over that time, the two planets exhibited retrograde motion , meaning they appeared to move backward in the sky. This apparent backwards motion occurs when Earth overtakes the slower outer planets as they orbit the Sun. Imagine the Solar System is a running track. Earth "runs" faster along the inside of the track compared to the outer planets. As Earth approaches, aligns, and then "laps" the outer planets, they change position from ahead to behind from the Earth's perspective. This perspective shift is what causes the outer planets to change position in the night sky. An animation corresponding to today’s image shows Saturn and Neptune’s months-long dance across the northern night sky. Saturn stepped from the Pisces constellation into Aquarius and back again while Neptune remained in Pisces. This is the closest Saturn and Neptune have been in the sky since their last conjunction in 1989. #APOD #Saturn #Neptune #Retrograde #PlanetaryMotion #Astronomy https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260506.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-05-06T04:09:48Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 05 May 2026 **Orion over Mount Teide** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2605/OrionTeide_Rosadzinski_4247.jp...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 05 May 2026 **Orion over Mount Teide** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2605/OrionTeide_Rosadzinski_4247.jpg Credit: Not provided Orion is rarely seen like this. To achieve this majestic vista , you need a camera capable of taking such long duration exposures that faint features in the night sky become revealed. Iconic nebulas that appear include the Orion Nebula , the Flame Nebula , and Barnard's Loop . For contrast, it also helps to have a volcano on the foreground, in this case the Teide volcano on Tenerife on the Canary Islands of Spain . But if you want your Teide volcano snow-covered , you also need good timing -- because that only happens, typically, for a few days each year. Good timing also includes waiting for Orion to appear just behind Teide , which occurred late last year after sunset. The featured image is the result of a series of images taken consecutively with the same camera from the same location. #APOD #Orion #MountTeide #CanaryIslands #Tenerife #Astronomy https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260505.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-05-05T04:10:09Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 04 May 2026 **Superplumes Inside Earth** Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:LLSVP.gif Credit: Not pro...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 04 May 2026 **Superplumes Inside Earth** Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:LLSVP.gif Credit: Not provided Why are there huge, unusual masses inside the Earth? No one is sure. By noting how earthquakes rumble through our planet 's interior, humanity has discovered two deep structures that appear to have unusual temperatures and/or chemical compositions. One hypothesis holds that the superplumes are sunken debris left over from the Earth-shattering collision that created Earth's Moon about 4.5 billion years ago. A competing hypothesis is that they are graveyards for old tectonic plates that slowly slid under each other over the past few billion years. No matter their origin, the superplumes are thought to affect Earth’s surface volcanism, possibly creating, for example, island chains such as Hawaii . Also known as large low-shear-velocity provinces (LLSVPs), Earth's superplumes are visualized in the featured animation . #APOD #Earth #Superplumes #LLSVP #Volcanism #Tectonics https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260504.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-05-04T04:05:28Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 03 May 2026 **Trifid Pillars and Jets** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2605/TrifidPillar_Hubble_4074.jpg ...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 03 May 2026 **Trifid Pillars and Jets** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2605/TrifidPillar_Hubble_4074.jpg Image Credit: NASA , ESA , STScI ; Processing: J. DePasquale ( STScI ) Dust pillars are like interstellar mountains . They survive because they are more dense than their surroundings, but they are slowly being eroded away by a hostile environment. Visible in the featured picture by the Hubble Space Telescope is the end of a huge gas and dust pillar in the Trifid Nebula (M20), punctuated by a smaller pillar pointing up and an unusual jet pointing to the upper left. Many of the bright dots are newly formed stars . A star near the small pillar's end is slowly being stripped of its accreting gas by radiation from a tremendously brighter star situated off the top of the image. The jet extends nearly a light-year and would not be visible without external illumination. As gas and dust evaporate from the pillars, the hidden stellar source of this jet will likely be uncovered, possibly over the next 20,000 years. #APOD #TrifidNebula #M20 #DustPillars #StellarJets #HubbleSpaceTelescope https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260503.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-05-03T04:06:18Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 02 May 2026 **Seeing Titan** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2605/PIA21923_fig1SeeingTitan2400.jpg Image ...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 02 May 2026 **Seeing Titan** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2605/PIA21923_fig1SeeingTitan2400.jpg Image Credit: VIMS Team, Univ. Arizona , U. Nantes , ESA , NASA Shrouded in a thick atmosphere, the surface of Saturn's largest moon, Titan , is really hard to see. Small particles suspended in Titan's upper atmosphere cause an almost impenetrable haze, strongly scattering light at visible wavelengths and hiding surface features from prying eyes. Still, Titan's surface is better imaged at infrared wavelengths, where scattering is weaker and atmospheric absorption is reduced. Arrayed around this visible light image (center) of Titan are some of the clearest global infrared views of the tantalizing moon so far. In false color, the six panels present a consistent processing of 13 years of infrared image data from the Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) on board the Cassini spacecraft orbiting Saturn from 2004 to 2017. They offer a stunning comparison with Cassini's visible light view. NASA's revolutionary rotorcraft mission to Titan's surface is due to launch no earlier than July, 2028. #APOD #Titan #Saturn #Cassini #VIMS #InfraredAstronomy https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260502.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-05-02T04:07:39Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 01 May 2026 **Markarian's Chain** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2605/M84andM86.png Credit: Not provided...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 01 May 2026 **Markarian's Chain** Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2605/M84andM86.png Credit: Not provided Near the heart of the Virgo Galaxy Cluster , a string of galaxies known as Markarian's Chain stretches across this telescopic field of view. Anchored in the frame at bottom right by prominent lenticular galaxies, M84 (bottom) and M86 , you can follow the chain's gentle arc up and toward the left. Near center you'll spot the pair of interacting galaxies NGC 4438 and NGC 4435, known to some as Markarian's Eyes . An estimated 50 million light-years distant, the Virgo Cluster itself is the nearest galaxy cluster . With up to about 2,000 member galaxies, it has a noticeable gravitational influence on our own Local Group of Galaxies . Within the Virgo Cluster at least seven galaxies in Markarian's Chain appear to move coherently , while others may appear to be part of the chain by chance. #APOD #MarkarianChain #VirgoCluster #GalaxyCluster #M84 #M86 https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260501.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-05-01T11:20:56Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 30 April 2026 **Waves on Titan** Image: https://cdn.stocksnap.io/img-thumbs/960w/surfboard-beach_7A561BC965.jpg V...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 30 April 2026 **Waves on Titan** Image: https://cdn.stocksnap.io/img-thumbs/960w/surfboard-beach_7A561BC965.jpg Video Credit: Una Schneck Text: Cecilia Chirenti ( NASA GSFC , UMCP , CRESST II ) Have you ever thought about surfing on an alien world? We can now expand the search for the perfect wave from Earth to the rest of the Solar System, and beyond . Scientists have developed a new model for simulating waves on other planets . Titan is one of the 274 confirmed moons of Saturn to date, and the only object in the solar system (besides Earth) known to have liquid lakes and seas on its surface. The featured video shows a simulation of waves on Earth (right) and on Titan (left), under the same conditions (the scale marker is in meters). A light breeze would create taller, slower-moving waves on Titan than on Earth, because the lakes there are filled with light liquid hydrocarbons , and because of Titan's low gravity and higher atmospheric pressure. In a couple of years, NASA expects to launch the Dragonfly mission, which will travel for 6 years and send a rotorcraft to explore Titan and study its microbial habitability . #APOD #Titan #Saturn #Moons #PlanetaryScience #AstroPhysics https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260430.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-04-30T20:32:10Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 25 April 2026 **Young Moon and Sister Stars** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2604/GHR3777LunaPleiadi_101400_1024...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 25 April 2026 **Young Moon and Sister Stars** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2604/GHR3777LunaPleiadi_101400_1024.jpg Image Credit: Giorgia Hofer Explanation: Sunlit arms of a crescent moon seem to embrace the faint lunar night side in this dramatic celestial view from planet Earth. The single telephoto exposure tracking the sky was captured on the night of April 19, when a two day old Moon was near perigee in its elliptical orbit. On that date, the young Moon was also close on the sky to the lovely Pleiades Star Cluster. With the moonlight dimmed by clouds the Pleiades sister stars gather below the Moon's bright crescent, seen through a faint but colorful lunar corona. The lunar night side is illuminated by earthshine, sunlight reflected from the Earth itself. The Moon's ashen glow, also known as the "old moon in the young moon's arms," tends to be bright in the northern hemisphere spring. And for now, the Moon's orbit takes it near the Pleiades stars each month in planet Earth's sky, though their close conjunctions are easiest to see when the Moon is near a crescent phase. #APOD #YoungMoon #Pleiades #Moonlight #Earthshine #CrescentMoon https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260424.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-04-25T04:07:15Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 23 April 2026 **Large Scale Structure of the Universe** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2604/noirlab2610c_1024.jp...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 23 April 2026 **Large Scale Structure of the Universe** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2604/noirlab2610c_1024.jpg Image Credit: Claire Lamman, DESI collaboration, Cecilia Chirenti, NASA, GSFC, CRESST II Explanation: This is a map of the universe. The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) at Kitt Peak National Observatory, Arizona, has finished its five-year survey. It observed more than 47 million galaxies and quasars and created a 3D map centered on the Earth. Today's featured image shows a thin slice of these data: the black gaps indicate where our Galaxy obscures distant objects. The feathery web in the inset shows the large scale structure of the universe. Light of the most distant galaxies shown here travelled for 11 billion years to reach the Earth. Galaxies cluster throughout cosmic history under the competing influences of gravity and dark energy, responsible for the accelerated expansion of the universe. Analysis of early DESI results hinted at the possibility that dark energy, described as a cosmological constant by Albert Einstein, may not be constant after all. But we still have to wait for the analysis of the now complete dataset. The nature of dark energy is the biggest mystery of cosmology. #APOD #LargeScaleStructure #Universe #CosmicWeb #DESI #DarkEnergy https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260423.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-04-23T04:15:40Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 22 April 2026 **Three Sky Arches over Snowy Alps** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2604/TripleArchAlps_Fux_1080.j...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 22 April 2026 **Three Sky Arches over Snowy Alps** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2604/TripleArchAlps_Fux_1080.jpg Image Credit: Angel Fux Explanation: Why are there three arches across the sky instead of two? Last month, after being dropped off by a helicopter at a high mountain peak in the Alps near the Swiss Italian border, an adventurous astrophotographer expected two arches of our Milky Way galaxy to be visible during the night. These were the inner arch looking in toward the center of our galaxy on the left, visible just before sunrise, and the outer arch on the right visible just after sunset. But there were three arches. The surprised astrophotographer soon realized that the sky was so dark that an entire arc of faint zodiacal light was also noticeable -- sunlight scattered by inner Solar System dust. And it artfully connected the two Milky Way arches! The next morning a helicopter picked the astrophotographer back up, and after 40 hours of processing and combining that night's images, the featured triple-arch 360-degree panorama resulted. #APOD #Astronomy #AstronomyCommunity #SkyArch #ArchesOfTheSky #AtmosphericPhysics https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260421.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-04-22T04:19:54Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 21 April 2026 **Comet R3 PanSTARRS over a Himalayan Valley** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2604/ValleyComet_Cha...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 21 April 2026 **Comet R3 PanSTARRS over a Himalayan Valley** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2604/ValleyComet_Chakrabarti_960.jpg Image Credit: Basudeb Chakrabarti, Samit Saha Explanation: The best way to see comet R3 PanSTARRS’s long tail is with a camera. This week, the recently brightened comet appears in northern skies to the east just before dawn, but is only barely visible to the unaided eye. The many-degree ion tail captured on long duration camera exposures is not unusual for a comet - it is primarily due to the Earth's nearly sideways view of the tail as it points away from the Sun. In the featured image taken last week, Comet C/2025 R3 (PanSTARRS) showed off its flowing tail through a valley between two peaks in the Himalayan mountains of India.   The comet passed its closest to the Sun yesterday. As it nears its closest approach to Earth next week, a bushy dust tail may become visible. The comet is slowly moving out of northern skies and by the end of the month will be visible after sunset in southern skies as it fades and leaves our Solar System.  #APOD #CometR3 #PanSTARRS #C2025R3 #HimalayanValley #NorthernSkies https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260420.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-04-21T04:24:03Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 20 April 2026 **Eye on the Milky Way** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2604/EyeOnMW_Claro_960.jpg Image Credit: ...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 20 April 2026 **Eye on the Milky Way** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2604/EyeOnMW_Claro_960.jpg Image Credit: Miguel Claro, TWAN, Dark Sky Alqueva Explanation: Have you ever had stars in your eyes? It appears that the eye on the left does, and moreover, it appears to be gazing at even more stars. The featured 27-frame mosaic was taken in 2019 from Ojas de Salar in the Atacama Desert of Chile. The eye is actually a small lagoon captured reflecting the dark night sky as the Milky Way Galaxy arched overhead. The seemingly smooth band of the Milky Way is really composed of billions of stars, but decorated with filaments of light-absorbing dust and red-glowing nebulas. Additionally, both Jupiter (slightly left the galactic arch) and Saturn (slightly to the right) are visible. The lights of small towns dot the unusual vertical horizon. The rocky terrain around the lagoon appears to some more like the surface of Mars than our Earth. #APOD #MilkyWay #Galaxy #Astronomy #Space #Stars https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260419.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-04-20T04:07:14Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 19 April 2026 **PanSTARRS and Planets** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2604/PanstarrsPlanetsPerrotLab1024.jpg I...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 19 April 2026 **PanSTARRS and Planets** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2604/PanstarrsPlanetsPerrotLab1024.jpg Image Credit: Luc Perrot, TWAN Explanation: Near the eastern horizon before sunrise, Comet C/2025 R3 PanSTARRS is getting brighter. Readily visible in binoculars and small telescopes, the comet may be just on the verge of naked-eye visibility from dark sky sites. Though it was not quite apparent to the eye, PanSTARRS is still easy to spot in this camera image taken on April 16. In the view from a volcanic peak overlooking France's Reunion Island, planet Earth, the comet shares eastern predawn skies with naked-eye planets Mars and Mercury and fainter Neptune. Saturn is hiding behind the low cloudbank that doesn't quite hide an old crescent Moon. This is a good weekend for northern hemisphere comet watchers to try to catch PanSTARRS an hour or so before sunrise, as the comet grows brighter approaching its perihelion on April 19. On April 26 the comet makes its closest approach to our fair planet but by then will be difficult to see in the solar glare. Good views of this comet PanSTARRS in late April and early May will be from the southern hemisphere. #APOD #PanSTARRS #CometC2025R3 #CometWatch #CelestialEvents #NightSky https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260418.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-04-19T04:11:30Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 17 April 2026 **M82: Starburst Galaxy with a Superwind** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2604/M82_V3_1024.jpg Im...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 17 April 2026 **M82: Starburst Galaxy with a Superwind** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2604/M82_V3_1024.jpg Image Credit: Arnaud Malleval Explanation: Messier 82 is a starburst galaxy with a superwind. In fact, through supernova explosions and powerful winds from massive stars, the burst of star formation in M82 is driving a prodigious outflow. Evidence for the superwind from the galaxy's central regions is clear in the sharp telescopic portrait. The composite image includes 33 hours of narrowband data, highlighting emission from long outflow filaments of atomic hydrogen gas in reddish hues. Some of the gas in the superwind, enriched in heavy elements forged in the massive stars, will eventually escape into intergalactic space. Triggered by a close encounter with nearby large galaxy M81, the furious burst of star formation in M82 should last about 100 million years or so. Also known as the Cigar Galaxy for its elongated visual appearance, M82 is about 30,000 light-years across. It lies 12 million light-years away near the northern boundary of Ursa Major. #APOD #M82 #Messier82 #StarburstGalaxy #Superwind #GalacticOutflow https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260417.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-04-17T04:19:53Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 16 April 2026 **The ISS Transits the Moon** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2604/iss_moon_transit_zoom.jpeg Imag...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 16 April 2026 **The ISS Transits the Moon** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2604/iss_moon_transit_zoom.jpeg Image Credit: Sébastien Borie, Keighley Rockcliffe, NASA, GSFC, UMBC CSST, CRESST II Explanation: Nope, that is not an alien spaceship landing on the Moon! This is an image of the International Space Station (ISS) as it begins to transit in front of the Moon. The ISS is in low-Earth orbit (LEO) where it wizzes around the Earth every 90 minutes. Orbiting the Earth 16 times per day for 25 years, the ISS has photobombed many familiar celestial objects including Venus, Mars, Saturn, and the Sun. Thousands of experiments led by researchers from over one hundred countries have been conducted on the ISS. Growing protein crystals in low gravity was one of the first experiments onboard the ISS and continues to contribute to new medical treatments. ISS astronauts study plant growth, water recycling, human health, and more to support the Artemis missions which will take humans farther than they’ve ever gone before. Next time you are out and about at night, try to spot the ISS zooming across the sky! #APOD #ISS #MoonTransit #LEO #SpaceStation #SpaceExploration https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260415.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-04-16T04:23:36Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 15 April 2026 **The Long Wispy Tail of Comet R3 (PanSTARRS)** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2604/CometR3_Hamdi_...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 15 April 2026 **The Long Wispy Tail of Comet R3 (PanSTARRS)** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2604/CometR3_Hamdi_960.jpg Image Credit: Haythem Hamdi Explanation: Why does Comet R3 (PanSTARRS) have a wispy tail? The newest bright member of the inner Solar System, Comet C/2025 R3 (PanSTARRS) is already extending an impressive stream of glowing gas. This tail starts from an unseen central nucleus of dirty ice that is likely a few kilometers across. The nucleus is warmed by the Sun and emits a cloud of neutral gas into a coma that glows light green. Nuclear gas ionized by energetic sunlight is pushed away from the Sun by the solar wind into an ion tail that glows light blue. The wispy nature of the ion tail is caused by the constantly changing structure of the solar wind. Pictured from Rhode Island, USA two days ago, Comet R3 (PanSTARRS) shows off a many-degree ion tail. Comet R3 (PanSTARRS) is best seen before dawn from northern skies for another 10 days, after which it will be best visible from southern skies. #APOD #CometR3 #PanSTARRS #Comets #Astronomy #Space https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260414.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-04-15T04:06:29Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 14 April 2026 **NGC 602 and Beyond** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2604/Ngc602_Hubble_960.jpg Image Credit: NA...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 14 April 2026 **NGC 602 and Beyond** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2604/Ngc602_Hubble_960.jpg Image Credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble Heritage, STScI, AURA, ESA Explanation: The clouds may look like an oyster, and the stars like pearls, but look beyond. Near the outskirts of the Small Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy some 200 thousand light-years distant, lies 5 million year young star cluster NGC 602. Surrounded by natal gas and dust, NGC 602 is featured in this stunning Hubble image of the region. Fantastic ridges and swept back shapes strongly suggest that energetic radiation and shock waves from NGC 602's massive young stars have eroded the dusty material and triggered a progression of star formation moving away from the cluster's center. At the estimated distance of the Small Magellanic Cloud, the featured picture spans about 200 light-years, but a tantalizing assortment of background galaxies are also visible in this sharp multi-colored view. The background galaxies are hundreds of millions of light-years or more beyond NGC 602. #APOD #NGC602 #SmallMagellanicCloud #HubbleSpaceTelescope #StarFormation #YoungStarCluster https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260413.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-04-14T04:10:43Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 13 April 2026 **Comet R3 (PanSTARRS) Brightens** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2604/R3Panstarrs_Rodrigues_960.j...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 13 April 2026 **Comet R3 (PanSTARRS) Brightens** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2604/R3Panstarrs_Rodrigues_960.jpg Image Credit: José Rodrigues Explanation: Comet R3 is brightening rapidly -- will it survive? C/2025 R3 (PanSTARRS) has been slowly brightening and extending an ion tail since its discovery last year. This shedding mountain of dirty ice puts on its best sky show this month, though, because it passes its closest to both the Sun (April 19) and the Earth (April 25). The featured image, showing R3 already sporting a tail extending over 10 degrees, was taken two nights ago from Sion, Switzerland with the big mountain Bietschhorn on the left. Comet R3 will be visible during mid-April before sunrise. Although the future brightness of any comet is hard to predict, the brightness of R3 makes it already a good camera comet and it may become visible to the unaided eye in the next week. Comet R3's physical future is also unknown because, like Comet A1 (MAPS) earlier this month, it may disintegrate when it passes its closest to the Sun. Or it may live to leave the Solar System. #APOD #CometR3 #PanSTARRS #Comet #Astronomy #Astro https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260412.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-04-13T04:14:55Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 12 April 2026 **Artemis II: Flight Day 6** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2604/art002e009567_1024.jpg Image Cre...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 12 April 2026 **Artemis II: Flight Day 6** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2604/art002e009567_1024.jpg Image Credit: NASA, Artemis II Explanation: On flight day 6 (April 6) the Artemis II mission achieved a historic lunar flyby. Rounding the lunar far side, the deep space maneuver marked humanity's first venture to the Moon since Apollo 17 in 1972. The Orion spacecraft Integrity reached a maximum distance of nearly 407,000 kilometers, and the Artemis II crew, Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen, set the record for the farthest distance from Earth traveled by any human since the Apollo 13 crew in 1970. From behind the Moon on flight day 6, a solar array wing camera recorded this space age selfie, framing the spacecraft and lunar far side. Planet Earth, home to the Artemis II crew, is the small, bright crescent beyond the lunar limb. The crew safely returned home on Artemis II mission flight day 10. #APOD #ArtemisII #FlightDay6 #LunarFlyby #DeepSpace #MoonMission https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260411.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-04-12T04:18:54Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 11 April 2026 **Exploring the Antennae** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2604/n4038_n4039_antennaeSelbyColombari1...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 11 April 2026 **Exploring the Antennae** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2604/n4038_n4039_antennaeSelbyColombari1024.jpg Image Credit: Mike Selby, Roberto Colombari Explanation: Some 60 million light-years away in the southerly constellation Corvus, two large galaxies are colliding. Stars in the two galaxies, cataloged as NGC 4038 and NGC 4039, very rarely collide in the course of the ponderous cataclysm that lasts for hundreds of millions of years. But the galaxies' large clouds of molecular gas and dust often do, triggering furious episodes of star formation near the center of the cosmic wreckage. Spanning over 50 thousand light-years, this stunning telescopic frame also reveals new star clusters and matter flung far from the scene of the accident by gravitational tidal forces. The remarkably sharp ground-based image follows the faint tidal tails and distant background galaxies in the field of view. The suggestive overall visual appearance of the extended arcing structures gives the galaxy pair, also known as Arp 244, its popular name - The Antennae. #APOD #AntennaeGalaxies #NGC4038 #NGC4039 #GalaxyCollision #StarFormation https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260410.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-04-11T04:22:56Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 08 April 2026 **IC 4592: The Blue Horsehead Reflection Nebula** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2604/BlueHorse_Al...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 08 April 2026 **IC 4592: The Blue Horsehead Reflection Nebula** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2604/BlueHorse_Alkuwari_960.jpg Image Credit: Rabeea Alkuwari Explanation: Do you see the horse's head? What you are seeing is not the famous Horsehead nebula toward Orion, but rather a fainter nebula that only takes on a familiar form with deeper imaging. The main part of the here-imaged molecular cloud complex is reflection nebula IC 4592. Reflection nebulas are made up of very fine dust that normally appears dark but can look quite blue when reflecting the visible light of energetic nearby stars. In this case, the source of much of the reflected light is a star at the eye of the horse. That star is part of Nu Scorpii, one of the brighter star systems toward the constellation of the Scorpion (Scorpius). A second reflection nebula dubbed IC 4601 is visible surrounding two stars just below the image center. The featured picture was taken from Sawda Natheel in Qatar. #APOD #IC4592 #BlueHorsehead #ReflectionNebula #HorseheadNebula #SpacePhotography https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260407.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-04-08T04:13:55Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 06 April 2026 **NGC 3310: A Starburst Spiral Galaxy** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2604/ngc3310_gemini_960.jpg...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 06 April 2026 **NGC 3310: A Starburst Spiral Galaxy** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2604/ngc3310_gemini_960.jpg Image Credit: AAO ITSO Office, Gemini Obs., AURA, T. A. Rector, U. Alaska Anchorage Explanation: The party is still going on in spiral galaxy NGC 3310. Roughly 100 million years ago, NGC 3310 likely collided with a smaller galaxy causing the large spiral galaxy to light up with a tremendous burst of star formation. The changing gravity during the collision created density waves that compressed existing clouds of gas and triggered the star-forming party. The featured image from the Gemini North Telescope shows the galaxy in great detail, color-coded so that pink highlights gas while white and blue highlight stars. Some of the star clusters in the galaxy are quite young, indicating that starburst galaxies may remain in star-burst mode for quite some time. NGC 3310 spans about 50,000 light years, lies about 50 million light years away, and is visible with a small telescope towards the constellation of Great Bear Ursa Major. #APOD #NGC3310 #StarburstGalaxy #SpiralGalaxy #GalaxyCollision #StarFormation https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260405.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-04-06T04:22:12Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 05 April 2026 **Hello World** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2604/art002e000192_1050.jpg Image Credit: NASA, Re...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 05 April 2026 **Hello World** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2604/art002e000192_1050.jpg Image Credit: NASA, Reid Wiseman, Artemis II Explanation: From pole to pole our fair planet is captured in this snapshot from space, an evocative image from a window of the Orion spacecraft Integrity. From the spacecraft's perspective the Sun is moving behind Earth's bright limb along the lower right. Africa and the Iberian peninsula are in view on the pale blue planet's surface, while aurorae crown Earth's south and north poles at top right and bottom left. Commander Reid Wiseman took the historic picture on Artemis II mission flight day 2 (April 2), after the completion of the planned translunar injection burn. That burn boosted the spacecraft out of Earth orbit, sending Integrity and crew on a trajectory that will take them around the Moon and back again. That's a journey humans last made over 50 years ago. (Editor's note: Venus is photobombing Wiseman's historic pic. Currently appearing in our western skies after sunset, the inner planet is in the frame below and right of Earth's bright limb, immersed in a faint band of zodiacal light.) #APOD #OrionSpacecraft #ArtemisII #SpaceExploration #MoonMission #Astronomy https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260404.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-04-05T04:26:05Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 03 April 2026 **Caught in the Web: Visualization of a Black Hole Merger in the Tarantula Nebula** https://apod.nas...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 03 April 2026 **Caught in the Web: Visualization of a Black Hole Merger in the Tarantula Nebula** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2604/BH_Merger_Tarantula_1024.jpg Image Credit: Carl Knox, OzGrav, Swinburne University of Technology, Blake Estes, Christian Sasse, iTelescope.net, Cecilia Chirenti, NASA, GSFC, CRESST II Explanation: How can we see what is invisible? Black holes are not easy to see in the dark cosmic night, but astronomers can find them by analyzing their gravitational effects on matter, light and spacetime. The featured image shows an illustration that combines a simulation of a black hole binary system in its final "death-dance" with an astrophotography image of the Tarantula Nebula in the background. Even though black holes don't emit light, they distort the path of light rays, acting like a gravitational lens. As a result, the nebula appears extremely distorted, forming Einstein rings and multiple images. Tarantula Nebula lies in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf galaxy that is one of the satellite galaxies of the Milky Way, 160,000 light-years away. That is more than 1,000 times closer than any of the binary black hole mergers detected so far. We'll probably never detect a merger so close to home! #APOD #BlackHoleMerger #TarantulaNebula #GravitationalWaves #Astrophysics #Cosmology https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260403.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-04-03T04:12:39Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 02 April 2026 **The Claw and Bubble Nebulae** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2604/claw_bubble_800.jpg Image Cre...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 02 April 2026 **The Claw and Bubble Nebulae** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2604/claw_bubble_800.jpg Image Credit: Richard Whitehead, Keighley Rockcliffe, NASA, GSFC, UMBC CSST, CRESST II Explanation: What unexpected things do you see when you look up at the night sky? Today’s image resembles an abstract painting, with large swaths of color strewn across a cosmic canvas seemingly without design. Despite the image's abstract nature, the human mind finds patterns, identifying a large claw reaching up towards a floating bubble. Embedded within these seemingly random structures are the physical laws that govern how light and matter interact. The Claw (Sh2-157) and Bubble (NGC 7635) Nebulae glow colors that are mapped to the yellow and blue shown, indicating the presence of hydrogen and oxygen ionized by the intense light emitted from stars several times the mass of the Sun. This image depicts both the chaos and structure of astronomical processes, showing that a common thread between art and science is to look for the unexpected. #APOD #Astrophoto #NASAInspires #Space #Astrogeek https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260401.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-04-02T04:16:25Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 01 April 2026 **Uranus's Largest Moon: Titania** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2603/Titania_Voyager2_960.jpg I...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 01 April 2026 **Uranus's Largest Moon: Titania** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2603/Titania_Voyager2_960.jpg Image Credit: NASA, Voyager 2, zelario12 | License Explanation: Titania's tortured terrain is a mix of canyons, cliffs, and craters. NASA's interplanetary robot spacecraft Voyager 2 passed the largest moon of Uranus in 1986 and took the feature picture. That the trenches of Titania resemble those on another moon of Uranus, Ariel, indicate that Titania underwent some violent surface event possibly related to water freezing and expanding in its distant past. Although Titania is Uranus's largest moon, it is only about half the radius of Triton - the largest moon of Uranus's sister planet Neptune, which itself is slightly smaller than Earth's Moon. Titania, discovered by William Herschel in 1787, is essentially a large dirty iceball that is composed of about half water-ice and half rock. There is recent speculation that radioactive heating melts some underground ice into oceans. #APOD #Titania #Uranus #Moon #Voyager2 #NASA https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260331.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-04-01T04:20:22Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 31 March 2026 **Peculiar Elliptical Galaxy Centaurus A** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2603/CenA_SADR_1080.jpg ...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 31 March 2026 **Peculiar Elliptical Galaxy Centaurus A** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2603/CenA_SADR_1080.jpg Image Credit: SADR Observatory, J-C Dalouzy Explanation: What's happened to the center of this galaxy? Dramatic dust lanes run across the center of unusual elliptical galaxy Centaurus A. These dust lanes are so thick they almost completely obscure the galaxy's center in visible light. This is particularly unusual as Cen A's older stars and oval shape are characteristic of a giant elliptical galaxy, a galaxy type typically low in dark dust. Pictured in this deep image is a complex network of foreground gas and dust, as well as shells of dim stars and a jet projecting to the upper right. Also known as NGC 5128, Cen A is surely the result of a galactic collision where many young dust-creating stars were formed. However, details of the creation of Cen A's unusually active center and iconic central dust lanes are still being researched. Cen A lies only 13 million light years away, making it the closest active galaxy. #APOD #CentaurusA #CenA #EllipticalGalaxy #ActiveGalacticNucleus #AGN https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260330.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-03-31T04:23:57Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 30 March 2026 **A Message from Earth** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2603/Message_Arecibo_960.jpg Image Credit...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 30 March 2026 **A Message from Earth** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2603/Message_Arecibo_960.jpg Image Credit: Frank Drake, Arecibo Observatory, Arne Nordmann | License Explanation: What are these Earthlings trying to tell us? The featured message was broadcast from Earth towards the globular star cluster M13 in 1974. During the dedication of an upgrade to the Arecibo Observatory - then the largest single radio telescope in the world - a string of 1's and 0's representing the diagram was sent. This attempt at extraterrestrial communication was mostly ceremonial - humanity regularly broadcasts radio and television signals out into space accidentally. Even were this message received, M13 is so far away we would have to wait almost 50,000 years to hear an answer. The featured message gives a few simple facts about humanity and its knowledge: from left to right are numbers from one to ten, atoms including hydrogen and carbon, some interesting molecules, DNA, a human with description, basics of our Solar System, and basics of the sending telescope. Several searches for extraterrestrial intelligence are currently underway. #APOD #Earth #RedPlanet #InterstellarMessage #SETI #Extraterrestrial https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260329.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-03-30T04:06:46Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 29 March 2026 **Robert Goddard and Nell** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2603/goddardphotop9-1_800.jpg Image Cr...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 29 March 2026 **Robert Goddard and Nell** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2603/goddardphotop9-1_800.jpg Image Credit: Clark University archive Explanation: Robert H. Goddard, considered the father of modern rocketry, was born in Worcester Massachusetts in 1882. As a 16 year old, Goddard read H.G. Wells' science fiction classic "War Of The Worlds" and dreamed of space flight. By 1926 he had designed, built, and flown the world's first liquid fuel rocket. Launched 100 years ago on March 16, 1926 from his aunt Effie's farm in Auburn Massachusetts, the rocket, dubbed "Nell," rose to an altitude of 41 feet in a flight that lasted about 2 1/2 seconds. In this posed photo, Goddard stands next to the 10 foot tall rocket, holding the launch stand frame. To achieve a stable flight without the need for fins, the rocket's heavy motor was located at the top, fed by lines from liquid oxygen and gasoline fuel tanks at the bottom. Widely recognized as a gifted experimenter and engineering genius, his rockets were many years ahead of their time. Goddard was awarded over 200 patents in rocket technology, most of them after his death in 1945. A liquid fuel rocket constructed on principles developed by Goddard landed humans on the Moon in 1969. #APOD #Cosmos #Astrophoto #Universe Astrophotography https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260328.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-03-29T04:10:42Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 28 March 2026 **Hickson 44 in Leo** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2603/NGC3190-APOD1024.jpg Image Credit: Pete...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 28 March 2026 **Hickson 44 in Leo** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2603/NGC3190-APOD1024.jpg Image Credit: Peter Kennett Explanation: Scanning the skies for galaxies, Canadian astronomer Paul Hickson and colleagues identified some 100 compact groups of galaxies, now appropriately called Hickson Compact Groups. The four prominent galaxies seen in this intriguing telescopic skyscape are one such group, Hickson 44. The Hickson 44 galaxy group is about 100 million light-years distant, far beyond the foreground Milky Way stars, toward the northern springtime constellation Leo. The two spiral galaxies in the center of the image are edge-on NGC 3190 with distinctive, warped dust lanes, and S-shaped NGC 3187. Along with the bright elliptical, NGC 3193 (left) they are also known as Arp 316. The spiral toward the lower right corner is NGC 3185, the 4th member of the Hickson group. Like other galaxies in Hickson groups, these show signs of distortion and enhanced star formation, evidence of a gravitational tug of war that will eventually result in galaxy mergers on a cosmic timescale. The merger process is now understood to be a normal part of the evolution of galaxies, including our own Milky Way. For scale, NGC 3190 is about 75,000 light-years across at the estimated distance of Hickson 44. #APOD #Hickson44 #CompactGroups #Leo #NGC3190 #NGC3187 https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260327.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-03-28T04:19:42Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 27 March 2026 **Black Holes and Neutron Stars: 218 Mergers and Counting** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2603/GW...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 27 March 2026 **Black Holes and Neutron Stars: 218 Mergers and Counting** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2603/GWTC4-Events-Poster-Landscape_1024.jpg Image Credit: Ryan Nowicki, Bill Smith, Karan Jani, Cecilia Chirenti, NASA, GSFC, CRESST II Explanation: What is the sound of two black holes merging in deep space? Sound waves don't propagate in vacuum, but gravitational waves do. In 2015 we were able to "hear" them for the first time and confirm one of Albert Einstein's theoretical predictions. Each square on the grid of the featured image represents one of the gravitational wave detections announced so far by the LIGO-VIRGO-KAGRA Collaboration. These plots show how the binary pair accelerates in their orbit around each other towards merger: the rising frequency effect is called a "chirp". Although there are significantly more neutron stars than black holes, most of the detections are binary black hole mergers. That happens because black holes are heavier and their signals are louder and can be seen farther away, resulting in more detections. These events are rare, and we don't expect to see one close by in our Galaxy any time soon. But they are happening continuously throughout the cosmos. #APOD #BlackHoles #NeutronStars #GravitationalWaves #Astrophysics #Universe https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260326.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-03-27T04:23:42Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 26 March 2026 **The Guardians of Rapa Nui beneath the Milky Way** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2603/rapa_nui_m...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 26 March 2026 **The Guardians of Rapa Nui beneath the Milky Way** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2603/rapa_nui_milky_way_1024.jpeg Image Credit: Rositsa Dimitrova, Keighley Rockcliffe, NASA, GSFC, UMBC CSST, CRESST II Explanation: In the words of today's astrophotographer, Rositsa Dimitrova, "What have these silent sentinels watched pass across the sky?" The volcanic mo'ai (meaning statue) of Ahu Tongariki stand guard over Rapa Nui (Isla de Pascua, Easter Island), a Polynesian island (annexed by Chile in 1888) located thousands of kilometers off the coast of South America in the Pacific Ocean. Due to the island's remoteness, the mo'ai, with their backs to the dark ocean, are able to gaze upon a clear and vibrant night sky. Pictured, these larger-than-life statues stare at the bright band of the Milky Way, partly obscured by interstellar dust and blurred by Earth's clouds. Under such clear night skies, the Rapa Nui created observatories and used astronomical observations for navigation, calendar calibration, celebrations, and more. Images like this one remind us of the importance of dark skies, protecting the land underneath them, and preserving the culture that they inspire. #APOD #RapaNui #MilkyWay #Astrophotography #Astronomy #Space https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260325.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-03-26T04:06:15Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 24 March 2026 **Light Pillars and Orion over Mohe** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2603/LightPillarsMohe_Dai_108...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 24 March 2026 **Light Pillars and Orion over Mohe** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2603/LightPillarsMohe_Dai_1080.jpg Image Credit: Jeff Dai, TWAN Explanation: What's happening at the end of that street? Pictured here are not auroras but light pillars, a phenomenon typically much closer. In most places on Earth, a lucky viewer can see a Sun pillar, a column of light appearing to extend up from the Sun caused by flat fluttering ice-crystals reflecting sunlight from the upper atmosphere. Usually, these ice crystals evaporate before reaching the ground. During freezing temperatures, however, flat fluttering ice crystals may form near the ground and are sometimes known as a crystal fog. These small ice crystals may then reflect not the Sun but ground lights. The featured image captured not only numerous light pillars but also the iconic constellation of Orion, and was taken in Mohe, the northernmost city in China. #APOD lookUp #NASA Astrophotography #Astrophoto https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260323.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-03-24T04:14:10Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 22 March 2026 **Galaxies in the River: NGC 1300 and NGC 1297** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2603/NGC1300-LRGB_...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 22 March 2026 **Galaxies in the River: NGC 1300 and NGC 1297** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2603/NGC1300-LRGB_1024.jpg Image Credit: Dietmar Hager and Eric Benson Explanation: Spiral NGC 1300 and elliptical NGC 1297 are galaxies that lie on the banks of the southern constellation Eridanus (The River). At 70 million light-years distant or more, both are members of the Eridanus Galaxy Cluster. About 100,000 light-years across, at lower left in this sharp, galaxy group photo NGC 1300 is seen face-on with a prominent central bar and grand, sweeping spiral arms. Like other spiral galaxies, including our own barred spiral Milky Way Galaxy, NGC 1300 is thought to have a supermassive central black hole. A contrast in appearance and slightly more distant, NGC 1297 is the roughly spherical large elliptical galaxy near the top of the frame. With little active star formation, elliptical galaxies are composed of older populations of stars and are likely he result of multiple collisions and mergers with spirals. #APOD #Astronomy #Astrogeek Astrophotography #Cosmos https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260321.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-03-22T04:22:14Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 20 March 2026 **Spring Equinox at Teide Observatory** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2603/equinox-3k-jcc_1087c.j...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 20 March 2026 **Spring Equinox at Teide Observatory** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2603/equinox-3k-jcc_1087c.jpg Image Credit: Juan Carlos Casado, Starry Earth, TWAN Explanation: The defining astronomical moment of the equinox today is at 14:46 UTC (March 20). That's when the Sun crosses the celestial equator moving north in its yearly journey through planet Earth's sky, marking the beginning of spring for our fair planet in the northern hemisphere and fall in the southern hemisphere. Then, day and night are nearly equal around the globe. In fact, both day and nighttime exposures from a spring equinox at the Observatorio del Teide in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, are used in this composited skyscape. Over 1,000 images were taken with a fisheye lens and merged in the ambitious equinox project. The apparent motion of the Sun setting along the celestial equator on the equinox date follows the bright linear, diagonal track from the sequence of daytime exposures taken over 6 hours. After sunset, nighttime exposures recorded startrails, with the celestial equator as a linear track and concentric arcs circling the north celestial pole near Polaris at upper right and the south celestial pole beyond the lower left edge (and below the Teide horizon). The foreground includes the distant Teide volcano peak and the observatory's pyramid-shaped solar laboratory building. #APOD #SpringEquinox #TeideObservatory #ObservatorioDelTeide #CelestialEquator #Equinox2024 https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260320.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-03-20T04:08:33Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 19 March 2026 **Cygnus and the Solitary Tree** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2603/cygnus_tree_crop.jpg Image C...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 19 March 2026 **Cygnus and the Solitary Tree** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2603/cygnus_tree_crop.jpg Image Credit: AstroHoracio, Keighley Rockcliffe, NASA, GSFC, UMBC CSST, CRESST II Explanation: A lone tree stands in a quiet meadow in Guadalajara, Spain, silhouetted against the Cygnus region rising above like flames in the night sky. This deep night skyscape is a composite of exposures that reveals a range of brightness and color human eyes can't quite see on their own. Spanning over a thousand times the angular size of the full moon, Cygnus sets the sky afire with active star formation where clouds of gas and dust collapse under gravity until nuclear fusion ignites and new stars are born. These stars ionize the surrounding hydrogen gas, causing it to glow crimson, while tendrils of interstellar dust absorb some of that light and cast dark shadows across the sky. Cygnus is a trove of celestial treasures, notably the Veil, Crescent, and Pelican nebulae, as well as Cygnus X-1, the first confirmed black hole. Cygnus continues to yield fresh science, including a new three-dimensional model of the Cygnus Loop made possible by the Chandra X-ray Observatory. #APOD #Cygnus #CygnusRegion #VeilNebula #PelicanNebula #CrescentNebula https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260318.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-03-19T04:12:04Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 18 March 2026 **The Tadpoles of IC 410** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2603/APOD_Sub_Tadpoles_NicoCarver1024c.j...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 18 March 2026 **The Tadpoles of IC 410** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2603/APOD_Sub_Tadpoles_NicoCarver1024c.jpg Image Credit: Nico Carver Explanation: This telescopic close-up shows off the central regions of otherwise faint emission nebula IC 410, captured under backyard skies. Presented in a Hubble color palette, the image combines visible broadband and narrowband data with data from the near-infrared. Below and right of center are two remarkable inhabitants of the interstellar pond of gas and dust. the Tadpoles of IC 410. Partly obscured by foreground dust, the nebula itself surrounds NGC 1893, a young galactic cluster of stars. Formed in the interstellar cloud a mere 4 million years ago, the intensely hot, bright cluster stars energize the glowing gas. But the cosmic tadpoles themselves are composed of denser cooler gas and dust. Around 10 light-years long they are likely sites of ongoing star formation. Sculpted by stellar winds and radiation their heads are outlined by bright ridges of ionized gas while their tails trail away from the cluster's central young stars. IC 410 lies some 10,000 light-years away, toward the nebula-rich constellation Auriga. #APOD #NASA #Astrogeek #NASAInspires #Cosmos https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260317.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-03-18T04:15:50Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 17 March 2026 **NGC 1566: The Spanish Dancer Galaxy** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2603/SpanishDancer_Hubble_9...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 17 March 2026 **NGC 1566: The Spanish Dancer Galaxy** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2603/SpanishDancer_Hubble_960.jpg Image Credit: ESA/Hubble, NASA, D. Calzetti, LEGUS, Team, R. Chandar Explanation: If not perfect, then this spiral galaxy is at least one of the most photogenic. An island universe containing billions of stars and situated about 40 million light-years away toward the constellation of the Dolphinfish (Dorado), NGC 1566 presents a gorgeous face-on view. Classified as a grand design spiral, NGC 1566 shows two prominent and graceful spiral arms that are traced by bright blue star clusters, red emission nebulas, and dark cosmic dust lanes. Numerous Hubble Space Telescope images of NGC 1566 have been taken to study star formation, supernovas, and the spiral's unusually active center. NGC 1566's flaring center makes the spiral one of the closest and brightest Seyfert galaxies, likely housing a central supermassive black hole wreaking havoc on surrounding stars and gas. #APOD #NGC1566 #SpanishDancerGalaxy #spiralgalaxy #granddesign #Dorado https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260316.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-03-17T04:19:46Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 16 March 2026 **Equinox at the Pyramid of the Feathered Serpent** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2603/MayanMilky...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 16 March 2026 **Equinox at the Pyramid of the Feathered Serpent** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2603/MayanMilkyWay_Fernandez_1080.jpg Image Credit: Robert Fedez Explanation: To see the feathered serpent descend the Mayan pyramid requires exquisite timing. You must visit El Castillo -- in Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula -- near an equinox. Then, during the late afternoon if the sky is clear, the pyramid's own shadows create triangles that merge into the famous illusion of a slithering viper. Also known as the Temple of Kukulkan, the impressive step-pyramid stands 30 meters tall and 55 meters wide at the base. Built up as a series of square terraces by the pre-Columbian civilization between the 9th and 12th century, the structure can be used as a calendar and is noted for astronomical alignments. The featured composite image was captured in 2019 with Jupiter and Saturn straddling the diagonal central band of our Milky Way galaxy. In a few days another equinox will occur -- not only at Temple of Kukulcán, but all over planet Earth. #APOD #Equinox #MayanAstronomy #Kukulkan #ElCastillo #AstronomicalAlignment https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260315.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-03-16T04:23:47Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 15 March 2026 **A Year for K2-315b** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2603/MIT-Pi-Planet-01-PRESS1024.jpg Image C...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 15 March 2026 **A Year for K2-315b** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2603/MIT-Pi-Planet-01-PRESS1024.jpg Image Credit: Not provided Explanation: Want to visit a planet that has 3.14 days in a year? Then plan a trip to K2-315b, an earth-sized planet orbiting around a cool, red, M dwarf star about once every 3.14 days. The exoplanet's discovery, based on publicly available data from the planet-hunting Kepler Space Telescope's extended K2 mission, was announced in 2020. K2-315b's measured orbital period in days is nearly equal to the extremely popular irrational number Pi. That puts the exoplanet so close to its parent star that its surface is likely very warm, baking-hot in fact. And this Pi planet is over 185 light-years away. So instead of trying to arrange for an interstellar vacation to K2-315b, there may be easier and more comfortable ways for you to celebrate Pi day on planet Earth. #APOD #K2 #exoplanet #exoplanets #planetaryscience #K2mission https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260314.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-03-15T04:06:43Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 14 March 2026 **Toolondo Totality Trails** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2603/Jason_Perry_Totality_Trail_Lake_T...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 14 March 2026 **Toolondo Totality Trails** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2603/Jason_Perry_Totality_Trail_Lake_Toolondo_Australia800.jpg Image Credit: Jason Perry Explanation: In this composited night skyscape, stacked exposures trace graceful star trails above Lake Toolondo, Victoria, Australia, planet Earth. Captured while the lunar eclipse of March 3 was in progress, the exposures used were made during the hour-long total eclipse phase. So faint star trails are easily visible along with the trail of the reddened Moon in the eclipse-darkened skies above the lake and trees. Of course, the apparent motion of Moon and stars revealed in the timelapse composite reflect the Earth's daily rotation around its axis. Dramatically punctuating the Moon's trail as totality ended, a single, separate telephoto image of the totally eclipsed Moon was scaled and blended into the scene. #APOD #ToolondoEclipse #LunarEclipse #StarTrails #NightSky #Australia https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260313.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-03-14T04:10:51Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 12 March 2026 **CG 4: The Globule and the Galaxy** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2603/cg4_1024.jpg Image Credi...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 12 March 2026 **CG 4: The Globule and the Galaxy** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2603/cg4_1024.jpg Image Credit: William Vrbasso, Cecilia Chirenti, NASA, GSFC, CRESST II Explanation: Is this a cosmic monster ready to devour an unsuspecting galaxy? Thankfully, that is not the case. The red “monster” shown in the featured image is Cometary Globule CG 4, 1,300 light-years away in the Constellation Puppis. CG 4 is a molecular cloud, where hydrogen becomes cold enough to form molecules that can be brought together by gravity to create stars. The shape of CG 4 resembles that of a comet, but its head is 1.5 light-year in diameter and its tail is 8 light-years long; for comparison, the distance from the Earth to the sun is only 8 light-minutes. Astronomers believe that the tail of a cometary globule could have been shaped by a nearby supernova explosion or by irradiation from hot, massive stars. Indeed, CG 4 and other nearby globules point away from the Vela Supernova Remnant, at the center of the Gum Nebula. The edge-on spiral galaxy, ESO 257-19, is more than a hundred million light-years beyond CG 4, and is completely safe from the “monster”. #APOD #CG4 #Globule #Galaxy #CosmicMonster #InterstellarMedium https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260311.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-03-12T04:19:21Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 11 March 2026 **Sky Glows over Paranal Observatory** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2603/TeleSkyLasers_Looten_10...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 11 March 2026 **Sky Glows over Paranal Observatory** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2603/TeleSkyLasers_Looten_1080.jpg Image Credit: Julien Looten Explanation: Are lasers from giant telescopes being used to defend the Earth? No. Lasers shot from telescopes are now commonly used to help increase the accuracy of astronomical observations. In some directions, Earth atmosphere-induced fluctuations in starlight can indicate how the air mass over a telescope is changing, but in other directions, no bright star exists. In these directions, astronomers can create an artificial star with a laser. Subsequent observations of the artificial laser guide star can reveal information so detailed about the changing blurring effects of the Earth's atmosphere that much of it can be removed by rapidly flexing a telescope's mirror. Such adaptive optics techniques allow high-resolution ground-based observations of real stars, planets, and nebulas. Pictured here, telescopes at Paranal Observatory in Chile study a colorful sky filled with green airglow and the Magellanic Clouds on the left, red airglow on the right, and the majestic central band of our Milky Way Galaxy arching across the center. #APOD #ParanalObservatory #LaserGuideStar #AdaptiveOptics #Telescope #Astronomy https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260310.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-03-11T04:23:33Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 10 March 2026 **The Cranium Nebula from the Webb Telescope** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2603/cranium_WebbMir...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 10 March 2026 **The Cranium Nebula from the Webb Telescope** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2603/cranium_WebbMiri2_960.jpg Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, J. DePasquale, STScI Explanation: What's going on inside the head of this nebula? Dubbed the Exposed Cranium Nebula for its similarity to the human brain, what created the nebula remains a mystery. One thought is that the Cranium Nebula, also known as PMR 1, is a planetary nebula surrounding a white dwarf star. In this mode, the outer atmosphere was expelled when the original Sun-like star ran out of central nuclear fuel and contracted. A competing thought is that the central star is much more massive, possibly a Wolf-Rayet star, that is ejecting gas and dust via turbulent stellar winds. Adding to the intrigue is the dark vertical central division and the thin outer gaseous shell. The featured image was taken by the Webb Space Telescope in mid- infrared light, while a second image, included as a rollover, is in near-infrared. Future observations may reveal if this brainy system will quietly just fade from view or, many years from now, suddenly erupt in a powerful supernova. #APOD #CraniumNebula #WebbTelescope #jwst #DeepSpace #InterstellarGas https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260309.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-03-10T04:06:35Z

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 09 March 2026 **The Aurora Tree** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2603/AuroraTree_Wallace_960.jpg Image Credit: ...

**Astronomy Picture of the Day** 09 March 2026 **The Aurora Tree** https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2603/AuroraTree_Wallace_960.jpg Image Credit: Alyn Wallace Explanation: Yes, but can your tree do this? Pictured is a visual coincidence between the dark branches of a nearby tree and bright glow of a distant aurora. The beauty of the aurora -- combined with how it seemed to mimic a tree right nearby -- mesmerized the photographer to such a degree that he momentarily forgot to take pictures. When viewed at the right angle, it seemed that this tree had aurora for leaves. Fortunately, before the aurora morphed into a different overall shape, he came to his senses and captured the awe-inspiring momentary coincidence. Typically triggered by solar explosions, aurora are caused by high energy electrons impacting the Earth's atmosphere around 150 kilometers up. The unusual Earth-sky collaboration was witnessed in March of 2017 in Iceland. #APOD #AuroraTree #Aurora #NorthernLights #SolarStorm #Space https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260308.html

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-03-09T04:10:50Z