NGC 2244, Within The Rose

The dancer in Dorado

800 megapixel

Clearest photo of a galaxy you will ever see!

this morning NASA abandoned their mars rover Opportunity (aka Oppy) because it (she) got hit by a storm on Mars and it knocked her camera and wheels out and her last words to the team were “my battery is low and it is getting cold”. I know she’s a machine but I’m devastated. Oppy is the one who discovered water on Mars. RIP oppy ily space baby

A Trailblazing Duo:

January 17, 2024 marks the 20th anniversary of Spirit and Opportunity's landing on Mars. The two of Mars Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, landed on opposite sides of Mars and began exploring the planet. Since their landing, the rovers have sent more than 100,000 high-resolution, full-color images of the planet’s surface. Designed to last just 90 days, they exceeded expectations and changed the way we explore the Red Planet l more at NASA JPL

Andromeda over the Swiss Alps Image Credit: Dzmitry Kananovich

The Ghosts of Gamma Cas ©

2024 January 7

The Cat’s Eye Nebula in Optical and X-ray Image Credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble Legacy Archive; Chandra X-ray Obs.; Processing & Copyright: Rudy Pohl

Explanation: To some it looks like a cat’s eye. To others, perhaps like a giant cosmic conch shell. It is actually one of the brightest and most highly detailed planetary nebula known, composed of gas expelled in the brief yet glorious phase near the end of life of a Sun-like star. This nebula’s dying central star may have produced the outer circular concentric shells by shrugging off outer layers in a series of regular convulsions. The formation of the beautiful, complex-yet-symmetric inner structures, however, is not well understood. The featured image is a composite of a digitally sharpened Hubble Space Telescope image with X-ray light captured by the orbiting Chandra Observatory. The exquisite floating space statue spans over half a light-year across. Of course, gazing into this Cat’s Eye, humanity may well be seeing the fate of our sun, destined to enter its own planetary nebula phase of evolution … in about 5 billion years.

∞ Source: apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap240107.html

Rainer Maria Rilke, from Where Silence Reigns: Selected Prose; "An Experience,"

the new composite james webb image is so beautiful ive been staring at it for 10 minutes straight

featuring jupiters rings, europa (along with a bunch of other moons), the northern and southern auroras, and the great red spot

Full Buck Super Moon l Rami Ammoun

by Daniel Cid