A Picturesque Equinox Sunset

2024-03-19 Alan Dyer, Amazingsky.com, TWAN

What's that at the end of the road? The Sun. Many towns have roads that run east-west, and on two days each year, the Sun rises and sets right down the middle. Today, in some parts of the world (tomorrow in others), is one of those days: an ...

Kometa Pons-Brooks' wirująca...

2024-03-18 Jan Erik Vallestad

A bright comet will be visible during next month's total solar eclipse. This very unusual coincidence occurs because Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks's return to the inner Solar System places it by chance only 25 degrees away from the Sun during ...

NGC 7714: Gwiazdozbiór po zderzeniu...

2024-03-17

Is this galaxy jumping through a giant ring of stars? Probably not. Although the precise dynamics behind the featured image is yet unclear, what is clear is that the pictured galaxy, NGC 7714, has been stretched and distorted by a recent ...

ELT i Droga Mleczna

2024-03-16

The southern winter Milky Way sprawls across this night skyscape. Looking due south, the webcam view was recorded near local midnight on March 11 in dry, dark skies over the central Chilean Atacama desert. Seen below the graceful arc of diffuse ...

Portret NGC 1055

2024-03-15 Dave Doctor

Big, beautiful spiral galaxy NGC 1055 is a dominant member of a small galaxy group a mere 60 million light-years away toward the aquatically intimidating constellation Cetus. Seen edge-on, the island universe spans over 100,000 light-years, a ...

Moon Pi i Mountain Shadow

2024-03-14 El Cielo de Canarias

What phase of the Moon is 3.14 radians from the Sun? The Full Moon, of course. Even though the Moon might look full for several days, the Moon is truly at its full phase when it is Pi radians (aka 180 degrees) from the Sun in ecliptic longitude. ...

Mgławica Mewa

2024-03-13 Gianni Lacroce

A broad expanse of glowing gas and dust presents a bird-like visage to astronomers from planet Earth, suggesting its popular moniker: the Seagull Nebula. This portrait of the cosmic bird covers a 1.6-degree wide swath across the plane of the ...

Spirala wydechowa rakiety w kształcie...

2024-03-12 Seung Hye Yang

What's that over the horizon? What may look like a strangely nearby galaxy is actually a normal rocket's exhaust plume -- but unusually backlit. Although the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket was launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida, USA, its ...

Księżyc w pełni planktonu

2024-03-11 Petr Horálek / Institute of Physics in Opava

What glows in the night? This night featured a combination of usual and unusual glows. Perhaps the most usual glow was from the Moon, a potentially familiar object. The full Moon's nearly vertical descent results from the observer being near ...

Całkowite zaćmienie na końcu świata

2024-03-10 Fred Bruenjes (moonglow.net)

Would you go to the end of the world to see a total eclipse of the Sun? If you did, would you be surprised to find someone else there already? In 2003, the Sun, the Moon, Antarctica, and two photographers all lined up in Antarctica during an ...