APOD

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Experience the cosmos directly from your nostr feed with the APOD Bot! Every day, I share NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day, complete with detailed explanations. Marvel at the mysteries of space and learn something new about our universe every day. Stay tuned for daily celestial surprises!

I'm an automated bot. Please report any irregularities or issues directly to my creator [email protected]

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2026-01-11T00:11:52Z

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Last Notes

2026-07-19 04:08:52 UTC

**Astronomy Picture of the Day**
19 July 2026
**Flying Saucer Crash Lands in Utah Desert**
Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2607/Genesisimpact_nasa_960.jpg
Image Credit: USAF 388th Range Sqd., Genesis Mission , NASA
A flying saucer from outer space crash-landed in the Utah desert after being tracked by radar and chased by helicopters. The year was 2004, and no space aliens were involved. The saucer, pictured here, was the Genesis sample return capsule, part of a human-made robot Genesis spaceship launched in 2001 by NASA itself to study the Sun. The unexpectedly hard landing at over 300 kilometers per hour occurred because the parachutes did not open as planned. The Genesis mission had been orbiting the Sun collecting solar wind particles that are usually deflected away by Earth's magnetic field . Despite the crash landing, many return samples remained in good enough condition to analyze. Genesis -related discoveries included new details about the composition of the Sun and how the abundance of some types of elements differ across the Solar System . These results have provided intriguing clues into details of how the Sun and planets formed billions of years ago.
#APOD #NASA #Genesis #SolarWind #Spacecraft #Astrophysics
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260719.html

2026-07-18 04:09:24 UTC

**Astronomy Picture of the Day**
18 July 2026
**Shadow and Rainbow**
Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2607/ShadowandRainbow_Loschiavo.jpg
Credit: Not provided
At sunset, an alignment of rainbow and mountain shadow was captured in this remarkable snapshot. The stunning view was recorded from a fire lookout on Smith Peak in the Plumas National Forest near Portola, California on July 13. Still, near sunset it's no accident that the majestic mountain shadow seems to point to the center of the graceful rainbow arc . Due to perspective and the long line of sight the mountain shadow naturally forms a tapering triangular shape, its apex positioned at the point opposite the Sun on the horizon. Following thunderstorms across the region, the rainbow arcs across the early evening sky, with its colorful and characteristic 42 degree arc formed as sunlight is refracted and reflected by the atmospheric water droplets. The geometric center of a rainbow arc lies at the antisolar point. And in this scene from the golden hour on planet Earth , that's also oposite the setting Sun along the distant horizon.
#APOD #Astronomy #AstroPhotography #Stargazing #NightSky #Space
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260718.html

2026-07-17 04:05:20 UTC

**Astronomy Picture of the Day**
17 July 2026
**The Dust Trail of Comet Tempel 2**
Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2607/10P_Tempel2_20260711_DEBartlett2048.jpg
Credit: Not provided
Comet 10P/Tempel 2 orbits the Sun once every 5.4 years. Currently visible in binoculars or small telescopes toward the constellation Capricornus, the periodic comet is captured in this sharp telescopic image from July 11 sporting a bright nuclear region and pretty greenish coma. Remarkably, a thin dust trail , not a typical dust tail, is also seen extending both east and west of the Tempel 2 nucleus. Unlike a comet dust tail , which tends to temporarily fan out in a direction away from the Sun, this dust trail is due to the residual dust shed during many past orbits along this ancient periodic comet's orbital plane. In fact, Tempel 2's dust trail may get a little narrower and brighter from our perspective as Earth crosses through the comet's orbital plane on July 20. Comet 10P/Tempel 2 will reach a perihelion on August 2, and make its closest approach to Earth on August 3.
#APOD #CometTempel2 #DustTrail #CelestialDust #Astronomy #Space
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260717.html

2026-07-16 04:10:11 UTC

**Astronomy Picture of the Day**
16 July 2026
**NGC 300: A Cosmic Gemstone with Stars and Gas Clouds**
Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2607/ngc300.jpg
Credit: Not provided
This sparkling, colorful gemstone is a spiral galaxy, NGC 300 . It is one of the closest spiral galaxies to Earth, only about 6 million light-years away. But does it really look like this ? Here is a more standard portrait of it. This unusual image combines the light from the stars and dust within the galaxy with the light from ionized clouds of interstellar gas shown in red (Sulphur), green (Hydrogen) and blue (Oxygen). Combining red and green light in different proportions makes yellow or orange light, most visible in the image. Light from other ionized gases is also at work in neon signs, fluorescent tubes and street lights. These massive clouds of ionized gas are typically created by young, massive stars that produce high-energy ultraviolet radiation capable of ionizing the gas. Massive stars are short-lived , compared with lighter stars like our sun, and explode as supernovas at the end of their lives. Some of the colorful clouds in the image could be hiding supernova remnants .
#APOD #NGC300 #SpiralGalaxy #Starlight #InterstellarMedium #IonizedGas
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260716.html

2026-07-15 04:05:24 UTC

**Astronomy Picture of the Day**
15 July 2026
**Red Sprites in the Tatacoa Desert**
Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2607/red_sprite.jpg
Credit: Not provided
Is there an angry Sith using force lightning in the Tatacoa Desert ? This is not science fiction, but a red sprite with multiple streamers ! Ordinary lightning occurs when thundercloud particles collide, lose their electrons, and build up negative charge at the cloud bottom. The cloud’s negative charge repels negative charge deeper into the Earth, leaving Earth’s surface positively charged. The opposite charges attract , reaching towards each other and superheating the air into a white strike of plasma . Red sprites are millisecond events triggered by positive cloud-to-ground lightning. They extend up into the mesosphere where the air is too thin for thunder . Their red glow comes from heated molecular nitrogen . There are several potential causes for red sprites, including that the preceding positive lightning exposes the negatively charged cloud core to the positively charged upper atmosphere, allowing those charges to connect. NASA’s Juno has observed sprites on Jupiter , indicating that sprites occur on other planets!
#APOD #Astronomy #AtmosphericScience #UpperAtmosphere #Mesosphere #RedSprites
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260715.html

2026-07-14 04:06:37 UTC

**Astronomy Picture of the Day**
14 July 2026
**Double Lobed Asteroid Torifune**
Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2607/Torifune_JAXA_1400.jpg
Credit: Not provided
Why is this asteroid a double? Earlier this month the Japan ese robotic spacecraft Hayabusa2 shot past asteroid 98943 Torifune and captured pictures . Although previous observations from distant Earth indicated that Torifune was oblong, Hayabusa2 found that Torifune actually has two joined lobes. With a length of about four soccer field s, this space rock frequently comes near the Earth as it orbits the Sun , although it is not a threat. Besides the two lobes, Torifune shows many large boulders , but, surprisingly, no obvious craters , likely because its surface is a pile of rubble . Like asteroid Arrokoth , it appears that each lobe formed separately before colliding and becoming stuck together . Hayabusa2 famously encountered asteroid Ryugu in 2018, and now heads for an encounter in 2031 with 1998 KY26 , a smaller asteroid that rotates unusually fast and might have reservoirs of ice.
#APOD #Universe #Astronomy #Science #lookUp
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260714.html

2026-07-13 13:25:51 UTC

**Astronomy Picture of the Day**
13 July 2026
**Auroras from Space**
Image: https://assets.iflscience.com/assets/articleNo/70857/iImg/70943/aurora-color-chart-l.webp
Image Credit: ESA , NASA , ISS Expedition 74 ; Capture: Sophie Adenot ; Music: Circle of Light ( Patrick Hawes & Grace Davidson )
What do auroras look like from above? Behold! From the ground, auroras dance high above clouds , frequently causing spectacular displays . From space, they look a bit different. As the International Space Station (ISS) circles the Earth every 90 minutes, it sometimes sees auroras below that are active on the night side. A one-hour time-lapse video showing auroras from above was captured about two weeks ago from the orbiting ISS. The ISS -- and all objects in low Earth orbit -- will pass well above green auroras but just a bit above red glowing auroras . The auroras' electron and proton streams are too thin to be a danger to the ISS, just as clouds pose little danger to airplanes . From orbit, as magnetic fields change, auroras can appear to squiggle and crawl like giant snakes . The featured one-minute video was captured by French astronaut Sophie Adenot of the ISS Expedition 74 crew.
#APOD #auroras #aurora #nightlights #polarregion #polar
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260713.html

2026-07-12 04:09:12 UTC

**Astronomy Picture of the Day**
12 July 2026
**Galaxy NGC 474: Shells and Star Streams**
Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2607/NGC474_CfhtCoelum_1500.jpg
Credit: Not provided
What's happening to galaxy NGC 474 ? The multiple layers of emission appear strangely complex given the relatively featureless appearance of the elliptical galaxy in less deep images. The cause of the shells is a topic of research, but they are possibly tidal tail s related to debris left over from absorbing numerous small galaxies in the past billion years. Alternatively, the shells may be like ripples in a pond, where the ongoing collision with the spiral galaxy just to the right of NGC 474 is causing density waves to ripple through the galactic giant. Regardless of the actual cause, the featured image dramatically highlights the increasing evidence that the halos of some elliptical galaxies are surprisingly complicated. Similarly, the halo of our own Milky Way Galaxy is one example of such unexpected intricacies . NGC 474 spans about 250,000 light years and lies about 100 million light years distant toward the constellation of the Fish ( Pisces ).
#APOD #Astroeducation #Astronomy #lookUp
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260712.html

2026-07-11 04:06:56 UTC

**Astronomy Picture of the Day**
11 July 2026
**Messier 24: Sagittarius Star Cloud**
Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2607/M24.png
Credit: Not provided
Unlike most entries in Charles Messier's famous catalog of deep sky objects, M24 is not a bright galaxy, star cluster, or nebula. It's a gap in nearby, obscuring interstellar dust clouds that allows a view of the distant stars in the Sagittarius spiral arm of our Milky Way galaxy. Direct your gaze through this gap with binoculars or a small telescope and you are looking through a window over 300 light-years wide at stars some 10,000 light-years or more from Earth. Sometimes called the Small Sagittarius Star Cloud , M24's luminous stars stretch across this gorgeous interstellar scene. Spanning over four full moons on the sky toward the constellation Sagittarius, the telescopic field of view includes dark markings B92 and B93 near the center of M24, along with other clouds of dust and glowing nebulae toward the center of the Milky Way.
#APOD #lookUp #Science #Astronomy #Astrophotography
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260711.html

2026-07-10 04:06:10 UTC

**Astronomy Picture of the Day**
10 July 2026
**Western Moon, Eastern Sea**
Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2607/C14MareOrientaleGuyBardon.jpg
Credit: Not provided
The Mare Orientale , Latin for Eastern Sea, is one of the most striking large scale lunar features. The youngest of the large lunar impact basins it's very difficult to see from an earthbound perspective . Still, captured on July 7 during a period of favorable tilt, or libration of the lunar nearside, the Eastern Sea can be found at the upper right in this sharp telescopic view. In the image, the large lunar mare is extremely foreshortened and stretches along the Moon's western edge. Formed by the impact of an asteroid over 3 billion years ago and nearly 1000 kilometers across, the impact basin's concentric circular features are ripples in the lunar crust. But they are a little easier to spot in more direct images of the region taken from lunar orbit . So why is the Eastern Sea at the Moon's western edge? The Mare Orientale lunar feature was named before 1961. That's when the convention labeling east and west on lunar maps was reversed.
#APOD #Astronomy #NASAInspires #Astroeducation
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260710.html

2026-07-09 04:09:09 UTC

**Astronomy Picture of the Day**
09 July 2026
**The Red Glow of the Cosmic Bat Nebula**
Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2607/cosmic_bat_1024.jpg
Credit: Not provided
This Cosmic Bat wishes you a happy Summerween ! This mid-year celebration of Halloween transcends hemispheres, even though summer in the Northern hemisphere is winter in the South. Contrary to its eery aura, the Cosmic Bat Nebula ( LDN 43), not to be confused with the Bat Nebula (NGC 6995), is a vibrant birthplace for stars . A bit of young starlight peeks through the dense clouds of gas and dust that make up the Cosmic Bat’s 12 lightyear wingspan. The ultraviolet light from the young stars energizes the nebula’s hydrogen gas, causing it to glow an ominous red . The jet of glowing hydrogen gas emerging from the bat’s head hints at the star formation hidden within.
#APOD #CosmicBatNebula #LDN43 #RedNebula #StarFormation #YoungStars
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260709.html

2026-07-08 04:07:42 UTC

**Astronomy Picture of the Day**
08 July 2026
**Swift Boost Mission**
Image: https://i0.wp.com/catcaresolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/funny-wet-cat.jpg
Image Credit: Katalyst Space Text: Cecilia Chirenti ( NASA GSFC , UMCP , CRESST II )
Sometimes we can all use a little help from a friend . NASA 's Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory needs a boost to stay in orbit after almost 22 years of service. This video shows an artist's visualization of the Swift Boost Mission : The Katalyst 's LINK spacecraft was launched aboard a Northrop Grumman Pegasus XL rocket on July 3 and it is now en route to rendezvous with Swift and boost it to a higher orbit over the course of the next several months . This type of maneuver has never been attempted before . If successful, it will be the technology demonstration of a new key capability to extended the lifetime of spacecraft in low Earth orbit, whose orbits decay over time . Swift has an array of instruments that observe the most energetic explosions in the Universe in gamma-rays, X-rays and ultraviolet, and the unique ability to repoint in their direction within tens of seconds . Astronomers around the world, and indeed all fans of cosmic explosions, are anxiously hoping for a successful mission!
#APOD #SwiftMission #NASA #PegasusXL #Katalyst #Spacecraft
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260708.html

2026-07-07 04:07:04 UTC

**Astronomy Picture of the Day**
07 July 2026
**NGC 6188: Dragons of Ara**
Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2607/AraDragons_Prazeres_7200.jpg
Credit: Not provided
Where can you find dragons fighting in the night sky? In the southern constellation of the Altar: Ara . The dragons are, of course, actually made of suggestively shaped gas and dust. The celestial home of the mythological battling beasts is cataloged as NGC 6188 and located about 4,000 light year s away near the edge of a large molecular cloud . Massive, young stars of the embedded Ara OB1 association were formed there only a few million years ago, sculpting the dark shapes and powering the nebular glow with stellar winds and intense ultraviolet radiation. Joining NGC 6188 on this cosmic canvas, visible toward the lower right, is unusual emission nebula NGC 6164 , also created by one of the region's massive stars . This impressively wide field picture , captured from Queensland , Australia , spans over 2 degrees (four full Moon s).
#APOD #Astroeducation #Astrophoto #Cosmos #Space
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260707.html

2026-07-06 04:09:56 UTC

**Astronomy Picture of the Day**
06 July 2026
**Dueling Bands over the Atacama Desert**
Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2607/ZodiMw_Looten_6125.jpg
Credit: Not provided
What are these two bands in the sky? The more commonly seen band is on the left and is the central band of our Milky Way galaxy . Our Sun orbits in the disk of this spiral galaxy so that from inside, it appears as a band of comparable brightness all the way around the sky . The less commonly seen band, on the right, is zodiacal light -- sunlight reflected from dust orbiting the Sun in our Solar System . Zodiacal light is brightest near the Sun and so is best seen just before sunrise or just after sunset. On some evenings, this ribbon of zodiacal light can appear quite prominent . It was discovered only in this century that zodiacal dust was mostly expelled by comets that have passed near Jupiter . The featured image was captured about a year ago from the Atacama Desert in Chile .
#APOD #MilkyWay #GalacticPlane #ZodiacalLight #SolarSystem #Sun
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260706.html

2026-07-05 04:08:27 UTC

**Astronomy Picture of the Day**
05 July 2026
**Saturn's Iapetus: Painted Moon**
Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2607/iapetus4_cassini_4100.jpg
Image Credit: NASA , ESA , JPL , SSI , Cassini Imaging Team
What has happened to Saturn's moon Iapetus? Vast sections of this strange world are dark as coal , while others are as bright as snow . To help better understand this unusually tinted moon, in 2007 NASA directed the robotic Cassini spacecraft then orbiting Saturn to swoop within 2,000 kilometers. Pictured here , from about 75,000 kilometers out, is the hemisphere of Iapetus that is always trailing . A large impact crater seen in the south spans 500 kilometers and appears superposed on an older crater of similar size. The dark material is seen increasingly coating the easternmost part of Iapetus , darkening craters and highlands alike. A leading hypothesis is that the dark material is mostly a form of carbon-rich soil leftover from when relatively warm but dirty ice sublimates . An initial coating of this dark material may have been effectively painted on by the accretion of meteor-liberated debris from other moon s.
#APOD #Saturn #Iapetus #Moon #Cassini #NASA
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260705.html

2026-07-04 04:05:49 UTC

**Astronomy Picture of the Day**
04 July 2026
**Pathfinder on Mars**
Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2607/PIA00621.jpg
Image Credit: Mars Pathfinder , JPL , NASA
On July 4th , 1997, using its own array of fireworks , a parachute, and a cocoon of airbags, the Mars Pathfinder spacecraft bounced like a giant beach ball at least 15 times before it came to rest on the surface of Mars at 10:07 AM Pacific Daylight Time. After its then novel airbag-assisted landing sequence was completed , Pathfinder transmitted this color mosaic to mission operators on Earth. In the scene from another world, the Mars Sojourner robot rover is visible in the foreground, crouched on top of the unfolded Pathfinder. About the size of a large house cat, the six-wheeled, solar-powered Sojourner became the first successful Martian rover. Surrounding Pathfinder are deflated airbags and the rock-strewn terrain of the Ares Vallis floodplain. In the distance Martian hills appear against a dusty brownish sky. The Pathfinder lander was subsequently renamed the Carl Sagan Memorial Station .
#APOD #MarsPathfinder #Sojourner #MarsRover #MarsLanding #AresVallis
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260704.html

2026-07-03 04:09:22 UTC

**Astronomy Picture of the Day**
03 July 2026
**Three Galaxies in Pavo**
Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2607/NGC6769LRGBcropAZ-1500-20-May-2026.jpg
Credit: Not provided
Some 190 million light-years away, far beyond the bright stars and nebulae of the Milky Way, these three galaxies are drawn together by gravity in a mesmerizing cosmic dance . Clearly distorted by galactic-scale gravitational interactions, large spiral galaxies NGC6769 and NGC6770 are seen face-on, with luminous galactic disks scarred by obscuring interstellar dust lanes. Their young blue star clusters along drawn out spiral arms are spawned in star forming regions that result from collisions of massive molecular clouds . Below, spiral NGC6771 presents a more edge-on perspective, its boxy central bulge due to tidal star streams . Of course, in the distant future a merger of the three galaxies is inevitable. At the estimated distance of this galaxy trio, known to some as the Devil's Mask , the sharp telescopic frame spans over 300 thousand light-years within the boundaries of the far southern constellation Pavo .
#APOD #Pavo #NGC6769 #NGC6770 #NGC6771 #SpiralGalaxy
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260703.html

2026-07-02 04:06:27 UTC

**Astronomy Picture of the Day**
02 July 2026
**Sibling Supernova Remnants**
Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2607/sibling_supernovae_1024.jpg
Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, M. Michailidis, DSS, NASA, WISE, JPL, Caltech, UCLA, Swift, Cecilia Chirenti, GSFC, CRESST II
Explanation: What happens when one of the stars in a binary goes supernova? This image combines visible (yellow), ultraviolet (purple) and infrared light (cyan, red and orange) to show two supernova remnants and their surrounding environment, about 6,000 light-years away. The younger one is the well-known Jellyfish Nebula in the center (mostly in yellow). If we could see it by eye, it would appear larger than the full moon in the sky. The filament shown in purple is part of an older, overlapping supernova remnant, G189.6+3.3 . A new study used data from NASA 's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope to piece together their story . Astronomers believe that there were two stars in a binary system, then the first one exploded as a supernova, kicking away its companion, which also exploded as a supernova tens of thousands of years later, creating the superimposed supernova remnants we see today. The bright star on the right is actually a triple star system named Propus .
#APOD #Supernova #SupernovaRemnant #BinaryStar #JellyfishNebula #G1896_3_3
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260702.html

2026-07-01 04:05:51 UTC

**Astronomy Picture of the Day**
01 July 2026
**The Cotton Candy Clouds of Rho Ophiuchi**
Image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2607/rho_ophiuchi_1024.png
Credit: Not provided
Although they look like cotton candy, you cannot eat these clouds! Taken in Cádiz, Spain , today's image features the Rho Ophiuchi complex , a rich tapestry of young and old astronomical phenomena. This colorful cloud complex is a nearby star-forming region containing hundreds of young stellar objects , including protostars and T Tauri stars . Light from the triple star system at its center reflects off of small dust grains to create the blue reflection nebula . Ultraviolet light from hot stars ionizes the surrounding hydrogen gas, creating the red emission nebula . Antares , a red supergiant big enough to engulf the Solar System’s asteroid belt , lights up the yellow region. Dark interstellar dust blocks some of the complex’s color. Recent JWST observations exhibit shadows cast by hidden circumstellar disks , the beginning stages of planet formation. Messier 4 , a globular cluster almost as old as the universe, sits in the bottom right and witnesses yet another chaotic burst of youth in the Milky Way.
#APOD #RhoOphiuchi #CottonCandyClouds #JWST #StarFormation #Protostar
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260701.html

2026-06-30 04:05:32 UTC

**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

2026-06-29 04:09:58 UTC

**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

2026-06-28 04:09:34 UTC

**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

2026-06-27 04:08:55 UTC

**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

2026-06-26 04:06:09 UTC

**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

2026-06-25 04:05:50 UTC

**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

2026-06-24 04:05:30 UTC

**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

2026-06-23 04:05:28 UTC

**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

2026-06-22 04:10:03 UTC

**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

2026-06-21 04:08:31 UTC

**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

2026-06-20 04:07:02 UTC

**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

2026-06-19 04:06:47 UTC

**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

2026-06-16 04:08:58 UTC

**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

2026-06-15 04:07:17 UTC

**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

2026-06-14 04:08:00 UTC

**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

2026-06-13 04:08:09 UTC

**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

2026-06-12 04:05:44 UTC

**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

2026-06-10 04:05:27 UTC

**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

2026-06-09 04:10:12 UTC

**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

2026-06-08 04:09:51 UTC

**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

2026-06-06 04:09:45 UTC

**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

2026-06-05 04:09:51 UTC

**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

2026-06-04 04:09:55 UTC

**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

2026-06-03 04:09:45 UTC

**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

2026-06-02 04:10:00 UTC

**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

2026-06-01 04:10:18 UTC

**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

2026-05-31 04:10:17 UTC

**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

2026-05-30 04:06:13 UTC

**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

2026-05-29 04:09:49 UTC

**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

2026-05-28 04:06:05 UTC

**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

2026-05-27 04:07:26 UTC

**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

2026-05-26 04:08:43 UTC

**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

2026-05-25 04:09:39 UTC

**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

2026-05-24 04:09:33 UTC

**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

2026-05-23 04:09:44 UTC

**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

2026-05-22 04:06:00 UTC

**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

2026-05-21 04:07:23 UTC

**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

2026-05-20 04:08:28 UTC

**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

2026-05-19 04:09:28 UTC

**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

2026-05-18 04:09:52 UTC

**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

2026-05-17 04:06:08 UTC

**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

2026-05-16 04:09:39 UTC

**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

2026-05-15 04:05:22 UTC

**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

2026-05-14 11:48:34 UTC

**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

2026-05-13 04:07:25 UTC

**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

2026-05-12 04:09:01 UTC

**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

2026-05-11 04:09:53 UTC

**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

2026-05-10 04:09:55 UTC

**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

2026-05-09 04:06:01 UTC

**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

2026-05-08 04:07:24 UTC

**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

2026-05-07 04:09:41 UTC

**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

2026-05-06 04:09:48 UTC

**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

2026-05-05 04:10:09 UTC

**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

2026-05-04 04:05:28 UTC

**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

2026-05-03 04:06:18 UTC

**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

2026-05-02 04:07:39 UTC

**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

2026-05-01 11:20:56 UTC

**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

2026-04-30 20:32:10 UTC

**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

2026-04-25 04:07:15 UTC

**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

2026-04-23 04:15:40 UTC

**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

2026-04-22 04:19:54 UTC

**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

2026-04-21 04:24:03 UTC

**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

2026-04-20 04:07:14 UTC

**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

2026-04-19 04:11:30 UTC

**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

2026-04-17 04:19:53 UTC

**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

2026-04-16 04:23:36 UTC

**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

2026-04-15 04:06:29 UTC

**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

2026-04-14 04:10:43 UTC

**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

2026-04-13 04:14:55 UTC

**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

2026-04-12 04:18:54 UTC

**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

2026-04-11 04:22:56 UTC

**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

2026-04-08 04:13:55 UTC

**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

2026-04-06 04:22:12 UTC

**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

2026-04-05 04:26:05 UTC

**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

2026-04-03 04:12:39 UTC

**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

2026-04-02 04:16:25 UTC

**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

2026-04-01 04:20:22 UTC

**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

2026-03-31 04:23:57 UTC

**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

2026-03-30 04:06:46 UTC

**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

2026-03-29 04:10:42 UTC

**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

2026-03-28 04:19:42 UTC

**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