Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU
Monday, 1 June 2026
NASA’s Psyche spacecraft completed its close approach of Mars on May 15, coming within 2,864 miles (4,609 kilometers) of the planet’s surface. During the flyby, it took this image and others. This representative color image, captured by Psyche’s multispectral imager instrument, features the double-ring crater Huygens and the surrounding heavily cratered southern highlands.
Credit: Godfather_Astro (Threads/TikTok)
Tuesday, 2 June 2026
Sinus Iridum, or the “Bay of Rainbows,” is a striking lava-flooded plain along the Moon’s Mare Imbrium. Framed by the curved Montes Jura mountain range—the remains of an ancient impact crater—it is considered one of the Moon’s most beautiful and recognizable features.
When sunlight strikes the region just right around 10–11 days after new moon, the illuminated Montes Jura can appear as a bright arc at the lunar terminator—an effect nicknamed the “Golden Handle.”
Credit: contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2025), processed by ESA
Wednesday, 3 June 2026
This Copernicus Sentinel-2 image features the Batagaika Crater in Siberia. This is the biggest permafrost crater in the world, caused by melting permafrost and also known as a ‘mega-slump’.
From above, the collapsed terrain resembles a tadpole or a stingray, with near-symmetrical ‘fins’ and a ‘tail’ pointing northeast. The crater – seen in the lower-right-hand side of this image – is roughly 100 m deep and 1 km long but is growing at a rate of around 30 m a year. According to scientists, this rapid expansion began a few decades ago and is the result of deforestation and warmer temperatures. These conditions cause the ice in the crater to melt, then evaporate or drain away, leaving residual sediments that subside.
Credit: ESO/A. Boccaletti et al.
Thursday, 4 June 2026
This image, taken with the SPHERE instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), shows a disc of material around the young star AB Aurigae, where planets might be forming. Similar observations over four years show the disc rotating around the star. The image to the right has been processed to highlight certain features of the disc, such as spiral arms and radial shadows cast by dense clumps of material.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS; Processing: Gary Eason
Friday, 5 June 2026
NASA’s Juno spacecraft captured this color-enhanced view of Jupiter’s northern hemisphere during its 61st close flyby of the giant planet on May 12, 2024.
Citizen scientist Gary Eason made this image using raw data from the JunoCam instrument, applying digital processing techniques to enhance color and clarity. It provides a detailed view of chaotic clouds and cyclonic storms in an area known to scientists as a folded filamentary region. In these regions, the zonal jets that create the familiar banded patterns in Jupiter’s clouds break down, leading to turbulent patterns and cloud structures that rapidly evolve over the course of only a few days.
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