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zxxlyzq
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Date Posted:09/03/2018 12:10 PMCopy HTML

See Explanation.  Clicking on the picture will download the highest resolution version available.

Horsehead: A Wider View 
Composition and Processing: Robert Gendler 
Image Data: ESOVISTAHLAHubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

Explanation: Combined image data from the massive, ground-based VISTA telescope and the Hubble Space Telescope was used to create this wide perspective of the interstellar landscape surrounding the famous Horsehead Nebula. Captured at near-infrared wavelengths, the region's dusty molecular cloud sprawls across the scene that covers an angle about two-thirds the size of the Full Moon on the sky. Left to right the frame spans just over 10 light-years at the Horsehead's estimated distance of 1,600 light-years. Also known as Barnard 33, the still recognizable Horsehead Nebula stands at the upper right, the near-infrared glow of a dusty pillar topped with newborn stars. Below and left, the bright reflection nebula NGC 2023 is itself the illuminated environs of a hot young star. Obscuring clouds below the base of the Horsehead and on the outskirts of NGC 2023 show the tell-tale far red emission of energetic jets, known as Herbig-Haro objects, also associated with newborn stars.

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Re:NASA pics

Date Posted:17/09/2025 8:39 AMCopy HTML

2025 September 17
A starfield surrounds a several large nebulas
that appear mostly red but also white and blue.
Dark dust and blue filaments also populate the frame. 
Please see the explanation for more detailed information.

Nebulas and Clusters in Sagittarius
Image Credit & Copyright: J. De WinterC. HumbertC. Robert & V. Sabet; Text: Ogetay Kayali (MTU)

Explanation: Can you spot famous celestial objects in this image? 18th-century astronomer Charles Messier cataloged only two of them: the bright Lagoon Nebula (M8) at the bottom, and the colorful Trifid Nebula (M20) at the upper right. The one on the left that resembles a cat's paw is NGC 6559, and it is much fainter than the other two. Even harder to spot are the thin blue filaments on the left, from supernova remnant (SNR G007.5-01.7). Their glow comes from small amounts of glowing oxygen atoms that are so faint that it took over 17 hours of exposure with just one blue color to bring up. Framing this scene of stellar birth and death are two star clusters: the open cluster M21 just above Trifid, and the globular cluster NGC 6544 at lower left.


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Re:NASA pics

Date Posted:17/09/2025 6:51 AMCopy HTML

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Re:NASA pics

Date Posted:16/09/2025 8:15 AMCopy HTML

2025 September 16
A starfield is seen above a horizon and an
orange sunset. In the starfield, near the horizon,
is a comet with a green head and long tail.
Please see the explanation for more detailed information.

New Comet SWAN25B over Mexico
Image Credit & Copyright: Daniel Korona

Explanation: A newly discovered comet is already visible with binoculars. The comet, C/2025 R2 (SWAN) and nicknamed SWAN25B, is brightening significantly as it emerges from the Sun's direction and might soon become visible on your smartphone -- if not your eyes. Although the brightnesses of comets are notoriously hard to predict, many comets appear brighter as they approach the Earth, with SWAN25B reaching only a quarter of the Earth-Sun distance near October 19. Nighttime skygazers will also be watching for a SWAN25B-spawned meteor shower around October 5 when our Earth passes through the plane of the comet's orbit. The unexpectedly bright comet was discovered by an amateur astronomer in images of the SWAN instrument on NASA's SOHO satellite. The comet is currently best observed in southern skies but is slowly moving north. The featured image was captured at sunset three days ago just above the western


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Re:NASA pics

Date Posted:16/09/2025 6:37 AMCopy HTML

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Re:NASA pics

Date Posted:15/09/2025 8:31 AMCopy HTML

See Explanation.  Clicking on the picture will download
 the highest resolution version available.

Palm Tree Partial Eclipse
Image Credit & Copyright: Lori Haffelt

Explanation: Only those along the narrow track of the Moon's shadow on April 8 saw a total solar eclipse. But most of North America still saw a partial eclipse of the Sun. From Clearwater, Florida, USA this single snapshot captured multiple images of that more widely viewed celestial event without observing the Sun directly. In the shade of a palm tree, criss-crossing fronds are projecting recognizable eclipse images on the ground, pinhole camera style. In Clearwater the maximum eclipse phase was about 53 percent.


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Re:NASA pics

Date Posted:14/09/2025 8:17 AMCopy HTML

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Re:NASA pics

Date Posted:14/09/2025 7:42 AMCopy HTML

A black and white drawing shows many meteors crossing
the sky above a small town with many people outside watching.
Please see the explanation for more detailed information.

The Great Meteor Storm of 1833
Image Credit: Engraving: Adolf Vollmy; Original Art: Karl Jauslin

Explanation: It was a night of 100,000 meteors. The Great Meteor Storm of 1833 was perhaps the most impressive meteor event in recent history. Best visible over eastern North America during the pre-dawn hours of November 13, many people -- including a young Abraham Lincoln -- were woken up to see the sky erupt in streaks and flashes. Hundreds of thousands of meteors blazed across the sky, seemingly pouring out of the constellation of the Lion (Leo). The featured image is a digitization of a wood engraving which itself was based on a painting from a first-person account. We know today that the Great Meteor Storm of 1833 was caused by the Earth moving through a dense part of the dust trail expelled from Comet Tempel-Tuttle. The Earth moves through this dust stream every November during the Leonid meteor shower. Later this week you might get a slight taste of the intensity of that 1833 meteor storm by witnessing the annual Geminid meteor shower.


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Re:NASA pics

Date Posted:13/09/2025 6:18 AMCopy HTML

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Re:NASA pics

Date Posted:12/09/2025 8:32 AMCopy HTML

2025 September 12
See Explanation.  Clicking on the picture will download
the highest resolution version available.

Lunar Eclipse in Two Hemispheres
Image Credit & Copyright: North - Zhouyue ZhuSouth - Lucy Yunxi Hu

Explanation: September's total lunar eclipse is tracked across night skies from both the northern and southern hemispheres of planet Earth in these two dramatic timelapse series. In the northern hemisphere sequence (top panel) the Moon’s trail arcs from the upper left to the lower right. It passes below bright planet Saturn, seen under mostly clear skies from the international campus of Zhejiang University in China at about 30 degrees north latitude. In contrast, the southern hemisphere view from Lake Griffin, Canberra, Australia at 35 degrees south latitude, records the Moon’s trail from the upper right to the lower left. Multiple lightning flashes from thunderstorms near the horizon appear reflected in the lake. Both sequences were photographed with 16mm wide-angle lenses and both cover the entire eclipse, with the darkened red Moon totally immersed in Earth's umbral shadow near center. But the different orientations of the Moon’s path across the sky reveal the perspective shifts caused by the views from northern vs. southern latitudes.


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Re:NASA pics

Date Posted:12/09/2025 6:05 AMCopy HTML

Amazing Rocky 

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Re:NASA pics

Date Posted:11/09/2025 8:21 AMCopy HTML

2025 September 11
See Explanation.  Clicking on the picture will download
the highest resolution version available.

The Umbra of Earth
Image Credit & Copyright: Wang Letian (Eyes at Night)

Explanation: The dark, inner shadow of planet Earth is called the umbra. Shaped like a cone extending into space, it has a circular cross section most easily seen during a lunar eclipse. And on the night of September 7/8 the Full Moon passed near the center of Earth's umbral cone, entertaining eclipse watchers around much of our fair planet, including parts of Antarctica, Australia, Asia, Europe, and Africa. Recorded from Zhangjiakou City, China, this timelapse composite image uses successive pictures from the total lunar eclipse, progressing left to right, to reveal the curved cross-section of the umbral shadow sliding across the Moon. Sunlight scattered by the atmosphere into Earth's umbra causes the lunar surface to appear reddened during totality. But close to the umbra's edge, the limb of the eclipsed Moon shows a distinct blue hue. The blue eclipsed moonlight originates as rays of sunlight pass through layers high in the upper stratosphere, colored by ozone that scatters red light and transmits blue. In the total phase of this leisurely lunar eclipse, the Moon was completely within the Earth's umbra for about 83 minutes.


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Re:NASA pics

Date Posted:11/09/2025 6:20 AMCopy HTML

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Re:NASA pics

Date Posted:10/09/2025 8:40 AMCopy HTML

2025 September 10
A starfield surrounds a large red nebula.
The nebula has many flowing waves and folds.
Please see the explanation for more detailed information.

The Great Lacerta Nebula
Image Credit & Copyright: Ian Moehring & Kevin Roylance

Explanation: It is one of the largest nebulas on the sky -- why isn't it better known? Roughly the same angular size as the Andromeda Galaxy, the Great Lacerta Nebula can be found toward the constellation of the Lizard (Lacerta). The emission nebula is difficult to see with wide-field binoculars because it is so faint, but also usually difficult to see with a large telescope because it is so great in angle -- spanning about three degrees. The depth, breadth, waves, and beauty of the nebula -- cataloged as Sharpless 126 (Sh2-126) -- can best be seen and appreciated with a long duration camera exposure. The featured image is one such combined exposure -- in this case taken over three nights in August through dark skies in Moses LakeWashingtonUSA. The hydrogen gas in the Great Lacerta Nebula glows red because it is excited by light from the bright star 10 Lacertae, one of the bright blue stars just to the left of the red-glowing nebula's center. Most of the stars and nebula are about 1,200 light years distant.


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Re:NASA pics

Date Posted:09/09/2025 5:57 AMCopy HTML

Was going to say looks like a butterfly 

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Re:NASA pics

Date Posted:08/09/2025 8:27 AMCopy HTML

2025 September 8
A starfield surrounds a nebula with a vertical brown bar
across its center. Gas and dust fan out from the bar
making the nebula appear like a colorful butterfly. 
Please see the explanation for more detailed information.

IRAS 04302: Butterfly Disk Planet Formation
Image Credit: NASAESACSAWebb; Processing: M. Villenave et al.

Explanation: This butterfly can hatch planets. The nebula fanning out from the star IRAS 04302+2247 may look like the wings of a butterfly, while the vertical brown stripe down the center may look like the butterfly's body -- but together they indicate an active planet-forming system. The featured picture was captured recently in infrared light by the Webb Space Telescope. Pictured, the vertical disk is thick with the gas and dust from which planets form. The disk shades visible and (most) infrared light from the central star, allowing a good view of the surrounding dust that reflects out light. In the next few million years, the dust disk will likely fragment into rings through the gravity of newly hatched planets. And a billion years from now, the remaining gas and dust will likely dissipate, leaving mainly the planets -- like in our Solar System.


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Re:NASA pics

Date Posted:08/09/2025 6:22 AMCopy HTML

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Re:NASA pics

Date Posted:07/09/2025 9:47 AMCopy HTML

2025 September 7
An illustration of planet Earth is shown where the 
Earth is tan and has no water shown on its surface. In
the foreground are several small blue spheres showing how
much water is known to reside on our planet.
Please see the explanation for more detailed information.

All the Water on Planet Earth
Illustration Credit: Jack Cook, Adam Nieman, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution; Data source: Igor Shiklomanov

Explanation: How much of planet Earth is made of water? Very little, actually. Although oceans of water cover about 70 percent of Earth's surface, these oceans are shallow compared to the Earth's radius. The featured illustration shows what would happen if all of the water on or near the surface of the Earth were bunched up into a ball. The radius of this ball would be only about 700 kilometers, less than half the radius of the Earth's Moon, but slightly larger than Saturn's moon Rhea which, like many moons in our outer Solar System, is mostly water ice. The next smallest ball depicts all of Earth's liquid fresh water, while the tiniest ball shows the volume of all of Earth's fresh-water lakes and rivers. How any of this water came to be on the Earth and whether any significant amount is trapped far beneath Earth's surface remain topics of research.


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Re:NASA pics

Date Posted:07/09/2025 7:28 AMCopy HTML

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Re:NASA pics

Date Posted:06/09/2025 9:09 AMCopy HTML

2025 September 6
See Explanation.  Clicking on the picture will download
the highest resolution version available.

Sardinia Sunset
Image Credit & Copyright: Lorenzo Busilacchi

Explanation: When the sun sets on September 7, the Full Moon will rise. And on that date denizens around much of our fair planet, including parts of Antarctica, Australia, Asia, Europe, and Africa can witness a total lunar eclipse, with the Moon completely immersed in Earth's shadow. As the bright Full Moon first enters Earth's shadow it will darken, finally taking on a reddish hue during the total eclipse phase. In fact, the color of the Moon during a total lunar eclipse is due to reddened light from sunrises and sunsets around planet Earth. The reddened sunlight is scattered by a dense atmosphere into the planet's otherwise dark central shadow. When the sun set on August 22, this telephoto snapshot of red skies, blue sea, and the Mangiabarche Lighthouse was captured from Sant'Antioco, Sardinia, Italy.


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Re:NASA pics

Date Posted:05/09/2025 8:27 AMCopy HTML

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Re:NASA pics

Date Posted:05/09/2025 8:08 AMCopy HTML

2025 September 5
See Explanation.  Clicking on the picture will download
the highest resolution version available.

47 Tucanae: Globular Star Cluster
Image Credit & Copyright: Carlos Taylor

Explanation: Also known as NGC 104, 47 Tucanae is a jewel of the southern sky. Not a star but a dense cluster of stars, it roams the halo of our Milky Way Galaxy along with some 200 other globular star clusters. The second brightest globular cluster (after Omega Centauri) as seen from planet Earth, 47 Tuc lies about 13,000 light-years away. It can be spotted with the naked eye close on the sky to the Small Magellanic Cloud in the constellation of the Toucan. The dense cluster is made up of hundreds of thousands of stars in a volume only about 120 light-years across. Red giant stars on the outskirts of the cluster are easy to pick out as yellowish stars in this sharp telescopic portrait. Tightly packed globular star cluster 47 Tuc is also home to a star with the closest known orbit around a black hole.


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Re:NASA pics

Date Posted:04/09/2025 8:31 AMCopy HTML

2025 September 4
See Explanation.  Clicking on the picture will download
the highest resolution version available.

NGC 4565: Galaxy on Edge
Image Credit & Copyright: José Rodrigues (IAOFXB)

Explanation: Magnificent spiral galaxy NGC 4565 is viewed edge-on from planet Earth. Also known as the Needle Galaxy for its narrow profile, bright NGC 4565 is a stop on many telescopic tours of the northern sky, in the faint but well-groomed constellation Coma BerenicesThis sharp, colorful image reveals the galaxy's boxy, bulging central core cut by obscuring dust lanes that lace NGC 4565's thin galactic plane. NGC 4565 lies around 40 million light-years distant while the spiral galaxy itself spans some 100,000 light-years. That's about the size of our own Milky Way. Easily spotted with small telescopes, deep sky enthusiasts consider NGC 4565 to be a prominent celestial masterpiece Messier missed.


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Re:NASA pics

Date Posted:04/09/2025 6:42 AMCopy HTML

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Re:NASA pics

Date Posted:03/09/2025 7:38 AMCopy HTML

A nebula is shown that appears roughly the shape of Africa.
The complex radio image shows rings and jets.
Please see the explanation for more detailed information.









Cir X-1: Jets in the Africa Nebula
Image Credit: J. English (U. Manitoba) & K. Gasealahwe (U. Cape Town), SARAOMeerKATThunderKAT; Science: K. Gasealahwe, K. Savard (U. Oxfordet al.; Text: J. English & K. Savard

Explanation: How soon do jets form when a supernova gives birth to a neutron star? The Africa Nebula provides clues. This supernova remnant surrounds Circinus X-1, an X-ray emitting neutron star and the companion star it orbits. The image, from the ThunderKAT collaboration on the MeerKAT radio telescope situated in South Africa, shows the bright core-and-lobe structure of Cir X-1’s currently active jets inside the nebula. A mere 4600 years old, Cir X-1 could be the "Little Sister" of microquasar SS 433*. However, the newly discovered bubble exiting from a ring-like hole in the upper right of the nebula, along with a ring to the bottom left, demonstrate that other jets previously existed. Computer simulations indicate those jets formed within 100 years of the explosion and lasted up to 1000 years. Surprisingly, to create the observed bubble, the jets need to be more powerful than young neutron stars were previously thought to produce.


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Re:NASA pics

Date Posted:02/09/2025 8:12 AMCopy HTML

Amazing Rocky thank you x

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Re:NASA pics

Date Posted:02/09/2025 8:00 AMCopy HTML

A starfield is shown with bright and dark nebulae of 
different shapes and colors.
Please see the explanation for more detailed information.

The Horsehead and Flame Nebulas
Image Credit & Copyright: Daniel Stern

Explanation: The Horsehead Nebula is one of the most famous nebulae on the sky. It is visible as the dark indentation to the orange emission nebula at the far right of the featured picture. The horse-head feature is dark because it is really an opaque dust cloud that lies in front of the bright emission nebula. Like clouds in Earth's atmosphere, this cosmic cloud has assumed a recognizable shape by chance. After many thousands of years, the internal motions of the cloud will surely alter its appearance. The emission nebula's orange color is caused by electrons recombining with protons to form hydrogen atoms. Toward the lower left of the image is the Flame Nebula, an orange-tinged nebula that also contains intricate filaments of dark dust.


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Re:NASA pics

Date Posted:01/09/2025 7:50 AMCopy HTML

2025 September 1
A dark spherical body is shown that has many light
craters. 
Please see the explanation for more detailed information.

Callisto: Dirty Battered Iceball
Image Credit: NASAJPL-CaltechVoyager 2; Processing & LicenseKevin M. Gill;

Explanation: Its surface is the most densely cratered in the Solar System -- but what's inside? Jupiter's moon Callisto is a battered ball of dirty ice that is larger than the planet Mercury. It was visited by NASA's Galileo spacecraft in the 1990s and 2000s, but the recently reprocessed featured image is from a flyby of NASA's Voyager 2 in 1979. The moon would appear darker if it weren't for the tapestry of light-colored fractured surface ice created by eons of impacts. The interior of Callisto is potentially even more interesting because therein might lie an internal layer of liquid water. This potential underground sea is a candidate to harbor life -- similar with sister moons Europa and Ganymede. Callisto is slightly larger than LunaEarth's Moon, but because of its high ice content is slightly less massive. ESA's JUICE and NASA's Europa Clipper missions are now headed out to Jupiter to better investigate its largest moons.


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Re:NASA pics

Date Posted:01/09/2025 5:49 AMCopy HTML

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Re:NASA pics

Date Posted:31/08/2025 7:25 AMCopy HTML

A starfield surrounds a bright nebula. The 
nebula is somewhat rectangular like a pillow
and is mostly white with brown filaments inside
and blue shells surrounding. 
Please see the explanation for more detailed information.

NGC 7027: The Pillow Planetary Nebula
Image Credit: NASAESAHubble; Processing: Delio Tolivia Cadrecha

Explanation: What created this unusual planetary nebula? Dubbed the Pillow Nebula and the Flying Carpet Nebula, NGC 7027 is one of the smallest, brightest, and most unusually shaped planetary nebulas known. Given its expansion rate, NGC 7027 first started expanding, as visible from Earth, about 600 years ago. For much of its history, the planetary nebula has been expelling shells, as seen in blue in the featured image by the Hubble Space Telescope. In modern times, though, for reasons unknown, it began ejecting gas and dust (seen in brown) in specific directions that created a new pattern that seems to have four corners. What lies at the nebula's center is unknown, with one hypothesis holding it to be a close binary star system where one star sheds gas onto an erratic disk orbiting the other star. NGC 7027, about 3,000 light years away, was first discovered in 1878 and can be seen with a standard backyard telescope toward the constellation of the Swan (Cygnus).


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Re:NASA pics

Date Posted:31/08/2025 7:13 AMCopy HTML

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