An Artificial CometYes, but can your comet tail do this? No, and what you are seeing is not the tail of a comet. The picture features a cleverly overlayed time-lapse sequence of a group of satellites orbiting Earth together in June. Specifically, these are Starlink communications satellites in low Earth orbit reflecting back sunlight before…Read More

M1: The Crab NebulaThis is the mess that is left when a star explodes. The Crab Nebula, the result of a supernova seen in 1054 AD, is filled with mysterious filaments. The filaments are not only tremendously complex but appear to have less mass than expelled in the original supernova and a higher speed than expected from a free explosion. The…Read More

NGC 1898: Globular Cluster in the Large Magellanic CloudJewels don’t shine this bright — only stars do. And almost every spot in this jewel-box of an image from the Hubble Space Telescope is a star. Now, some stars are more red than our Sun, and some more blue — but all of them are much farther away. Although it takes light about 8 minutes to…Read More

Apollo 17’s MoonshipAwkward and angular looking, Apollo 17’s lunar module Challenger was designed for flight in the near vacuum of space. Digitally enhanced and reprocessed, this picture taken from Apollo 17’s command module America shows Challenger’s ascent stage in lunar orbit. Small reaction control thrusters are at the sides of the moonship…Read More

3I/ATLAS FlybyAttention grabbing interstellar visitor 3I/ATLAS made its not-so-close flyby of our fair planet on December 19 at a distance of 1.8 astronomical units. That’s about 900 light-seconds. Still, this deep exposure captures the comet from another star system as it gently swept across a faint background of stars in the constellation Leo…Read More