Our solar system is a wonder, whether we look back at Earth from a distance, examine planets with telescopes, or simply gaze at the night sky for meteors. Beyond that, the wider universe holds the keys to understanding where our own worlds originated, with distant exoplanets and galaxies shedding light on the early formation processes.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU.
Monday, 25 August 2025
That bright speck isn't a star – it's Earth! And the dot above it is the Moon. The Psyche mission captured this image from 290 million kilometers away while calibrating its cameras. The spacecraft is en route to a metal-rich asteroid between Mars and Jupiter.
Credit: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI.
Tuesday, 26 August 2025
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has now captured images of all four gas giants in our solar system: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. These images are the first of their kind, and they offer a new and unprecedented view of these distant worlds.
The JWST's image of Jupiter is particularly stunning. The telescope's infrared vision allows us to see through Jupiter's thick clouds, revealing the planet's swirling atmosphere and its Great Red Spot. The planet's haze and auroras steal the show.
The JWST's images of Saturn are also remarkable. The telescope's sharp vision allows us to see the planet's rings in great detail. They appear as vibrant, thick bands glowing with a snowy hue, effortlessly upstaging the muted Saturn lurking in the background. The image also shows Saturn's atmosphere, which is a swirling mass of clouds and storms.
Next, we have the images of Uranus and Neptune. The telescope's infrared vision allows us to see these planets' atmospheres in great detail. We can see the clouds and storms that swirl around these planets, as well as the different colors of their atmospheres. Uranus and Neptune are the least explored planets in the solar system, with Voyager 2 being the only spacecraft to have visited them in the 1980s.
Credit: ESO/R. F. van Capelleveen et al.
Wednesday, 27 August 2025
What appears to be a ripple in space is actually a newborn planet eating its way through its dusty cradle as it orbits its host star. This image, taken with ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile, is the first clear detection of a baby planet in a disc with multiple rings.
These so-called protoplanetary discs surround young stars and appear as disc-shaped structures of gas and dust, often with rings, such as the one in this image. They are the birthplace of planets, and the rings are thought to indicate the presence of (hungry) planets in the disc. Initially, little particles in the spinning disc begin to accumulate and grow as gravity takes over, stealing more material from the native disc until they evolve into embryo planets.
The clear detection of the planet WISPIT 2b in this image represents a significant step forward in our understanding of how planets form. It’s about 5 times the mass of Jupiter, and its host star is a younger version of our Sun. It also reinforces the idea that gaps can be created by newly formed planets — a prediction only made in theory that has now been verified observationally.
Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical/IR: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI (HST and JWST); Radio: NSF/NRAO/VLA; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/J. Schmidt and N. Wolk.
Thursday, 28 August 2025
NGC 1068 is a relatively nearby spiral galaxy containing a black hole at its center that is twice as massive as the Milky Way’s. Chandra shows a million-mile-per-hour wind is being driven from NGC 1068’s black hole and lighting up the center of the galaxy in X-rays.
X-rays from Chandra (blue), radio data from NSF’s VLA (pink), and optical data from Hubble and Webb (yellow, grey, and gold).
Credit: Josh Dury Photo-Media.
Friday, 29 August 2025
The annual Perseid meteor shower can be a magical display of falling "stars." This year's show, unfortunately, was hampered by a waning gibbous moon, making it difficult to track the meteors even under dark skies. However, astrophotographer Josh Dury accepted the challenge with this gorgeous time-lapse over Durdle Door, a natural limestone arch on the coast in Dorset, England. There are fourteen meteors captured over a seven-hour integration. The galactic core glows above the horizon as the Milky Way stretches up over the night sky.
Note the glow worm near the bottom of the picture!
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