Month: June 2020

Bright Planetary Nebula NGC 7027 from Hubble

What created this unusual planetary nebula? NGC 7027 is one of the smallest, brightest, and most unusually shaped planetary nebulas known. Given its expansion rate, NGC 7027 first started expanding, as visible from Earth, about 600 years ago. For much...

/ June 30, 2020

Dark Sky Reflections

When the lake calmed down, many wonders of the land and sky appeared twice. Perhaps the most dramatic from the dark sky was the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy, visible as a diagonal band. Toward the right were...

/ June 29, 2020

Europa and Jupiter from Voyager 1

What are those spots on Jupiter? Largest and furthest, just right of center, is the Great Red Spot — a huge storm system that has been raging on Jupiter possibly since Giovanni Cassini’s likely notation of it 355 years ago....

/ June 28, 2020

Eclipse under the ISS

The dark shadow of the New Moon reached out and touched planet Earth on June 21. A high definition camera outside the International Space Station captured its passing in this snapshot from low Earth orbit near the border of Kazakhstan...

/ June 27, 2020

Eclipse under the Bamboo

Want to watch a solar eclipse safely? Try looking down instead of up, though you might discover you have a plethora of images to choose from. For example, during the June 21st solar eclipse this confusing display appeared under a...

/ June 26, 2020

Eclipse Street, Hong Kong

On June 21 an annular solar eclipse came soon after the solstice and our fair planet’s northernmost sunset for 2020. At maximum eclipse, the New Moon in silhouette created a ring of fire visible along a narrow path at most...

/ June 25, 2020

Inverted City Beneath Clouds

How could that city be upside-down? The city, Chicago, was actually perfectly right-side up. The long shadows it projected onto nearby Lake Michigan near sunset, however, when seen in reflection, made the buildings appear inverted. This fascinating, puzzling, yet beautiful...

/ June 24, 2020

The X Ray Sky from eROSITA

What if you could see X-rays? The night sky would seem a strange and unfamiliar place. X-rays are about 1,000 times more energetic than visible light photons and are produced by violent explosions and high temperature astronomical environments. Instead of...

/ June 23, 2020

Moon Mountains Magnified during Ring of Fire Eclipse

What are those dark streaks in this composite image of yesterday’s 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...

/ June 22, 2020

Moon Occults Venus

It may look like Earthrise, but it’s actually Venus-set. Just after sunrise two days ago, both the Moon and Venus also rose. But then the Moon overtook Venus. In the featured image sequence centered on the Moon, Venus is shown...

/ June 21, 2020