Magazine Posts

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NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

No, Earth did not recently acquire six more moons! Today’s APOD is a combination of images following the Moon, Venus, and the Pleiades across a southern Sicilian sky as twilight turned to evening on April 19. From 2023 to 2029, the Pleiades' and the Moon “visit" each other once per month due to the Pleiades' location in the ecliptic plane. April 2026 saw the celestial alignment of their visit with Venus. About six stars in the Pleiades cluster (Messier 45) are typically visible with the unaided eye. Due to the cluster’s visibility across the world, there are many myths and legends across cultures associated with the Pleiades. The Haudenosaunee people of North America, for example, say that seven boys danced so enthusiastically that they lifted off into the sky. Astronomers recently found thousands more Pleiades members, showing that after thousands of years of gazing upon this cluster, there is yet more to learn about the Pleiades.

Photo by Gianni Tumino Text: Keighley Rockcliffe (NASA GSFC, UMBC CSST, CRESST II)

Golden jackal (Canis aureus) in azureum flowers (Jim Corbett National Park, India).

Giles Laurent, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.

By Stefan Mächler on Unsplash

Photo taken near Valley of Fire State Park, United States. Captured with Canon EOS 6D.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

They're like mountain peaks, but they are forming stars. Bright-rimmed, flowing shapes gather near the center of this rich starfield toward the borders of the nautical southern constellations Puppis and Vela. Composed of interstellar gas and dust, the grouping of light-year sized cometary globules is about 1300 light-years distant. Energetic ultraviolet light from nearby hot stars has molded the globules and ionized their bright rims. The globules also stream away from the Vela supernova remnant which may have influenced their swept-back shapes. Within them, cores of cold gas and dust are likely collapsing to form low mass stars whose formation will ultimately cause the globules to disperse. In fact, cometary globule CG 30 (upper right in the group) sports a small reddish glow inside its head, a telltale sign of energetic jets from a star in the early stages of formation.

Photo by Marcelo Salemme

Pilot boat outside Öja island (Landsort), Stockholm Archipelago's most southern point.

Arild Vågen, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.

Norris Niman on Unsplash

"I’ve stood here countless times for hours waiting for northern lights or tides. Always get wet and cold, but never gets less beautiful"

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Can you find the comet? Somewhere through this web of satellite trails is Comet C/2025 R3 (PanSTARRS), a bright visitor passing through the inner Solar System. Now, the orbiting satellites themselves only appear as streaks because of the long camera exposure, over 10 minutes in this case. On the contrary, to the eye, satellites appear as points that drift slowly across the night sky and shine by reflecting sunlight -- primarily just after sunset and before sunrise. The featured image was taken just before sunrise two weeks ago from Bavaria, Germany. Presently, Comet R3 PanSTARRS is hard to see for even another reason -- because it is so (angularly) close to the Sun. As the comet rounds the Sun, it will be best seen in coming weeks from southern hemispheree skies, although then it will be heading out to interstellar space and fading. If you haven't yet found the comet, don't despair; please take a closer look just above the image center.

Photo by Uli Fehr

Blunt-headed burrowing frog (Glyphoglossus molossus). Hua Hin District, Thailand.

Rushenb, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.

Bruce Barton (1886 - 1967) American author, advertising executive, and politician. Born in Robbins, Tennessee, he represented Manhattan in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1937 to 1941. 

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