2026 February 8
Explanation: An unusually active sunspot region is now crossing the Sun. The region, labelled AR 4366, is much larger than the Earth and has produced several powerful solar flares over the past ten days. In the featured image, the region is marked by large and dark sunspots toward the upper right of the Sun's disk. The image captured the Sun over a hill in Zacatecas, Mexico, 5 days ago. AR 4366 has become a candidate for the most active solar region in this entire 11-year solar cycle. Active solar regions are frequently associated with increased auroral activity on the Earth. Now reaching the edge, AR 4366 will begin facing away from the Earth during the coming week. It is not known, though, if the active region will survive long enough to reappear in about two weeks' time, as the Sun rotates.
2026 February 7
Explanation: Peering from the shadows, the Saturn-facing hemisphere of tantalizing inner moon Enceladus poses in this Cassini spacecraft image. North is up in the dramatic scene captured during November 2016 as Cassini's camera was pointed in a nearly sunward direction about 130,000 kilometers from the moon's bright crescent. In fact, the distant world reflects over 90 percent of the sunlight it receives, giving its surface about the same reflectivity as fresh snow. A mere 500 kilometers in diameter, Enceladus is a surprisingly active moon. Data and images collected during Cassini's flybys have revealed water vapor and ice grains spewing from south polar geysers and evidence of an ocean of liquid water hidden beneath the moon's icy crust.
2026 February 6
Explanation: Massive stars in our Milky Way Galaxy live spectacular lives. Collapsing from vast cosmic clouds, their nuclear furnaces ignite and create heavy elements in their cores. After only a few million years for the most massive stars, the enriched material is blasted back into interstellar space where star formation can begin anew. The expanding debris cloud known as Cassiopeia A is an example of this final phase of the stellar life cycle. Light from the supernova explosion that created this remnant would have been first seen in planet Earth's sky about 350 years ago, although it took that light 11,000 years to reach us. This sharp NIRCam image from the James Webb Space Telescope shows the still-hot filaments and knots in the supernova remnant. The whitish, smoke-like outer shell of the expanding blast wave is about 20 light-years across. A series of light echoes from the massive star's cataclysmic explosion are also identified in Webb's detailed images of the surrounding interstellar medium.
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 9 Miranda Revisited Image Credit: NASA , JPL , Voyager 2 ; Processing & License: Flickr: zelario12 ; Text: Keighley ...
