Magazine Posts

Experience the breathtaking beauty of the aurora australis, captured in stunning detail by NOAA, showcasing nature's mesmerizing light display.

by NOAA on Unsplash

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

What’s looking back at you isn’t a cosmic eye, but Shapley 1, a beautifully symmetric planetary nebula. Shapley 1, also known as the Fine Ring Nebula or PLN 329+2.1, bejewels the southern sky constellation of the Carpenter's Square (Norma). The nebula is the result of a star near the mass of our Sun running out of fuel and shedding its outer layers. Glowing oxygen from those expelled layers makes up the circular halo. The bright central point is actually a binary: a white dwarf, the remaining stellar core after the outer layers are expelled into space, and another star, orbiting each other every 2.9 days. Shapley 1’s annular shape is due to our top-down view of the system and provides insight into the influence of central stars on planetary nebula structures.

Photo by Peter Bresseler; Text: Keighley Rockcliffe (NASA GSFC, UMBC CSST, CRESST II)

Two children playing with colours on the Hindu festival of Holi in Bangladesh. Today is Holi.

Md Rafayat Haque Khan, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.

Enjoy the serene beauty of Gold Creek Pond in Washington, captured in stunning imagery that invites you to explore nature's tranquility.

by Dave Hoefler on Unsplash

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

If you could fly over the North Pole of Mars, what would you see?  Images from ESA’s Mars Express mission in 2019 were compiled into the featured video which shows just such a trip. First you see below you a landscape tinted orange by rusted iron in the fine soil, with some land appearing darker due to exposed rock. Soon the northern polar cap comes into view, mostly white because of its reflective frozen water. Surrounding the polar cap is the North Polar Basin, a layered depression covered with dust and sand. The frames in the featured video were captured during northern Martian Spring when the carbon-dioxide ice is evaporating, leaving the underlying water-ice in the cap. Mars Express continues to study the Martian surface and look for clues about the Red Planet's ancient climate and potential for life.

Doll (musha-ningyo) featuring Takenouchi no Sukune, minister of Emperor Ōjin; end of the Edo period, 19th century, Japan. Ann and Gabriel Barbier-Mueller Museum, Dallas (Texas) ; the photograph was taken during an exhibition in the Musée des Arts Premiers in Paris.

Vassil, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.

Daniel Seßler on Unsplash

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

How well do you know the night sky? OK, but how well can you identify famous sky objects in a very deep image? Either way, here is a test: see if you can find some well-known night-sky icons in a deep image filled with filaments of normally faint dust and gas. This image contains the Pleiades star cluster, Barnard's Loop, Orion Nebula, Aldebaran, Betelgeuse, Witch Head Nebula, Eridanus Loop, and the California Nebula. To find their real locations, here is an annotated image version. The reason this task might be difficult is similar to the reason it is initially hard to identify familiar constellations in a very dark sky: the tapestry of our night sky has an extremely deep hidden complexity. The featured composite reveals some of this complexity in a 16 hours of sky exposure in dark skies over Granada, Spain. Tonight: Total Lunar Eclipse

Photo by Ignacio Fernández

The historic Geigersberg vineyard, northeast of the Sachsenheim district of Ochsenbach in Germany, still retains many of its old dry stone walls and is home to rare plant and animal species.

Roman Eisele, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.