Astronomy - MOON, VENUS AND SPICA MEET

Explanation: Not all those who wander are lost. A night sky example is that planets wander, and in fact the very word "planet" comes from "wandering star" in Greek. As planets shift relative to fixed stars, they may appear from our perspective to get closer to other astronomical objects. Such meetings are called conjunctions. They don't happen by chance, but follow the precise laws of celestial mechanics. This peaceful image, captured in Poland, shows the crescent Moon above the Tatra Mountains, and bright Venus close by, a little lower in the horizon. The bright star to the left of Venus is Spica in the constellation of Virgo, the Maiden. Spica is one of the brightest stars in the sky, only about 250 light-years away. It was found in 1890 that Spica is a binary star: two massive blue stars orbiting each other every 4 days. But earlier this year it was reported that Spica, the current companion of wandering Venus, is actually a triple system.

Date November 12, 2026

Credit & Copyright Włodzimierz Bubak

Authors & editors: Cecilia Chirenti, Robert Nemiroff, Jerry Bonnell, Keighley Rockcliffe

A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,

NASA Science Activation & Michigan Tech. U.

Astronomy - SATURN BEHIND THE MOON

Explanation: Sometimes Saturn disappears. It doesn't really go away, of course -- it just disappears from our view when Earth's Moon moves in front. Such a Saturnian eclipse, more formally called an occultation, was visible in early 2025 along a small swath of Earth -- from Greenland through central Europe and into northern Africa. The featured image is a digital fusion of three images, the first of just Saturn before it disappeared, and then two more of the Moon with different exposure lengths. The images were taken from Sardinia, Italy, after sunset. The bright dot near Saturn is not a moon of Saturn, but rather the star 85 Aquarii, which is further behind Saturn than Saturn is behind the Moon. The next time the Moon moves in front of Saturn, as visible from some place on Earth, will be in 2031.

Date November 10, 2026

Credit & Copyright Roberto Ortu

Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff, Jerry Bonnell, Cecilia Chirenti, Keighley Rockcliffe

A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,

NASA Science Activation & Michigan Tech. U.

Astronomy - DE GERLACHE-KOCHER MASSIF

Explanation: De Gerlache-Kocher massif looms on the visible horizon in this close-up of the edge of the Moon. The mountainous formation rises about 4 kilometers above its surroundings and is located very close to the lunar south pole. Boasting permanently shadowed crater floors that likely contain deposits of water ice and peaks that receive almost continuous sunlight for solar power generation, the south polar region is consider a prime location for the first human settlement on the Moon. In fact, De Gerlache-Kocher massif itself has been consider as a potential landing site for future crewed Artemis missions to the Moon. The remarkable telescopic image of the massif at the lunar limb was captured on October 31. Then, a favorable libration angle or lunar wobble enhanced this oblique view across the Moon's south pole.

Date: November 7, 2026

Credit: Alejandro Sanz

Authors & editors: Jerry Bonnell, Cecilia Chirenti, Robert Nemiroff, Keighley Rockcliffe

A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,

NASA Science Activation & Michigan Tech. U.

Monde sous-marin - LE VER ARBRE DE NOËL

Le ver arbre de Noël (Spirobranchus giganteus), aussi appelé spirobranche arbre de Noël, porte bien son nom : ses deux panaches spiralés lui offrent une forme conique caractéristique. Il s'accroche au corail dans les océans tropicaux, comme ici, à Lizard Island, près de l'Australie.

© John Huisman-Murdoch University

Astronomy - NIGHT ON A SPOOKY PLANET

Explanation: What spooky planet is this? Planet Earth on a dark and stormy night, of course. The ghostly scene was photographed at Hverir, a geothermally active area found along northeastern Iceland's volcanic landscape. Triggered by solar activity, geomagnetic storms have unleashed energetic particles trapped in Earth's magnetic field. Penetrating the planet's upper atmosphere at high latitudes, the particles create auroral displays in the starry night sky. Ghostly towers of steam and gas are venting from local fumaroles to dance against the eerie, greenish northern lights. For now, auroral activity on planet Earth remains in a high state as the Sun is only in early phases of decline from the peak of its solar activity cycle. And soon, other ghostly apparitions may dance in your neighborhood. Happy Halloween!

October 31, 2026

Credit & Copyright: Stéphane Vetter (Nuits sacrées)

Authors & editors: Jerry Bonnell, Cecilia Chirenti, Robert Nemiroff, Keighley Rockcliffe

A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,

NASA Science Activation & Michigan Tech. U.

Astronomy - HAUNTING THE CEPHEUS FLARE

Explanation: Spooky shapes seem to haunt this dusty expanse, drifting through the night in the royal constellation Cepheus. Of course, the shapes are cosmic dust clouds visible in dimly reflected starlight. Far from your own neighborhood, they lurk above the plane of the Milky Way at the edge of the Cepheus Flare molecular cloud complex some 1,200 light-years away. Over 2 light-years across and brighter than most of the other ghostly apparitions, vdB 141 or Sh2-136 is also known as the Ghost Nebula. It lies at lower right in the starry field of view. Inside the Ghost Nebula are reddish telltale signs of dense cores collapsing in the early stages of star formation. With the eerie hue of interstellar dust reflecting bluish light from hot young stars of NGC 7023, the Iris Nebula stands out against the dark just left of center. In the broad telescopic frame, these fertile interstellar dust fields stretch almost six full moons across the sky.

Date October 30, 2026

Credit & Copyright: Mirko Tondinelli

Authors & editors: Jerry Bonnell, Cecilia Chirenti, Robert Nemiroff, Keighley Rockcliffe

A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,

NASA Science Activation & Michigan Tech. U.

Astronomy - NOCTILUCENT CLOUDS OVER SWEDEN

Explanation: Sometimes it's night on the ground but day in the air. As the Earth rotates to eclipse the Sun, sunset rises up from the ground. Therefore, at sunset on the ground, sunlight still shines on clouds above. Under usual circumstances, a pretty sunset might be visible, but unusual noctilucent clouds float so high up they can be seen well after dark. Normally too dim to be seen, they may become visible just after sunset during the summer when illuminated by sunlight from below the horizon. Noctilucent clouds are the highest clouds and are known more technically as polar mesospheric clouds. Featured here as they appeared in early August 2026, a network of blue noctilucent clouds was captured in the distant sky above a field of green grass near Linköping, Sweden, with trees in stark silhouette across the horizon. Much about noctilucent clouds has been discovered only in the past two decades, and how they form and evolve remains a topic of active research.

Date October 27, 2026

Credit & Copyright V. Höfer, D. Večerník & B. Večerníková

Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff, Jerry Bonnell, Cecilia Chirenti, Keighley Rockcliffe

A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,

NASA Science Activation & Michigan Tech. U.

Astronomy - NEW GHOSTS REVEALED CASSIOPEIA

 

Explanation: Jinkies, look at all those ghosts! It took 100 hours of observation and a special oxygen filter for today’s image to capture three faint nebulas hidden in the Cassiopeia constellation. IC 59 and IC 63, the original Ghosts of Cassiopeia, haunt the region near multi-star system γ Cassiopeia. Energetic light from γ Cassiopeia causes the hydrogen gas in IC 59 and 63 to glow red. Their dust reflects and scatters some blue-ish white starlight. Newly discovered Objects 1, 2, and 3 appear as blue phantoms, revealing the presence of ionized oxygen. But ionized by what? Like at the bow of a speeding boat, γ Cassiopeia may be piling up material as the system moves through interstellar gas and dust. It follows that Object 3 may be the compressed and heated oxygen of that bow shock. Object 1 could be a planetary nebula if a central white dwarf is identified. The origins of these astronomical apparitions remain a mystery to be solved.

Date: October 21, 2026Credit & Copyright: Louis Leroux-Géré, Thibault Rouillée, Vincent Martin, Cédric de Decker (Starfront Observatories)

Authors & editors: Keighley Rockcliffe, Robert Nemiroff, Jerry Bonnell, Cecilia Chirenti

A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,

NASA Science Activation & Michigan Tech. U.

Astronomy - TREBLE CLEF: UNUSUAL X-RAY HOT RADIO SOURCE

Explanation: Explanation : What is Treble Clef? This unusual radio structure extends over 2 million light-years and resembles a common musical symbol -- but has its visible light hidden by our own Milky Way Galaxy. Examined in 2004, the nature of VLSS J0318.9+5755, dubbed Treble Clef, remained unknown. Recent observations by the Chandra X-ray Observatory and eROSITA, however, have led to the hypothesis that the Treble Clef central cloud of charged particles was originally expelled by a supermassive black hole at the center of a galaxy. After the radio emission from those particles faded, they may have been reinvigorated by a shock wave from the collision of two clusters of galaxies. The featured composite image shows radio emission in red, while recently discovered X-rays are shown in blue. Unusual objects like Treble Clef give humanity unexpected clues about how whole clusters of galaxies interact as well as the general evolution of our universe.

Date: October 19, 2026
Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/INAF-IRA/A. Botteon et al.; Infrared: UKIDSS-GPS; Radio: ASTRONLOFAR; Image processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/N. Wolk
Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff, Jerry Bonnell, Cecilia Chirenti, Keighley Rockcliffe
A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,
NASA Science Activation & Michigan Tech. U. 

Astronomy - 3D 67P

Epxlanation: Put on your red/blue glasses and float next to the jagged and double-lobed nucleus of Churyumov-Gerasimenko, also known as Comet 67P . The stereo anaglyph was created by combining two images from the Rosetta spacecraft's narrow angle OSIRIS camera taken on July 25, 2015 from a distance of 184 kilometers. Numerous jets are emanating from the small solar system world's active surface near its closest approach to the Sun. The larger lobe is around 4 kilometers in diameter, joined to a smaller, 2.5 kilometer diameter lobe by a narrow neck. Rosetta's mission to the comet ended in September 2016 when the spacecraft was commanded to a controlled impact with the comet's surface . Keep those 3D glasses on though. You can check out a catalog of nearly 1400 stereo anaglyphs created from Rosetta image data on this website.

Date October 17, 2026Credit: ESA , Rosetta , MPS , OSIRIS - Stereo Anaglyph: Philippe Lamy and The TeamAuthors & editors: Jerry Bonnell, Cecilia Chirenti, Robert Nemiroff, Keighley RockcliffeA service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,NASA Science Activation & Michigan Tech. U.