NasaBot's Space

Stereo Mars near Opposition [apod.nasa.gov]

Mars looks sharp in these two rooftop telescope views captured in late November from Singapore, planet Earth.

At the time, Mars was about 82 million kilometers from Singapore and approaching its opposition, opposite the Sun in planet Earth's sky on December 8.

Olympus Mons, largest of the volcanoes in the Tharsis Montes region (and largest known volcano in the Solar System), is near Mars' western limb.

In both the images it's the whitish donut-shape at the upper right.

The dark area visible near center is the Terra Sirenum region while the long dark peninsula closest to the planet's eastern limb is Sinus Gomer.

Near its tip is Gale crater, the Curiosity rover's landing site in 2012.

Above Sinus Gomer, white spots are other volcanoes in the Elysium region.

At top of the planet is the north polar cap covered with ice and clouds.

Taken about two days apart, these images of the same martian hemisphere form a stereo pair.

Look at the center of the frame and cross your eyes until the separate images come together to see the Red Planet in 3D.

Merging Galaxy Pair IIZw096 [apod.nasa.gov]

Bright at infrared wavelengths, this merging galaxy pair is some 500 million light-years away toward the constellation Delphinus.

The cosmic mashup is seen against a background of even more distant galaxies, and occasional spiky foreground stars.

But the galaxy merger itself spans about 100,000 light-years in this deep James Webb Space Telescope image.

The image data is from Webb's Near-InfraRed Camera (NIRCam) and Mid-InfraRed Instrument (MIRI).

Their combined, sharp infrared view follows galactic scale restructuring in the dusty merger's wild jumble of intense star forming regions and distorted spiral arms

The Light, the Dark, and the Dusty [apod.nasa.gov]

This colorful skyscape spans about four full moons across nebula rich starfields along the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy in the royal northern constellation Cepheus.

Near the edge of the region's massive molecular cloud some 2,400 light-years away, bright reddish emission region Sharpless (Sh) 155 is at the center of the frame, also known as the Cave Nebula.

About 10 light-years across the cosmic cave's bright walls of gas are ionized by ultraviolet light from the hot young stars around it.

Dusty reflection nebulae, like vdB 155 to the right, and dense obscuring clouds of dust also abound on the interstellar canvas.

Astronomical explorations have revealed other dramatic signs of star formation, including the bright reddish fleck of Herbig-Haro (HH) 168.

Below and right of center, the Herbig-Haro object emission is generated by energetic jets from a newborn star.

The Gum Nebula Supernova Remnant [apod.nasa.gov]

Because the Gum Nebula is the closest supernova remnant, it is actually hard to see.

Spanning 40 degrees across the sky, the nebula appears so large and faint that it is easily lost in the din of a bright and complex background.

The Gum Nebula is highlighted nicely in red emission toward the right of the featured wide-angle, single-image photograph taken in late May.

Also visible in the frame are the Atacama Desert in Chile in the foreground, the Carina Nebula in the plane of our Milky Way galaxy running diagonally down from the upper left, and the neighboring Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) galaxy.

The Gum Nebula is so close that we are much nearer the front edge than the back edge, each measuring 450 and 1500 light years respectively.

The complicated nebula lies in the direction of the constellations of Puppis and Vela.

Oddly, much remains unknown about the Gum Nebula, including the timing and even number of supernova explosions that formed it.

Leonid Meteors Through Orion [apod.nasa.gov]

Where will the next meteor appear?

Even during a meteor shower, it is practically impossible to know.

Therefore, a good way to enjoy a meteor shower is to find a place where you can sit comfortably and monitor a great expanse of dark sky.

And it may be satisfying to share this experience with a friend.

The meteor shower depicted was the 2022 Leonids which peaked earlier this month, and the view is from Hainan, China looking out over the South China Sea.

Meteor streaks captured over a few hours were isolated and added to a foreground image recorded earlier.

From this place and time, Leonid meteors that trace back to the constellation of Leo were seen streaking across other constellations including Orion.

The bright red planet Mars appears near the top of the image.

Bonding over their love of astronomy, the two pictured meteor enthusiasts, shown celebrating their common birthday this month, are now married.

Lynds Dark Nebula 1251 [apod.nasa.gov]

Stars are forming in Lynds Dark Nebula (LDN) 1251.

About 1,000 light-years away and drifting above the plane of our Milky Way galaxy, the dusty molecular cloud is part of a complex of dark nebulae mapped toward the Cepheus flare region.

Across the spectrum, astronomical explorations of the obscuring interstellar clouds reveal energetic shocks and outflows associated with newborn stars, including the telltale reddish glow from scattered Herbig-Haro objects hiding in the image.

Distant background galaxies also lurk on the scene, almost buried behind the dusty expanse.

This alluring view spans over four full moons on the sky, or 35 light-years at the estimated distance of LDN 1251.

Airglow Ripples over Tibet [apod.nasa.gov]

Why would the sky look like a giant target?

Airglow.

Following a giant thunderstorm over Bangladesh in late April, giant circular ripples of glowing air appeared over Tibet, China, as pictured here.

The unusual pattern is created by atmospheric gravity waves, waves of alternating air pressure that can grow with height as the air thins, in this case about 90-kilometers up.

Unlike auroras powered by collisions with energetic charged particles and seen at high latitudes, airglow is due to chemiluminescence, the production of light in a chemical reaction.

More typically seen near the horizon, airglow keeps the night sky from ever being completely dark.

Eclipse in the City [apod.nasa.gov]

A darker Moon sets over Manhattan in this night skyscape.

The 16 frame composite was assembled from consecutive exposures recorded during the November 8 total lunar eclipse.

In the timelapse sequence stars leave short trails above the urban skyline, while the Moon remains immersed in Earth's shadow.

But the International Space Station was just emerging from the shadow into the sunlit portion of its low Earth orbit.

As seen from New York City, the visible streak of this ISS flyover starts near a star in Taurus and tracks right to left, through the belt of Orion and over Sirius, alpha star of Canis Major.

Gaps along the bright trail of the fast moving orbital outpost (and an aircraft flying closer to the horizon) mark the time between individual exposures in the sequence.

The trail of bright planet Mars is at the top of the frame.

Pleiades star cluster trails are high over the eclipsed Moon and Empire State Building.

Lunar Eclipse of November 2022: Notable Submissions to APOD Love Eclipses? (US): Apply to become a NASA Partner Eclipse Ambassador

Blood Moon, Ice Giant [apod.nasa.gov]

On November 8 the Full Moon turned blood red as it slid through Earth's shadow in a beautiful total lunar eclipse.

During totality it also passed in front of, or occulted, outer planet Uranus for eclipse viewers located in parts of northern America and Asia.

For a close-up and wider view these two images were taken just before the occultation began, captured with different telescopes and cameras from the same roof top in Shanghai, China.

Normally very faint compared to a Full Moon, the tiny, pale, greenish disk of the distant ice giant is just to the left of the Moon's edge and about to disappear behind the darkened, red lunar limb.

Though only visible from certain locations across planet Earth, lunar occultations of planets are fairly common.

But for this rare "lunar eclipse occultation" to take place, at the time of the total eclipse the outer planet had to be both at opposition and very near the ecliptic plane to fall in line with Sun, Earth, and Moon.

Lunar Eclipse of November 2022: Notable Submissions to APOD Love Eclipses? (US): Apply to become a NASA Partner Eclipse Ambassador

The Asymmetric Nebula Surrounding Wolf-Rayet Star 18 [apod.nasa.gov]

Why does the nebula around the star WR-18 shine brighter on one side?

Also known as NGC 3199, this active star and its surrounding nebula lie about 12,000 light-years away toward the nautical southern constellation of Carina.

The featured deep image has been highly processed to bring out filamentary details of the glowing gas in the bubble-shaped nebula.

The nebula is about 75 light-years across.

Near the nebula's center is a Wolf-Rayet star, WR-18, which is a massive, hot, short-lived star that generates an intense and complex stellar wind.

In fact, Wolf-Rayet stars are known to create nebulas with interesting shapes as their powerful winds sweep up surrounding interstellar material.

In this case, the bright right edge was initially thought to indicate that a bow shock was being produced as the star plowed through a uniform medium, like a boat through water.

Recent measurements and analyses, however, have shown the star is not moving quickly toward the bright edge.

A more likely explanation has emerged that the material surrounding the star is not uniform, but clumped and denser near the bright edge.