Starburst Galaxy Messier 94Beautiful island universe Messier 94 lies a mere 15 million light-years distant in the northern constellation of the hunting dogs, Canes Venatici. A popular target for earth-based astronomers, the face-on spiral galaxy is about 30,000 light-years across, with spiral arms sweeping through the outskirts of its broad disk.…Read More

Seven Sisters versus CaliforniaOn the right, dressed in blue, is the Pleiades. Also known as the Seven Sisters and M45, the Pleiades is one of the brightest and most easily visible open clusters on the sky. The Pleiades contains over 3,000 stars, is about 400 light years away, and only 13 light years across. Surrounding the stars is a spectacular…Read More

A Quadruple Alignment over ItalyWhy does this Moon look so unusual? A key reason is its vivid red color. The color is caused by the deflection of blue light by Earth’s atmosphere — the same reason that the daytime sky appears blue. The Moon also appears unusually distorted. Its strange structuring is an optical effect arising from layers in…Read More

Blue Ghost on the MoonThere’s a new lander on the Moon. Yesterday Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost executed the first-ever successful commercial lunar landing. During its planned 60-day mission, Blue Ghost will deploy several NASA-commissioned scientific instruments, including PlanetVac which captures lunar dust after creating a small whirlwind of…Read More