ASTRONOMY - A Harvest Moon over Tuscany

 2023 September 30

A Harvest Moon over Tuscany
Image Credit & Copyright: Antonio Tartarini

Explanation: For northern hemisphere dwellers, September's Full Moon was the Harvest Moon. Reflecting warm hues at sunset, it rises behind cypress trees huddled on a hill top in Tuscany, Italy in this telephoto view from September 28. Famed in festival, story, and song, Harvest Moon is just the traditional name of the full moon nearest the autumnal equinox. According to lore the name is a fitting one. Despite the diminishing daylight hours as the growing season drew to a close, farmers could harvest crops by the light of a full moon shining on from dusk to dawn. This Harvest Moon was also known to some as a supermoon, a term becoming a traditional name for a full moon near perigee. It was the fourth and final supermoon for 2023.

ASTRONOMIE - Super lune des moissons - Ce soir

 

La lune des moissons du 29 septembre, qui se produira dans la nuit de vendredi à samedi, est la dernière super lune de 2023. Elle apporte une abondance de clair de lune en début de soirée, ce qui aidait traditionnellement les agriculteurs qui récoltaient leurs récoltes d'été (d'où son nom).

©Shutterstock

ASTRONOMY - Back from Bennu

 2023 September 29

Back from Bennu
Image Credit: NASA/Keegan Barber

Explanation: Back from asteroid 101955 Bennu, a 110-pound, 31-inch wide sample return capsule rests in a desert on planet Earth in this photo, taken at the Department of Defense Utah Test and Training Range near Salt Lake City last Sunday, September 24. Dropped off by the OSIRIS-Rex spacecraft, the capsule looks charred from the extreme temperatures experienced during its blistering descent through Earth's dense atmosphere. OSIRIS-Rex began its home-ward journey from Bennu in May of 2021. Delivered to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston on September 25, the capsule's canister is expected to contain an uncontaminated sample of about a half pound (250 grams) of Bennu's loosely packed regolith. Working in a new laboratory designed for the OSIRIS-REx mission, scientists and engineers will complete the canister disassembly process, and plan to unveil the sample of the near-Earth asteroid in a broadcast event on October 11.

ASTRONOMY - The Deep Lagoon

 2023 September 28

The Deep Lagoon
Image Credit & Copyright: Josep Drudis, Christian Sasse

Explanation: Ridges of glowing interstellar gas and dark dust clouds inhabit the turbulent, cosmic depths of the Lagoon Nebula. Also known as M8, The bright star forming region is about 5,000 light-years distant. It makes for a popular stop on telescopic tours of the constellation Sagittarius toward the center of our Milky Way Galaxy. Dominated by the telltale red emission of ionized hydrogen atoms recombining with stripped electrons, this deep telescopic view of the Lagoon's central reaches is about 40 light-years across. The bright hourglass shape near the center of the frame is gas ionized and sculpted by energetic radiation and extreme stellar winds from a massive young star.

ASTRONOMY - STEVE and Milky Way Cross over Rural Road

 2023 September 27

STEVE and Milky Way Cross over Rural Road
Image Credit & Copyright: Theresa Clarke

Explanation: Not every road ends in a STEVE. A week ago, a sky enthusiast's journey began with a goal: to photograph an aurora over Lake Huron. Driving through rural Ontario, Canada, the forecasted sky show started unexpectedly early, causing the photographer to stop before arriving at the scenic Great Lake. Aurora images were taken toward the north -- but over land, not sea. While waiting for a second round of auroras, a peculiar band of light was noticed to the west. Slowly, the photographer and friends realized that this western band was likely an unusual type of aurora: a Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement (STEVE). Moreover, this STEVE was putting on quite a show: appearing intertwined with the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy while intersecting the horizon just near the end of the country road. After capturing this cosmic X on camera, the photographer paused to appreciate the unexpected awesomeness of finding extraordinary beauty in an ordinary setting.

ASTRONOMY - A Ring of Fire Sunrise Solar Eclipse

 2023 September 24

A Ring of Fire Sunrise Solar Eclipse
Video Credit: Colin Legg & Geoff Sims; Music: Peter Nanasi

Explanation: What's rising above the horizon behind those clouds? It's the Sun. Most sunrises don't look like this, though, because most sunrises don't include the Moon. In the early morning of 2013 May 10, however, from Western Australia, the Moon was between the Earth and the rising Sun. At times, it would be hard for the uninformed to understand what was happening. In an annular eclipse, the Moon is too far from the Earth to block the entire Sun, and at most leaves a ring of fire where sunlight pours out around every edge of the Moon. The featured time-lapse video also recorded the eclipse through the high refraction of the Earth's atmosphere just above the horizon, making the unusual rising Sun and Moon appear also flattened. As the video continues, the Sun continues to rise, while the Sun and Moon begin to separate. The next annular solar eclipse will occur in less than three weeks. On Saturday, October 14, a ring of fire will be visible through clear skies from a thin swath crossing both North and South America.

MUSICA -Julie Fuchs (Mozart) - Fra i pensier piu funesti

"Fra i pensier piu funesti"

AERONAUTIQUE - INVENTIONS QUI N'ONT JAMAIS VOLE - Les machines volantes : Charles Guillé et Thilorier

 

Cette image de nombreuses machines volantes a été conservée par la Library of Congress (la bibliothèque du Congrès, aux États-Unis). Elle date de 1885 environ. On peut y voir 45 projets, tous plus inventifs les uns que les autres, dont certains ont vraiment essayé de voler. C'est le cas du numéro 32 (en bas, au-dessus de la Tour Eiffel) qui illustre le planeur ballon dirigeable de Charles Guillé dont il s'est servi pour une ascension (ratée) à Paris le 13 novembre 1814. Le très innovant numéro 24 (à gauche sur l'image) représente la machine de Jean-Charles Thilorier, qui devait amener les troupes françaises en Angleterre dans le but de l'envahir. © Library of Congress

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ASTRONOMY - Afternoon Analemma

 2023 September 23

Afternoon Analemma
Image Credit & Copyright: Ian Griffin (Otago Museum)

Explanation: An analemma is that figure-8 curve you get when you mark the position of the Sun at the same time each day for one year. To make this one, a 4x5 pinhole camera was set up looking north in southern New Zealand skies. The shutter was briefly opened each clear day in the afternoon at 4pm local time exposing the same photosensitized glass plate for the year spanning September 23, 2022 to September 19, 2023. On two days, the winter and summer solstices, the shutter was opened again 15 minutes after the main exposure and remained open until sunset to create the sun trails at the bottom and top of the curve. The equinox dates correspond to positions in the middle of the curve, not the crossover point. Of course, the curve itself is inverted compared to an analemma traced from the northern hemisphere. And while fall begins today at the Autumnal Equinox for the northern hemisphere, it's the Spring Equinox in the south.

AERONAUTIQUE - LES INVENTIONS QUI N'ONT JAMAIS VOLE - Le Hughes H-4 Hercules d'Howard Hugues

Le Hughes H-4 Hercules d'Howard Hugues est un avion a demandé des moyens de conception à la hauteur de sa démesure (18 millions de dollars). Pendant son unique vol, il réussit à rester en l'air durant une minute à 21 mètres au-dessus de l'eau. Il a donc décollé, me direz-vous ! Pas tout à fait, son envol aurait eu lieu uniquement à cause de l'effet de sol. Cet échec cuisant le mit définitivement au garage.

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ASTRONOMY - Cosmos in Reflection

 2023 September 21

Cosmos in Reflection
Image Credit & Copyright: Jeff Dai (TWAN)

Explanation: During the day, over 12,000 large mirrors reflect sunlight at the 100-megawatt, molten-salt, solar thermal power plant at the western edge of the Gobi desert near Dunhuang, Gansu Province, China. Individual mirror panels turn to track the sun like sunflowers. They conspire to act as a single super mirror reflecting the sunlight toward a fixed position, the power station's central tower. During the night the mirrors stand motionless though. They reflect the light of the countless distant stars, clusters and nebulae of the Milky Way and beyond. This sci-fi night skyscape was created with a camera fixed to a tripod near the edge of the giant mirror matrix on September 15. The camera's combined sequence of digital exposures captures concentric arcs of celestial star trails through the night with star trails in surreal mirrored reflection.

ASTRONOMY - Tagging Bennu

 2023 September 21

Tagging Bennu
Image Credit: OSIRIS-REx, University of Arizona, NASA, Goddard Scientific Visualization Studio

Explanation: The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft's arm reached out and touched asteroid 101955 Bennu on October 20, 2020, after a careful approach to the small, near-Earth asteroid's boulder-strewn surface. Dubbed a Touch-And-Go (TAG) sampling event, the 30 centimeter wide sampling head (TAGSAM) appears to crush some of the rocks in this close-up recorded by the spacecraft's SamCam. The image was snapped just after surface contact some 321 million kilometers from planet Earth. One second later, the spacecraft fired nitrogen gas from a bottle intended to blow a substantial amount of Bennu's regolith into the sampling head, collecting the loose surface material. And now, nearly three years later, on Sunday, September 24, that sample of asteroid Bennu is scheduled to arrive on planet Earth. The sample return capsule will be dropped off by the OSIRIS-Rex spacecraft as it makes a close flyby of Earth. Twenty minutes after the drop-off, the spacecraft will fire its thrusters to divert past Earth and continue on to orbit near-Earth asteroid 99942 Apophis.

ASTRONOMY - Methane Discovered on Distant Exoplanet

 2023 September 20

Methane Discovered on Distant Exoplanet
Illustration Credit: Ahmad Jabakenji (ASU Lebanon, North Star Space Art); Data: NASA, ESA, CSA, JWST

Explanation: Where else might life exist? One of humanity's great outstanding questions, locating planets where extrasolar life might survive took a step forward in 2019 with the discovery of a significant amount of water vapor in the atmosphere of distant exoplanet K2-18b. The planet and its parent star, K2-18, lie about 124 light years away toward the constellation of the Lion (Leo). The exoplanet is significantly larger and more massive than our Earth, but orbits in the habitable zone of its home star. K2-18, although more red than our Sun, shines in K2-18b's sky with a brightness similar to the Sun in Earth's sky. The 2019 discovery of atmospheric water was made in data from three space telescopes: Hubble, Spitzer, and Kepler, by noting the absorption of water-vapor colors when the planet moved in front of the star. Now in 2023, further observations by the Webb Space Telescope in infrared light have uncovered evidence of other life-indicating molecules -- including methane. The featured illustration imagines exoplanet K2-18b on the far right orbited by a moon (center), which together orbit a red dwarf star depicted on the lower left.

ASTRONOMY - HH 211: Jets from a Forming Star

 2023 September 19

HH 211: Jets from a Forming Star
Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Webb; Processing: Tom Ray (DIAS Dublin)

Explanation: Do stars always create jets as they form? No one is sure. As a gas cloud gravitationally contracts, it forms a disk that can spin too fast to continue contracting into a protostar. Theorists hypothesize that this spin can be reduced by expelling jets. This speculation coincides with known Herbig-Haro (HH) objects, young stellar objects seen to emit jets -- sometimes in spectacular fashion. Pictured is Herbig-Haro 211, a young star in formation recently imaged by the Webb Space Telescope (JWST) in infrared light and in great detail. Along with the two narrow beams of particles, red shock waves can be seen as the outflows impact existing interstellar gas. The jets of HH 221 will likely change shape as they brighten and fade over the next 100,000 years, as research into the details of star formation continues.

ASTRONOMY - Moon Mountains Magnified during Ring of Fire Eclipse

 2023 September 17

Moon Mountains Magnified during Ring of Fire Eclipse
Credit & Copyright: Wang Letian (Eyes at Night)

Explanation: What are those dark streaks in this composite image of a solar eclipse? They are reversed shadows of mountains at the edge of the Moon. The center image, captured from Xiamen, China, has the Moon's center directly in front of the Sun's center. The Moon, though, was too far from the Earth to completely block the entire Sun. Light that streamed around the edges of the Moon is called a ring of fire. Images at each end of the sequence show sunlight that streamed through lunar valleys. As the Moon moved further in front of the Sun, left to right, only the higher peaks on the Moon's perimeter could block sunlight. Therefore, the dark streaks are projected, distorted, reversed, and magnified shadows of mountains at the Moon's edge. Bright areas are called Baily's Beads. Only people in a narrow swath across Earth's Eastern Hemisphere were able to view this full annular solar eclipse in 2020. Next month, though, a narrow swath crossing both North and South America will be exposed to the next annular solar eclipse. And next April, a total solar eclipse will be visible across North America.

ASTRONOMY - The Red Sprite and the Tree

 2023 September 18

The Red Sprite and the Tree
Credit & Copyright: Maxime Villaeys

Explanation: The sprite and tree could hardly be more different. To start, the red sprite is an unusual form of lightning, while the tree is a common plant. The sprite is far away -- high in Earth's atmosphere, while the tree is nearby -- only about a football field away. The sprite is fast -- electrons streaming up and down at near light's speed, while the tree is slow -- wood anchored to the ground. The sprite is bright -- lighting up the sky, while the tree is dim -- shining mostly by reflected light. The sprite was fleeting -- lasting only a small fraction of a second, while the tree is durable -- living now for many years. Both however, when captured together, appear oddly similar in this featured composite image captured early this month in France as a thunderstorm passed over mountains of the Atlantic Pyrenees.

ASTRONOMY - Fireball over Iceland

 2023 September 16

Fireball over Iceland
Image Credit & Copyright: Jennifer Franklin

Explanation: On September 12, from a location just south of the Arctic Circle, stones of Iceland's modern Arctic Henge point skyward in this startling scene. Entertaining an intrepid group of aurora hunters during a geomagnetic storm, alluring northern lights dance across the darkened sky when a stunning fireball meteor explodes. Awestruck, the camera-equipped skygazers captured video and still images of the boreal bolide, at its peak about as bright as a full moon. Though quickly fading from view, the fireball left a lingering visible trail or persistent train. The wraith-like trail was seen for minutes wafting in the upper atmosphere at altitudes of 60 to 90 kilometers along with the auroral glow.

AERONAUTIQUE - LES INVENTIONS QUI N'ONT JAMAIS VOLE - Le manteau parachute de Franz Reichelt

Tristement célèbre, Franz Reichelt, aussi appelé le « Flying Taylor », a inventé le manteau parachute. Une invention tellement sûre qu'il décida de l'étrenner en grande pompe en sautant de la Tour Eiffel. Vous l'aurez compris, si cette invention fait partie de notre top 10, c'est parce qu'elle n'a jamais fonctionné. Franz Reichelt fut tué sur le coup.

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ASTRONOMY - Venus, Moon, and the Smoking Mountain

 2023 September 15

Venus, Moon, and the Smoking Mountain
Image Credit & Copyright: Luis Miguel Meade Rodríguez

Explanation: Venus has returned as a brilliant morning star. From a window seat on a flight to Mexico City, the bright celestial beacon was captured just before sunrise in this astronomical snapshot, taken on September 12. Venus, at the upper right, shared the early predawn skies with an old crescent Moon. Seen from this stratospheric perspective, both mountain peaks and clouds appear in silhouette along a glowing eastern horizon. The dramatic, long, low cloud bank was created by venting from planet Earth's active volcano Popocatépetl.

AERONAUTIQUE - LES INVENTIONS QUI N'ONT JAMAIS VOLE - La vis aérienne de Léonard de Vinci

Si Léonard de Vinci a été précurseur dans de nombreux domaines, bon nombre de ses inventions n'ont jamais pu fonctionner. Voici l'exemple de la vis aérienne qui prédestine l'hélicoptère. Elle a été conçue comme une toupie. Sans l'aide d'une queue, elle n'aurait pu faire autrement que de tourbillonner sans pouvoir être dirigée. Fabriquée entre 1487 et 1490, cet engin vole verticalement. Un souci cependant : Léonard de Vinci n'a pas pensé à la force de propulsion !

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ASTRONOMY - NGC 4632: Galaxy with a Hidden Polar Ring

 2023 September 13

NGC 4632: Galaxy with a Hidden Polar Ring
Credit: Jayanne English (U. Manitoba), Nathan Deg (Queen's University) & WALLABY Survey, CSIRO/ASKAP, NAOJ/Subaru Telescope; Text: Jayanne English (U. Manitoba)

Explanation: Galaxy NGC 4632 hides a secret from optical telescopes. It is surrounded by a ring of cool hydrogen gas orbiting at 90 degrees to its spiral disk. Such polar ring galaxies have previously been discovered using starlight. However, NGC 4632 is among the first in which a radio telescope survey revealed a polar ring. The featured composite image combines this gas ring, observed with the highly sensitive ASKAP telescope, with optical data from the Subaru telescope. Using virtual reality, astronomers separated out the gas in the main disk of the galaxy from the ring, and the subtle color gradient traces its orbital motion. Why do polar rings exist? They could be material pulled from one galaxy as it gravitationally interacts with a companion. Or hydrogen gas flows along the filaments of the cosmic web and accretes into a ring around a galaxy, some of which gravitationally contracts into stars.

AERONAUTIQUE - LES INVENTIONS QUI N'ONT JAMAIS VOLE - Le navire volant de Bartolomeu Lourenço de Gusmão

 

Considéré comme le père de l'aérostation, Bartolomeu Lourenço de Gusmão, inventeur brésilien, a voulu présenter ses projets de ballons volants à la cour d'Espagne. Ces petites montgolfières avant l'heure étaient censées monter grâce à la chaleur. Le premier essai fut un échec cuisant : l'engin s'enflamma avant même d'avoir décollé ! Cependant, même s'ils n'ont jamais pu transporter d'Hommes, ces ballons ont fini par voler de quelques mètres. L'intérêt était cependant trop réduit et le projet a donc été abandonné.

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ASTRONOMY - Beautiful Comet Nishimura

 2023 September 11

Beautiful Comet Nishimura
Credit & Copyright: Petr Horálek / Institute of Physics in Opava

Explanation: This scene would be beautiful even without the comet. By itself, the sunrise sky is an elegant deep blue on high, with faint white stars peeking through, while near the horizon is a pleasing tan. By itself, the foreground hills of eastern Slovakia are appealingly green, with the Zadňa hura and Veľká hora hills in the distance, and with the lights of small towns along the way. Venus, by itself on the right, appears unusually exquisite, surrounded by a colorful atmospheric corona. But what attracts the eye most is the comet. On the left, in this composite image taken just before dawn yesterday morning, is Comet Nishimura. On recent mornings around the globe, its bright coma and long ion tail make many a morning panoramic photo unusually beautiful. Tomorrow, C/2023 P1 (Nishimura) will pass its nearest to the Earth for about the next 434 years.

ASTRONOMY - An Annular Solar Eclipse over New Mexico

 2023 September 10

An Annular Solar Eclipse over New Mexico
Credit & Copyright: Colleen Pinski

Explanation: What is this person doing? In 2012, an annular eclipse of the Sun was visible over a narrow path that crossed the northern Pacific Ocean and several western US states. In an annular solar eclipse, the Moon is too far from the Earth to block out the entire Sun, leaving the Sun peeking out over the Moon's disk in a ring of fire. To capture this unusual solar event, an industrious photographer drove from Arizona to New Mexico to find just the right vista. After setting up and just as the eclipsed Sun was setting over a ridge about 0.5 kilometers away, a person unknowingly walked right into the shot. Although grateful for the unexpected human element, the photographer never learned the identity of the silhouetted interloper. It appears likely that the person is holding a circular device that would enable them to get their own view of the eclipse. The shot was taken at sunset on 2012 May 20 at 7:36 pm local time from a park near Albuquerque. Next month, on October 14, a different narrow swath across North and South America will be exposed to a different annular solar eclipse, if the sky is clear. Simultaneously, cloud-free observers almost anywhere on either continent will be able to see a partial solar eclipse.

ASTRONOMY - Comet Nishimura Grows

 2023 September 9

Comet Nishimura Grows
Credit & Copyright: Peter Kennett

Explanation: Comet Nishimura is growing. More precisely, the tails C/2023 P1 (Nishimura) are growing as it nears the Sun. Discovered only last month, the comet is already near naked eye brightness as it now moves inside the Earth's orbit. The comet will be nearest the Earth next week, but nearest the Sun the week after -- on September 17. Speculation holds that expelled ice and dust from Comet Nishimura's last visit to the inner Solar System may have created the Sigma Hydrids meteor shower which peaks yearly in December. If so, then this meteor shower may become more active, refreshed with new comet debris. Pictured, Comet Nishimura was captured from Edgewood, New Mexico, USA four nights ago, showing a long ion tail structured by interactions with the Sun's wind. Look for this comet near your eastern horizon just before sunrise for the next few mornings, but very near your western horizon just after sunset next week -- as its coma continues to brighten and its tails continue to grow.

MUSIC - Dmitri Chostakovitch - Valse n° 2

"Valse numéro 2"

AERONAUTIQUE - LES INVENTIONS QUI N'ONT JAMAIS VOLE - La machine volante du professeur Wellner

Très jolie, la machine volante du professeur Wellner manque pourtant de praticité. La navette protégeant les passagers est reliée à deux cylindres. Elle aurait pu être très utile pour voyager… si elle avait réussi à voler.

FuturaSciences

ANIMAUX - Le Pétrel de Hall

 

Le Pétrel de Hall vit dans les océans du Sud entre l'Argentine et l'Australie. Ce grand oiseau marin mesure jusqu'à 2,10 mètres d'envergure, soit presque autant qu'un albatros considéré comme le plus grand oiseau du monde.

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ASTRONOMY - HESS Telescopes Explore the High-Energy Sky

 2023 September 6

HESS Telescopes Explore the High-Energy Sky
Credit & Copyright: Video Credit & Copyright: Jeff Dai (TWAN), H.E.S.S. Collaboration;
Music: Ibaotu catalog number 1044988 (Used with permission)

Explanation: They may look like modern mechanical dinosaurs, but they are enormous swiveling eyes that watch the sky. The High Energy Stereoscopic System (H.E.S.S.) Observatory is composed of four 12-meter reflecting-mirror telescopes surrounding a larger telescope housing a 28-meter mirror. They are designed to detect strange flickers of blue light -- Cherenkov radiation --emitted when charged particles move slightly faster than the speed of light in air. This light is emitted when a gamma ray from a distant source strikes a molecule in Earth's atmosphere and starts a charged-particle shower. H.E.S.S. is sensitive to some of the highest energy photons (TeV) crossing the universe. Operating since 2003 in Namibia, H.E.S.S. has searched for dark matter and has discovered over 50 sources emitting high energy radiation including supernova remnants and the centers of galaxies that contain supermassive black holes. Pictured in June, H.E.S.S. telescopes swivel and stare in time-lapse sequences shot in front of our Milky Way Galaxy and the Magellanic Clouds -- as the occasional Earth-orbiting satellite zips by.

ASTRONOMY - Blue Supermoon Beyond Syracuse

 2023 September 5

Blue Supermoon Beyond Syracuse
Credit & Copyright: Kevin Saragozza

Explanation: The last full moon was doubly unusual. First of all, it was a blue moon. A modern definition of a blue moon is a second full moon to occur during one calendar month. Since there are 13 full moons in 2023, one month has to have two -- and that month was August. The first full moon was on August 1 and named a Sturgeon Moon. The second reason that the last full moon was unusual was because it was a supermoon. A modern definition of supermoon is a moon that reaches its full phase when it is relatively close to Earth -- and so appears a bit larger and brighter than average. Pictured, the blue supermoon of 2023 was imaged hovering far behind a historic castle and lighthouse in Syracuse, Sicily, Italy.

VEGETAUX - Forêt magique

Malgré l'aspect irréel de ces champignons, ces derniers, des lépiotes élevées (Macrolepiota procera) ne donnent pas d’hallucinations. Ils jouent en revanche un rôle essentiel dans l'écosystème, en créant un réseau de racines souterraines et en produisant de la matière organique.

© AGORASTOS PAPATSANIS

AERONAUTIQUE - LES INVENTIONS QUI N'ONT JAMAIS VOLE - L’hélicoptère imaginaire de Gabriel de la Landelle

Souvent attribué à Clément Ader, le terme « aviation » revient en réalité à Guillaume Joseph Gabriel de la Landelle, à qui l'on doit aussi une superbe invention : l'hélicoptère. Il construira le prototype, censé fonctionner avec de la vapeur, en 1861. Il ne s'agit pas encore vraiment de celui que nous connaissons aujourd'hui mais plutôt d'un navire à hélice.

© Gabriel de la Landelle

ASTRONOMY - Cygnus: Bubble and Crescent

 2023 September 4

Cygnus: Bubble and Crescent
Credit & Copyright: Abdullah Al-Harbi

Explanation: As stars die, they create clouds. Two stellar death clouds of gas and dust can be found toward the high-flying constellation of the Swan (Cygnus) as they drift through rich star fields in the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy. Caught here within the telescopic field of view are the Soap Bubble (lower left) and the Crescent Nebula (upper right). Both were formed at the final phase in the life of a star. Also known as NGC 6888, the Crescent Nebula was shaped as its bright, central massive Wolf-Rayet star, WR 136, shed its outer envelope in a strong stellar wind. Burning through fuel at a prodigious rate, WR 136 is near the end of a short life that should finish in a spectacular supernova explosion. Discovered in 2013, the Soap Bubble Nebula is likely a planetary nebula, the final shroud of a lower mass, long-lived, Sun-like star destined to become a slowly cooling white dwarf. Both stellar nebulas are about 5,000 light-years distant, with the larger Crescent Nebula spanning about 25 light-years across. Within a few million years, both will likely have dispersed.

ASTRONOMY - Comet Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 Fragments

 2023 September 3

Comet Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 Fragments
Credit: NASA, ESA, H. Weaver (JHU / APL), M. Mutchler and Z. Levay (STScI)

Explanation: Periodic comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 has broken up at least twice. A cosmic souffle of ice and dust left over from the early solar system, this comet was first seen to split into several large pieces during the close-in part of its orbit in 1995. However, in the 2006 passage, it disintegrated into dozens of fragments that stretched several degrees across the sky. Since comets are relatively fragile, stresses from heat, gravity and outgassing, for example, could be responsible for their tendency to break up in such a spectacular fashion when they near the hot Sun. The Hubble Space Telescope recorded, in 2006, the featured sharp view of prolific Fragment B, itself trailing a multitude of smaller pieces, each with its own cometary coma and tail. The picture spans over 3,000 kilometers at the comet's distance of 32 million kilometers from planet Earth.

ASTRONOMY - NGC 7023: The Iris Nebula

 2023 September 2

NGC 7023: The Iris Nebula
Image Credit & Copyright: Lorand Fenyes

Explanation: These cosmic clouds have blossomed 1,300 light-years away in the fertile starfields of the constellation Cepheus. Called the Iris Nebula, NGC 7023 is not the only nebula to evoke the imagery of flowers. Still, this deep telescopic image shows off the Iris Nebula's range of colors and symmetries embedded in surrounding fields of interstellar dust. Within the Iris itself, dusty nebular material surrounds a hot, young star. The dominant color of the brighter reflection nebula is blue, characteristic of dust grains reflecting starlight. Central filaments of the reflection nebula glow with a faint reddish photoluminescence as some dust grains effectively convert the star's invisible ultraviolet radiation to visible red light. Infrared observations indicate that this nebula contains complex carbon molecules known as PAHs. The dusty blue petals of the Iris Nebula span about six light-years.

ASTRONOMY - The Crew-7 Nebula

 2023 August 31

The Crew-7 Nebula
Image Credit & Copyright: Michael Seeley

Explanation: Not the James Webb Space Telescope's latest view of a distant galactic nebula, this illuminated cloud of gas and dust dazzled early morning spacecoast skygazers on August 26. The snapshot was taken about 2 minutes after the launch of a Falcon 9 rocket on the SpaceX Crew-7 mission, the seventh commercial crew rotation mission for the International Space Station. It captures drifting plumes and exhaust from the separated first and second stage illuminated against the still dark skies. Near the center of the image, within the ragged blueish ring, are two bright points of light. The lower one is the second stage of the rocket carrying 4 humans to space in a Crew Dragon spacecraft. The bright point above is the Falcon 9 first stage booster orienting itself for the trip back to Landing Zone-1 at Cape Canaveral, planet Earth.