Credit: contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2026), processed by ESA
Monday, 13 April 2026
This Copernicus Sentinel-2 image captures an active lava flow on the Piton de la Fournaise volcano on Réunion Island.
Located in the western Indian Ocean, the island of Réunion is a French overseas department about 680 km east of Madagascar. Réunion's volcanic origins make its landscape particularly rugged in places and lushly vegetated in others. Cultivated land and cities, visible as grey-white clusters, are concentrated on the coastal lowlands. The capital and largest city is Saint-Denis, on the northern coast, mostly covered by clouds in the image.
The center of the island shelters three vast cirques, or calderas, created by huge collapses. Together they form the dormant shield volcano and the island's highest peak, Piton des Neiges (3069 m), which peeps out in brown from beneath the clouds near the center of the image.
Although Réunion hosts multiple volcanoes, only one is currently active: the Piton de la Fournaise shield volcano, one of the most active on Earth, which dominates the southeastern part of the island. This image, from 21 March 2026, shows a lava flow on its western flank, following an eruption that began in mid-February.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona
Tuesday, 14 April 2026
The linearity of the volcanic vent shown in this HiRISE image, in conjunction with evidence of lava flow from the vent, suggests control by combined volcano-tectonic processes. The details of this vent, obtained by HiRISE, should provide insight into volcano-tectonic processes along the Cerberus Fossae fissures in two ways.
The nature of both the volcanic products along this fissure and the geometries of the linear vent will permit comparison with similar, non-volcanic fissures at Cerberus. The results from these comparisons will provide insight into the orientation of the underlying dike system that may have controlled the ascent of water to the surface in the Cerberus region.
Credit: NASA
Wednesday, 15 April 2026
The Artemis II crew captured this view of Earth setting on April 6, 2026. As the astronauts flew over the Moon’s far side, the crew photographed and described terrain features, including impact craters, ancient lava flows, and surface cracks and ridges formed as the Moon slowly evolved. They also noted differences in color, brightness, and texture, which provide clues that help scientists understand the composition and history of the lunar surface.
The image is reminiscent of the iconic Earthrise image taken by astronaut Bill Anders 58 years earlier as the Apollo 8 crew flew around the Moon. The Apollo 8 mission was the first crewed spacecraft to circumnavigate the Moon.
Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, and the JWST MIRI team
Thursday, 16 April 2026
Discovered on January 13, 2026, in Chile’s Atacama Desert, Comet C/2026 A1 (MAPS) was part of the Kreutz family of “sungrazers”—comets that dive dangerously close to the Sun. The image was captured in infrared light by JWST's Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) on February 7, 2026, by a team led by Qicheng Zhang and was then processed by Melina Thévenot.
On April 4, it made its dramatic close approach, passing just 161,000 km (100,000 miles) above the Sun’s surface. As it neared, sunlight scattering briefly made it shine brighter—but the intense glare made it nearly impossible to spot. Then came the finale: about 6 hours before its closest approach, the comet reached a brightness of magnitude –0.6, and shortly after, it broke apart.
A spectacular (and short-lived) reminder of just how extreme our solar system can be.
Credit: ESA/Proba-3/ASPIICS, NASA/SDO/AIA
Friday, 17 April 2026
The Sun’s inner corona, the hottest part of our star's atmosphere, appears faint yellow in this image taken by the ASPIICS coronagraph aboard Proba-3. The image combines data from Proba-3’s ASPIICS coronagraph (inner solar corona in yellow) and from the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) aboard NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (solar disc in dark orange).
Seen at the 11 o'clock and 5 o'clock points are structures made of relatively cold plasma, known as prominences, although they are still around 10,000 degrees Celsius. Prominences can expand outwards from the Sun and ‘erupt’, breaking up and sending plasma in different directions. The eruptions were captured in the spectral line emitted by helium atoms, showing the solar atmosphere as a human eye would see it during a total eclipse through a yellow ASPIICS filter. The AIA image shows emission from another helium spectral line.
The remaining faint yellow glow of the corona is a result of the scattering of visible light from the Sun's surface on coronal electrons.
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