2026 January 31
Explanation: On flight day 13 (November 28, 2022) of the Artemis 1 mission, the Orion spacecraft reached its maximum distance from Earth. At over 430,000 kilometers from Earth, its distant retrograde orbit also puts Orion nearly 70,000 kilometers from the Moon. In the same field of view in this video frame from flight day 13, planet and large natural satellite even appear about the same apparent size from the spacecraft's perspective. On flight day 26 (December 11, 2022), the uncrewed spacecraft splashed down on its home world concluding the historic Artemis I mission. The Artemis II mission, carrying 4 astronauts around the moon and back again, will launch no earlier than February 8.
2026 February 4
Explanation: Most galaxies don't have any rings -- why does this galaxy have three? To begin, a ring that's near NGC 1512's center -- and so hard to see here -- is the nuclear ring which glows brightly with recently formed stars. Next out is a ring of stars and dust appearing both red and blue, called, counter-intuitively, the inner ring. This inner ring connects ends of a diffuse central bar of stars that runs horizontally across the galaxy. Farthest out in this wide field image is a ragged structure that might be considered an outer ring. This outer ring appears spiral-like and is dotted with clusters of bright blue stars. All these ring structures are thought to be affected by NGC 1512's own gravitational asymmetries in a drawn-out process called secular evolution. The featured image was captured last month from a telescope at Deep Sky Chile in Chile.
2026 February 2
Explanation: What part of Orion is this? Just north of the famous Orion Nebula is a picturesque star forming region in Orion's Sword that contains a lot of intricate dust -- some of which appears blue because it reflects the light of bright embedded stars. The region's popular name is the Running Man Nebula because, looked at from the right, part of the brown dust appears to be running legs. Cataloged as Sharpless 279, the reflection nebula is not only part of the constellation of Orion, but part of the greater Orion molecular cloud complex. Light from the Running Man's bright stars, including 42 Orionis, the bright star closest to the featured image center, is slowly destroying and reshaping the surrounding dust, which will likely be completely gone in about 10 million years. The nebula spans about 15 light years and lies about 1,500 light years away.
2026 February 1
Explanation: Mars has put on a happy face. The Martian crater Galle is famous because it has internal markings that make it look like a face that is both smiling and winking. These markings were originally discovered in the 1970s in pictures taken by the Viking Orbiter. The Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) spacecraft that orbited Mars from 1996 to 2006 captured the featured picture. Happy Face Crater and its iconic features were formed by chance billions of years ago when a city-sized asteroid slammed into the Martian surface. All rocky planets and moons in our Solar System show impact craters, with the highest number of craters found on Earth's Moon and the planet Mercury. Earth and Venus would show the most, though, were it not for weather and erosion.
2026 January 30
Explanation: NGC 1333 is seen in visible light as a reflection nebula, dominated by bluish hues characteristic of starlight reflected by interstellar dust. A mere 1,000 light-years distant toward the heroic constellation Perseus, it lies at the edge of a large, star-forming molecular cloud. This telescopic close-up spans over two full moons on the sky or just over 15 light-years at the estimated distance of NGC 1333. It shows details of the dusty region along with telltale hints of contrasty red emission from Herbig-Haro objects, jets and shocked glowing gas emanating from recently formed stars. In fact, NGC 1333 contains hundreds of stars less than a million years old, most still hidden from optical telescopes by the pervasive stardust. The chaotic environment may be similar to one in which our own Sun formed over 4.5 billion years ago.
2026 January 29
Explanation: Distorted galaxy NGC 2442 can be found in the southern constellation of the flying fish, (Piscis) Volans. Located about 50 million light-years away, the galaxy's two spiral arms extending from a pronounced central bar give it a hook-shaped appearance in this deep and colorful image, with foreground stars scattered across the telescopic field of view. The image also reveals the distant galaxy's obscuring dust lanes, young blue star clusters and reddish star forming regions surrounding a core of yellowish light from an older population of stars. But the star forming regions seem more concentrated along the drawn-out (upper right) spiral arm. The distorted structure is likely the result of an ancient close encounter with a smaller galaxy that lies off top left of the frame. This telescopic field of view spans over 200,000 light-years at the estimated distance of NGC 2442.
2026 January 28
Explanation: In the vast Orion Molecular Cloud complex, several bright blue nebulas are particularly apparent. Pictured here in the center are two of the most prominent reflection nebulas - dust clouds lit by the reflecting light of bright embedded stars. The more famous nebula is M78, in the image center, cataloged over 200 years ago. To its upper left is the lesser known NGC 2071. Astronomers continue to study these reflection nebulas to better understand how interior stars form. The overall red glow is from diffuse hydrogen gas that covers much of the Orion complex that spans much of the constellation of Orion. Nearby in the greater complex, which lies about 1,500 light years away, are the Orion Nebula, the Horsehead Nebula, and Barnard's Loop -- partially seen here as the white band on the upper left.
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