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Unexpected Clouds Toward Andromeda ©

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M31, Andromeda

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Mimas

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The Statue of Liberty Nebula, NGC 3576 // Bluetooth1989

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The night sky, a statue, and a Lyrid meteor // meiko

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By @astronycc

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Milky Way over Australia by Babak Tafreshi

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Milky Way from near Waikoloa Village

Don McCrady on Flickr

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This image of Supernova 1987A, which resides in the Large Magellanic Cloud, was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. The three glowing rings are comprised of gas. The supernova is named so because its light finally appeared to us in Feb. 1987, even though the former massive star exploded around 165,000 BC! (via hubblesite.org)

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Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS © © ©

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2024 December 23

Christmas Tree Aurora Image Credit & Copyright: Jingyi Zhang

Explanation: It was December and the sky lit up like a Christmas tree. Shimmering, the vivid green, blue, and purple auroral colors that formed the tree-like apparition were caused by high atmospheric oxygen and nitrogen reacting to a burst of incoming electrons. Collisions caused the orbital electrons of atoms and molecules to jump into excited energy states and emit visible light when returning to their normal state. The featured image was captured in Djúpivogur, Iceland during the last month of 2023. Our Sun is currently in its most energetic phase of its 11-year cycle, with its high number of active regions and sunspots likely to last into next year. Of course, the Sun has been near solar maximum during this entire year, with its outbursts sometimes resulting in spectacular Earthly auroras.

�� Source: apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap241223.html

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2024 December 19

Messier 2 Image Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, G. Piotto et al.

Explanation: After the Crab Nebula, this giant star cluster is the second entry in 18th century astronomer Charles Messier’s famous list of things that are not comets. M2 is one of the largest globular star clusters now known to roam the halo of our Milky Way galaxy. Though Messier originally described it as a nebula without stars, this stunning Hubble image resolves stars across the cluster’s central 40 light-years. Its population of stars numbers close to 150,000, concentrated within a total diameter of around 175 light-years. About 55,000 light-years distant toward the constellation Aquarius, this ancient denizen of the Milky Way, also known as NGC 7089, is 13 billion years old. An extended stellar debris stream, a signature of past gravitational tidal disruption, was recently found to be associated with Messier 2.

∞ Source: apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap241219.html

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 Wispy curtains of IC 348 © JWST

JWST identifies three tiny free-floating brown dwarfs in the star cluster IC 348: objects too small to be stars but larger than most planets

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First image of Uranus and its 5 brightest moons taken by the James Webb Space Telescope.

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Webb captures the Rings of Giant Planets