Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, M. Micheli (ESA NEOCC).
Monday, 9 March 2026
JWST successfully observed the extremely faint near-Earth asteroid 2024 YR4 (circled in green) on 18 February 2026 with its Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam).
By analyzing the asteroid’s position relative to background stars whose locations are very well known, astronomers were able to rule out any chance that the asteroid could impact Earth’s Moon on 22 December 2032.
Credit: NASA/Michael DeMocker.
Tuesday, 10 March 2026
The Moon appears red during a total lunar eclipse over New Orleans, home of NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility, on March 3, 2026. This “blood moon” occurs during a total lunar eclipse, as Earth lines up between the Moon and the Sun. When this happens, the only light that reaches the Moon’s surface is from the edges of Earth’s atmosphere. The air molecules from Earth’s atmosphere scatter out most of the blue light.
The remaining light reflects onto the Moon’s surface with a red glow, making the Moon appear red in the night sky. This is the same effect that turns the sky pink, orange, and red at sunrise and sunset.
Credit: ASI/NASA.
Wednesday, 11 March 2026
The Italian Space Agency’s LICIACube traveled alongside NASA’s DART to capture the spacecraft’s collision with Dimorphos. In this LICIACube image, taken moments after impact on Sept. 26, 2022, rocky debris can be seen fanning out from the smaller asteroid below its larger binary partner, Didymos.
New research reveals that when DART intentionally impacted the asteroid moonlet, it didn’t just change the motion of Dimorphos around its larger companion, Didymos; the crash also shifted the orbit of both asteroids around the Sun.
Credit: ESO/D. Ribeiro for the MPE GC team.
Thursday, 12 March 2026
This stunning snapshot, taken with ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), reveals the stars and gas surrounding an invisible giant — a supermassive black hole, located some 27,000 light-years away, at the heart of our Milky Way. This is a hugely dynamic environment, with stars and gas clouds hurtling by the black hole at dramatic speeds.
A team of astronomers at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Germany has detected a new gas cloud, named G2t, orbiting the supermassive black hole. Two gas clouds, G1 and G2, were already known, but their nature and origin were still being debated. In particular, it was unclear whether these clouds were hiding a star within or were composed purely of gas. However, the discovery of a third gas cloud now helps answer these questions.
It was revealed that G1, G2, and G2t are on nearly identical orbits, only slightly rotated relative to each other. This rules out the possibility that each cloud hides a star in its core, as the odds of different stars having almost identical orbits are slim. This discovery shows that, despite decades of monitoring our Milky Way centre, new unanswered curiosities still arise. But what could be more exciting than mysteries waiting to be solved?
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona.
Friday, 13 March 2026
Antoniadi Crater, Mars
In this image from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the dark branched features in the floor of Antoniadi Crater look like giant ferns, or fern casts. However, these ferns would be several miles in size and composed of rough, rocky material.
A more likely hypothesis is that this represents a channel network that now stands in inverted relief. The channels may have been lined or filled with indurated materials, making the channel fill more resistant to wind erosion than the surrounding materials. After probably billions of years of wind erosion, the resistant channels now stand relatively high. The material between the branched ridges exhibits a fracture pattern and color similar to deposits elsewhere on Mars known to be rich in hydrated minerals, such as clays.
The inverted channels have short, stubby branches characteristic of formation by groundwater sapping. Spring water seeps into the channels and undercuts overlying layers, which collapse, so the channels grow headward. These images tell the story of an ancient wet environment on Mars, where life could have been possible. Ancient Martian life, if it existed, would most likely consist of microorganisms rather than giant tree ferns.
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