Astronomy - A NEW LUNAR CRATER: McGETCHIN

Explanation: A once-in-a-lifetime crater has appeared on the Moon! A comet or asteroid roughly the size of a humpback whale (approximately 10-20 meters, 30-60 feet) crashed into the Moon sometime between April and May of 2024. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), with its monthly monitoring of the Moon, captured today’s images of the lunar surface before and after the event. The resulting crater, named after Apollo-era lunar scientist McGetchin, is two soccer fields across. Craters of this size are only expected once every 132 years! Follow up thermal imaging revealed a large cold spot that surrounds the warm crater. Surface impacts will puff up the loose lunar sediment, or regolith, making it less dense and harder to retain heat. This event affected an area much larger than the visible crater, which will inform humanity’s understanding of surface impacts and the evolution of the Moon’s surface. It also reminds us all to be thankful for Earth's atmosphere.

Date:	September 23, 2026
Credit:	NASA/GSFC/Intuitive Machines
Authors & editors:	Keighley Rockcliffe, Robert Nemiroff, Jerry Bonnell, Cecilia Chirenti
A service of:	ASD at NASA / GSFC, NASA Science Activation & Michigan Tech. U.

Astronomy - HARVEST MOON WITH ERUPTING MOUNT ETNA

 

Explanation: Have you ever seen the full moon rise? This colorful image was photographed last weekend in Sicily, just outside the town of Nicosia, in Italy. It is a composite photograph that shows the Moon rising as the sky turns darker. Lower clouds are reflecting the colors of antitwilight, while ash and gas from Mount Etna are seen higher in the background. The pink band lower in the sky is called the Belt of Venus. During a full moon, the Moon and the Sun are in opposition in the sky: the moon rises as the sun sets. The lunar phase cycle lasts approximately 29.5 days (but the Moon takes approximately 27 days to orbit the Earth). In some cultures of the Northern Hemisphere, the September full moon is called the Harvest Moon. Does your culture have a special name for it? (A full moon by any other name would shine as bright.)

Date October 1, 2026

Credit & Copyright Dario Giannobile

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

A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,

NASA Science Activation & Michigan Tech. U.

Monde sous-marin - L'ESCARGOT DE MER MONNAIE CARAÏBE

Cet escargot de mer aux allures de léopard, communément appelé Monnaie caraïbe (Cyphoma gibbosum), a été photographié dans le golfe du Mexique, près de l'île de Grand Cayman (des îles Cayman). Sa belle couleur se trouve uniquement sur les parties molles de son corps ; la carapace, quant à elle, est blanche.

© Kacy Moody, DR

Astronomy - ARP 78: PECULIAR GALAXY IN ARIES

 

Arp 78: Peculiar Galaxy in Aries

Explanation: Peculiar spiral galaxy Arp 78 is found within the boundaries of the head strong constellation Aries. Some 100 million light-years beyond the stars and nebulae of our Milky Way galaxy, the island universe is an enormous 200,000 light-years across. Also known as NGC 772, it sports a prominent, outer spiral arm in this detailed cosmic portrait. Tracking along sweeping dust lanes and lined with young blue star clusters, Arp 78's overdeveloped spiral arm is pumped-up by galactic-scale gravitational tides. Interactions with its brightest companion galaxy, the more compact NGC 770 seen directly below the larger spiral, are likely responsible. Embedded in faint star streams revealed in the deep telescopic exposure, NGC 770's fuzzy, elliptical appearance contrasts nicely with spiky foreground Milky Way stars.

Date	September 30, 2026
Credit & Copyright	Robert Eder
Authors & editors:	Jerry Bonnell, Cecilia Chirenti, Robert Nemiroff, Keighley Rockcliffe
A service of:	ASD at NASA / GSFC, NASA Science Activation & Michigan Tech. U.

Astronomy - THE GHOSTS OF FIVE SUPERNOVAS

2026 September 24 

The Ghosts of Five Supernovas
Image Credit & Copyright: Stephane Vetter, Yann Sainty
Text: Cecilia Chirenti (NASA GSFC, UMCP, CRESST II)

Explanation: The ghosts of five supernovas haunt this extraordinary image. It was acquired at Oukaïmeden Observatory in Morocco with approximately 200 hours of observations and shows a large patch of the sky, equivalent to the area of one thousand full moons tiled together, in the constellation of Auriga (the Charioteer). From left to right, the five supernova remnants visible across the field are G181.1+9.5, G182.4+4.3, G179.0+2.6, G180.0−1.7 (Sh2-240, the Spaghetti Nebula), and G178.2−4.2. They are highlighted in the annotated image, together with open cluster M37 and the Tadpole Nebula. As each explosion expanded into space, it created a growing shell of shocked gas and delicate filamentary structures shown in red (hydrogen) and blue (oxygen), respectively. These ancient stellar explosions happened independently; they are at various distances up to about several thousands of light-years away from Earth and have estimated ages up to tens of thousands of years old. Early humans may have witnessed them as bright new stars, fading over weeks or months

Microphotographie - UNE BACTERIE CREEE PAR LES HOMMES

Ce qui ressemble ici à quelques pierres précieuses égarées sur le tapis bleu saphir d'un bijoutier n'est en réalité autre qu'une collection de bactéries. Des bactéries baptisées JCVI-syn3.0 obtenues par l'équipe du docteur Clyde A. Hutchinson, de l'Institut J. Craig Venter, à partir d'une bactérie répondant au doux nom de Mycoplasma mycoides. Des bactéries dont l'intérêt est qu'elles ne contiennent que des gènes nécessaires à la vie. Des bactéries minimales, comme les appellent les chercheurs. Et qui leur permettent de mieux étudier les fonctions essentielles des êtres vivants.

JCVI-syn3.0 est la bactérie de synthèse avec le plus petit génome jamais décrit pour un organisme indépendant. Selon les experts, « une étape importante dans la conception et la construction d'un organisme synthétique avec des résultats prévisibles ».

Les bactéries ont été balayées par un microscope électronique à balayage à émission de champ Tescan Mira3 et colorisées à la volée avec un système d'imagerie multidétecteur à quatre canaux développé par Point electronic Halle.

Le champ de vision est de 25 microns de large. 

© Stefan Diller

Monde sous-marin - TREPIED ARC-EN-CIEL

Les fonds marins recèlent des merveilles que Gabriel Jensen magnifie derrière son objectif macro et de puissants flashs sous-marins. Installé en Floride du Sud, le photographe plonge dans les profondeurs les plus obscures du Gulf Stream pour tirer ces portraits de créatures étranges et bigarrées, enveloppées d’un noir profond. Ce poisson est une larve de trépied arc-en-ciel, arborant de larges nageoires arrondies et colorées qui lui permettent d’imiter les méduses afin d’éviter les prédateurs. Chaque nuit, il prend part à la migration verticale nycthémérale, la plus grande migration animale quotidienne sur Terre. 

Gabriel Jensen/TwoPointO Media/A

Monde sous-marin - LE NAPOLEON (CHEILINUS UNDULATUS) UN POISSON MENACé

Plus de 2 mètres de long et 200 kilogrammes : voici les mensurations de rêve du napoléon (Cheilinus undulatus) qui font de lui le plus grand poisson corallien des eaux chaudes des océans Indien et Pacifique. Sa belle couleur bleu-vert rappelle celle des peintures corporelles maoris (l'adjectif maori permet d'ailleurs de le surnommer). Deux caractéristiques supplémentaires : les dessins sur son corps sont uniques, comme des empreintes digitales, et il peut changer de sexe au cours de sa vie.

© Molly Timmers, NOAA PIFSC Coral Reef Ecosystem Division

Astronomy - A DAYTIME ECLIPSE : MOON OCCULTS VENUS

 2026 September 15

A Daytime Eclipse: Moon Occults Venus
Image Credit & Copyright: Arnaud Mariat

Explanation: There was something behind the clouds. Upon close inspection, it was the Moon, which was hard to see yesterday around noon above the small village of Cessy, France. But soon, it was not only the Moon. As expected, a bright dot suddenly appeared from behind the Moon -- the planet Venus far in the distance. Captured in the single featured exposure, both appeared to show a crescent phase. The Moon's crescent was quite slight -- with only about 10 percent of its face illuminated by the Sun. In contrast, Venus's crescent was more full -- showing about 25 percent illumination. Venus appeared brighter because it is nearer the Sun and because its clouds are more reflective than the dark lunar surface. An occultation of Venus by the Moon is visible to only about 10 percent of the Earth, but in yesterday's event even most of that was experiencing daytime.

Astronomy - COMET NEOWISE RISING OVER THE ADRIATIC SEA

2026 September 13

Comet NEOWISE Rising over the Adriatic Sea
Video Credit & Copyright: Paolo Girotti

Explanation: This sight was worth getting out of bed early. Just over four years ago, Comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) rose before dawn to the delight of northern sky enthusiasts awake that early. Up before sunrise on July 8th, the featured photographer was able to capture in dramatic fashion one of the few comets visible to the unaided eye this century, an inner-Solar System intruder that has become known as the Great Comet of 2020. The resulting video detailed Comet NEOWISE from Italy rising over the Adriatic Sea. The featured time-lapse video combines over 240 images taken over 30 minutes. The comet was seen rising through a foreground of bright and undulating noctilucent clouds, and before a background of distant stars. Comet NEOWISE remained unexpectedly bright for over a month, with its ion and dust tails found to emanate from a nucleus spanning about five kilometers across.