The Horsehead Nebula (Barnard 33, Below Center) And The Flame Nebula (NGC 2024, Below Left Of Center)

2023 October 18

Dust and the Western Veil Nebula Image Credit & Copyright: Jiang Wu

Explanation: It’s so big it is easy to miss. The entire Veil Nebula spans six times the diameter of the full moon, but is so dim you need binoculars to see it. The nebula was created about 15,000 years ago when a star in the constellation of the Swan (Cygnus) exploded. The spectacular explosion would have appeared brighter than even Venus for a week - but there is no known record of it. Pictured is the western edge of the still-expanding gas cloud. Notable gas filaments include the Witch’s Broom Nebula on the upper left near the bright foreground star 52 Cygni, and Fleming’s Triangular Wisp (formerly known as Pickering’s Triangle) running diagonally up the image middle. What is rarely imaged – but seen in the featured long exposure across many color bands – is the reflecting brown dust that runs vertically up the image left, dust likely created in the cool atmospheres of massive stars.

∞ Source: apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap231018.html

Calling all geology and space lovers!

NASA's Perseverance rover has been collecting rock samples on Mars for 4 years now, and already there are some exciting finds! Check out the article here:

Is it me or does Jupiter in this also look like calcifer from howls moving castle

NASA Science

How Gravity Warps Light - NASA Science

Gravity is obviously pretty important. It holds your feet down to Earth so you don’t fly away into space, and (equally important) it keeps y

Article of the Day!

"How Gravity Warps Light" from NASA Universe Web Team

Pumpkin space latte, anyone? ☕

Hubble captured this festive array of stars, Terzan 12, found in the Milky Way about 15,000 light-years from Earth. The stars in this cluster are bound together by gravity in a sphere-like shape and are shrouded in gas and dust. As the starlight travels through that gas and dust to Earth, blue light scatters, leaving the redder wavelengths to come through.

Download the full-resolution image here.

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Many things in space stay the same for a human lifetime, but not the Bat Shadow. Hubble pictures taken 404 days apart show it “flapping” as the shadow changes position. It’s the result of a saddle-shaped disk: https://bit.ly/3Y5qu7W

Mare Cognitum ("The Sea that has Become Known") with Kuiper crater at the center // l'AstroVan

Mare Cognitum ("The Sea that has Become Known") is the landing sites of several lunar missions. Ranger 7 (1964) impacted here after its mission was finished; Surveyor 3 (1967) and Apollo 12 (1969) landed near its northern shore; and Apollo 14 (1971) landed near this mare as well.

Kuiper crater is named after the Dutch-American astronomy Gerard Kuiper (1905-1973), the father of modern planetary science

via @teunvanderzalm

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