A black-and-white composite image showing the four Galilean moons of Jupiter side by side against a black background, each shown in half-phase illumination. From left to right: Io, with a heavily marked and volcanic surface; Europa, with a smooth surface crossed by faint linear fractures; Ganymede, the largest, showing a mix of dark ancient terrain and brighter grooved regions with impact craters; and Callisto, heavily cratered across its entire surface.

🚨 New episode is out now!

In this episode, we visit each of the Galilean moons of Jupiter -- we recap the #mythology from prior episodes & share some fun #astronomical facts about each moon!

Listen here […]

[Original post on universeodon.com]

A sliver of earth visible through the window of Artemis II.

“Artemis II Looking Back at Earth -
A view of Earth taken by NASA astronaut and Artemis II commander Reid Wiseman from one of the Orion spacecraft's four main windows after completing the translunar injection burn on April 2, 2026.”

#space #nasa #artemis […]

[Original post on mstdn.social]

Fotografía del disco solar completo en luz blanca tomada el 2 de julio de 2024 desde Madrid. El Sol aparece como una esfera dorado-amarillenta sobre fondo negro, con un suave oscurecimiento hacia el limbo que da sensación tridimensional. Se distinguen al menos dos grupos de manchas solares: uno grande y complejo situado ligeramente al sur del centro del disco, con múltiples umbras oscuras y poros visibles, y varios grupos menores dispersos cerca del limbo norte. Una mancha aislada es visible en el cuadrante suroeste. La textura de la fotosfera muestra un grano fino sutil, límite de la resolución alcanzable con este equipo. Captura: Olympus E-M1 Mark III + M.Zuiko 100-400mm a 400mm + teleconvertidor MC-14 (560mm f/9, equivalente a 1120mm) sobre montura ecuatorial Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer GTi, con filtro solar de seguridad. Vídeo MOV 4K (3840×2160) a 30fps, 95 Mbps, 1 minuto de captura (~1800 frames). Procesado: preprocesado en PIPP (centrado de disco, crop, selección del canal verde, descarte del 25% de peores frames), apilado por lucky imaging en AutoStakkert!4 (modo Surface, ~104 puntos de alineación, mejor 25% de frames), sharpening mediante deconvolución Lucy-Richardson y unsharp masking adaptativo en ImPPG, y acabado final con colorización y ajuste de contraste en PixInsight usando el módulo SolarToolbox.

He reprocesado mi imagen del sol de primeros de julio de 2024 y ahora me gusta ams y me he deshecho de la banda horrorosa de alrededor, creo que para mi promera y unica vez de fotografía solar y aprender a darle otra vuelta estoy muy contento :)

#Astrophotography […]

[Original post on masto.es]

An image taken from the Orion spacecraft, showing part of the vehicle's structure on the left against a black background. To the right, Earth appears as a thin crescent, mostly in shadow with a bright blue-white illuminated sliver visible.

Our pale blue dot as seen from the Artemis II mission

📷 :www.nasa.gov/blogs/missions/2026/04/0...

#artemis #Artemis2 #Artemis_II #Orion #Astrophotography #space #science #astronomy #Earth #astroDon #NASA

Original post on mastodon.social

It's fun how, even as a pretty senior person, you end up in research projects with PhD candidates or postdocs who assume you an expert while you panicky try to read up on what you are working on and at least understand the basics enough to be able to follow and usefully contribute.

In other […]

A NASA illustration showing the Juno spacecraft and the Jovian system against a black background. A blue curved line traces Juno's orbital path as it arcs past Jupiter and its moons. From left to right, three of Jupiter's Galilean moons are shown in increasing size: Ganymede (gray and cratered), Europa (smooth and icy with a faint bluish tint), and Io (colorful with orange, yellow, and brown volcanic surface markings). Jupiter dominates the right side of the image, showing its characteristic tan and orange banded atmosphere and the Great Red Spot. The Juno spacecraft, with its three solar panel arrays, is visible in the upper center following its trajectory.

There's really only one way to come back from #hiatus / getting lost in the woods with Chiron

... coming Saturday!

📷 :www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/pia25966-jovian-f...

#Astrophotography #astronomy #astrodon #podcast #Jupiter #moons #return

Original post on mastodon.social

"Given that the predictive power of science fiction is well established, we suggest that these locations might be prioritised by searches for extrasolar biospheres."

What an excellent paper by Elizabeth R Stanway from Warwick, never thoughts I'd see such an amazing collaboration between […]

Original post on mastodon.social

Back to being part of the NewAthena community science working groups: www.the-athena-x-ray-observatory.eu/en/athena-community

🎉 🎉 🎉
Feels good to be back (I could not be part pf the official community for a bit due to work), Athena was/is such an integral part of who I am as a scientist […]

From source in toot: This is an X-ray and optical image of supernova remnant RCW 86, which appears to be two slightly mismatched halves of a broken rough circle. The colors in the image are predominantly blue and gold with a spot of bright purple in the lower right corner. The texture of RCW 86 resembles that of nebulous and patchy fingers, and swirls of gas. This image combines data from four different telescopes to create a multi-wavelength view of the remains of an exploded star. X-ray images from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the ESA's XMM-Newton are combined to form the blue and gold colors in the image. The X-rays show the interstellar gas that has been heated to millions of degrees by the passage of the shock wave from the supernova. Additional X-ray data from NASA's IXPE are shown in purple, confined to a small circle in the lower right where IXPE observed. A faint starfield, a sprinkling of white stars across the image, from NSF's NOIRlab is also included.

This is RCW 86 -- a supernova remnant. In 185 AD Chinese astronomers recorded evidence of the supernova with the presence of a 'guest star'!

📷 / more info: https://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2026/rcw86/

#astronomy #astrodon #space #science #Chandra #NASA #astrophotography #ESA

An annotated photo of a black cat sitting on a dark black sofa, with a gray blanket dramatically draped and bunched around it. Red arrows and white labels overlay the image, comparing the scene to a black hole: the black sofa cushion is labeled "Outer Space," the cat is labeled "Singularity," the edge of the sofa cushion is labeled "Event Horizon," and the rumpled gray blanket being pulled toward the cat is labeled "Matter being pulled by the singularity's gravity." The cat stares directly into the camera with bright yellow-green eyes.

seems right to me...

📷 :www.reddit.com/r/cats/comments/1rvf8l7/...
#Humor #astrodon #astronomy #space #cat #cats #CatsOfMastodon #BlackHole #science #space #cute

A series of (presumably) Twitter posts by Hannalore Gerling-Dunsmore @JoyOfPhysics Me, as an undergrad, just starting upper level courses: THERE IS A PROFOUNDLY BEAUTIFUL REASON FOR ALL LAWS OF PHYSICS Me, as a perpetual graduate student: Light goes that fast because it wants to. Me now: light redshifts because it gets tired and blueshifts because it goes weeeeeeeeee going down the gravitational potential Me, now: stellar evolution is when the star eats all its favorite snacks and has to move on to progressively worse snacks Eventually it runs out of snacks and blows itself up, which is something we can all relate to

Folks, this is a perfectly accurate description of getting a PhD studying space.

#space #academicchatter #phd #astrophysics #Astronomy #Astrodon

From source in toot: Two observations of Saturn are split diagonally, with Webb’s infrared observations at bottom left and Hubble’s visible at top right. In infrared, Saturn has horizontal bands, with bands northern bands and bands toward the south poles appearing darker orange and lightening to tan as they approach the equator. The south pole glows a greenish-grey. In visible, Saturn’s horizontal bands appear pale yellow, with some bands towards the north pole having a light blue hue. In both, the rings are bright white, glowing slightly less in the Hubble image.

#JWST (left) & #Hubble (right) image mashup of #Saturn 🤩 🪐

📷 :https://flic.kr/p/2s3WExM

#planet #astrophotography #space #science #astrodon #astronomy #saturn #SolarSystem #NASA #ESA

Original post on mastodon.social

Oh my heart ... There are still papers on ArXiv that list K. as co-author. I don't know what I'm more afraid of: seeing one of the papers and being faced with the fact that my friend and mentor is gone or realizing at some point that this was it, the last paper she contributed to got published […]

Skywarden just got a framing assistant. Open any object, get a rotatable, draggable FOV overlay on a real sky survey image - sized to your exact optics and sensor.

Auto-rotates to best fit the object into your frame. For larger targets, it calculates the […]

[Original post on mastodon.social]

Schwarz-weiß Cartoon eines Sternsystems mit einem schwarzen Loch und einem normal Stern in der Mitte; sie sehen gleich aus, außer dass der Komet keinen Schweif hat.

Was würde passieren, wenn die Sonne plötzlich zu einem Schwarzen Loch werden würde?

Rein von der Himmelsmechanik her gesehen: gar nichts. Die ganzen Planeten, Zwergplaneten (wie Pluto), Asteroiden und Kometen unseres Sonnensystems würden auf ihren Bahnen […]

[Original post on mastodon.social]

Composite showing two red dots, representing the exoplanets WISPIT 2b and 2c, embedded in the white ellipses of scattered light.

Delighted to see our WISPIT team announce the second directly imaged exoplanet from the WISPIT 2 system! Led by Chloe Lawlor (Galway) with Richelle van Capelleveen (Leiden), we also have a spectrum of the inner, more massive planet, showing carbon monoxide features. ☄ #exoplanet #astrodon

The Leo Triplet - M65, M66, and the Hamburger Galaxy NGC 3628 - 35 million light-years away in Leo. Three spiral galaxies, gravitationally bound, mutually distorted.

adfr.io/astro/202603...

#astrodon #astrophotography #astrophotographer #astrophoto #deepsky #galaxies #galaxy

The Leo Triplet - three spiral galaxies 35 million light-years away in Leo.

NGC 3628 appears perfectly edge-on, its dust lane and warped disk shaped by billions of years of tidal interaction. M65 and M66 complete the trio with asymmetric arms and disrupted […]

[Original post on mastodon.social]

A Hubble Space Telescope image of the Crab Nebula (M1), the remnant of a supernova explosion set against a black background. The nebula fills most of the frame in a roughly oval mosaic of tiled exposures. Intricate filaments of glowing gas in vivid orange, red, and yellow lace across the outer regions, while the interior glows in diffuse blue and white. Purple and violet hues blend throughout. It has a web-like appearance. Several bright foreground stars with diffraction spikes are visible scattered around the field.

Never enough Crab Nebula!!

In fact, it even won #GoldStar on our episode on the #constellation #Taurus -- listen here: starrytimepodcast.podbean.com/e/taurus-the-bull/

#astronomy #astrophotography #space #science #Taurus #Zodiac #Constellations […]

[Original post on universeodon.com]

A historic astronomical photograph of the Ring Nebula (M57) taken in 1885 by French astronomers Paul and Prosper Henry. The image is rendered in sepia tones on a dark background, showing the nebula as a large glowing oval ring with a darker hollow center and a brighter, diffuse outer halo — the shell of gas expelled by a dying star. Several faint background stars and small fuzzy objects are scattered across the dark field.

#Astrophotography (albumen silver print from glass negative ) of Ring Nebula from... 1885!

The ring nebula is located in the #constellation Lyra! You can learn more about the cool #astronomy in the constellation, #Lyra here […]

[Original post on universeodon.com]