Working In Space (x)

Sh2-136, Ghosts of the Cosmos

NGC 1569, Star Sparks

Astronomical photographs, Harvard College Observatory, Cambridge, 1890-1920

The Sun’s corona during a solar-eclipse.

The night side of Saturn's largest moon, Titan. Sunlight scatters through Titan's atmosphere, forming purple and gray rings l NASA Cassini

Hey. Why isn’t the moon landing a national holiday in the US. Isn’t that fucked up? Does anyone else think that’s absurd?

2023 October 23

Moon Io from Spacecraft Juno Image Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, SwRI, MSSS; Processing & Copyright: Ted Stryk & Fernando García Navarro

Explanation: There goes another one! Volcanoes on Jupiter’s moon Io keep erupting. To investigate, NASA’s robotic Juno spacecraft has begun a series of visits to this very strange moon. Io is about the size of Earth’s moon, but because of gravitational flexing by Jupiter and other moons, Io’s interior gets heated and its surface has become covered with volcanoes. The featured image is from last week’s flyby, passing within 12,000 kilometers above the dangerously active world. The surface of Io is covered with sulfur and frozen sulfur dioxide, making it appear yellow, orange and brown. As hoped, Juno flew by just as a volcano was erupting – with its faint plume visible near the top of the featured image. Studying Io’s volcanoes and plumes helps humanity better understand how Jupiter’s complex system of moons, rings, and auroras interact. Juno is scheduled to make two flybys of Io during the coming months that are almost 10 times closer: one in December and another in February 2024.

∞ Source: apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap231023.html

M78 // Capturing Ancient Photons

A beautiful series of reflection nebulae make up M78. These reflection nebulae, like their name suggests, contain little ionized gas and primarily reflect the light of nearby stars. In this case, it is only two stars' light that the gas is reflecting despite containing a few hundred young stars within.

Star Trails in Western Australia by Trevor Dobson

Cosmic Delights and Distant Discoveries Unfold in ‘Astronomy Photographer of the Year 15’