A Blue Banded Blood MoonWhat causes a blue band to cross the Moon during a lunar eclipse? The blue band is real but usually quite hard to see. The featured HDR image of last week’s lunar eclipse, however — taken from Norman, Oklahoma (USA) — has been digitally processed to exaggerate the colors. The gray color on the upper right of the top…Read More

Ancient Ogunquit Beach on MarsThis was once a beach — on ancient Mars. The featured 360-degree panorama, horizontally compressed, was taken in 2017 by the robotic Curiosity rover that explored the red planet. Named Ogunquit Beach after its terrestrial counterpart, evidence shows that at times long ago the area was underwater, while at other times…Read More

SuperCam Target on Ma’azWhat’s the sound of one laser zapping? There’s no need to consult a Zen master to find out, just listen to the first acoustic recording of laser shots on Mars. On Mars Rover Perseverance mission sol 12 (March 2, 2021) the SuperCam instrument atop the rover’s mast zapped a rock dubbed Ma’az 30 times from a range of about 3.1…Read More

The Leo TrioThis popular group leaps into the early evening sky around the March equinox and the northern hemisphere spring. Famous as the Leo Triplet, the three magnificent galaxies found in the prominent constellation Leo gather here in one astronomical field of view. Crowd pleasers when imaged with even modest telescopes, they can be…Read More

The Solar Eclipse Analemma ProjectRecorded from 2024 March 10, to 2025 March 1, this composited series of images reveals a pattern in the seasonal drift of the Sun’s daily motion through planet Earth’s sky. Known to some as an analemma, the figure-eight curve was captured in exposures taken on the indicated dates only at 18:38 UTC from the exact…Read More