Wednesday, May 13, 2026

Credit: contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2026), processed by ESA

Monday, 4 May 2026

Netherlands in Bloom

Captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission on 21 April 2026, this image shows a double bloom in the Netherlands: an array of vibrant colors in the tulip fields and the blue-greenish swirls of phytoplankton in the North Sea.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS

Tuesday, 5 May 2026

Mars' 'Mount Washburn'

Composed of 18 images, this natural-color mosaic shows a boulder field on "Mount Washburn" (named after a mountain in Wyoming) in Mars' Jezero Crater. The Perseverance science team nicknamed the light-toned boulder with dark speckles near the center of the mosaic "Atoko Point" (after a feature in the eastern Grand Canyon). The images were acquired by NASA's Perseverance Mars rover on May 27, 2024, the 1,162nd Martian day, or sol, of the mission.

Analysis by the rover's SuperCam and Mastcam-Z instruments indicates Atoko Point is composed of the mineral pyroxene, similar to some boulders the rover has encountered elsewhere in Jezero Crater. In terms of the size, shape, and arrangement of its mineral grains and crystals – and potentially its chemical composition – Atoko Point is different from any of the rocks the rover has encountered before.

Credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble, Hubble Legacy Archive

Wednesday, 6 May 2026

The Bubble Nebula

The Bubble Nebula, also known as NGC 7635, is a massive cosmic balloon located approximately 7,100 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cassiopeia. This seven-light-year-wide structure was created by the intense stellar winds of a super-hot O-type star, which is roughly 45 times more massive than our Sun.

As these winds blast outward at four million miles per hour, they push against the cold interstellar gas to form the glowing, translucent shell seen in Hubble’s iconic 26th-anniversary imagery. Interestingly, the central star appears off-center because it is pushing against a denser region of gas on one side, which resists the bubble's expansion and creates its unique, asymmetrical shape.

Credit: NASA

Thursday, 7 May 2026

Shadows Across Vavilov Crater

A close-up view taken by the Artemis II crew of Vavilov Crater on the rim of the older and larger Hertzsprung basin. The right portion of the image shows the transition from smooth material within an inner ring of mountains to more rugged terrain around the rim. Vavilov and other craters and their ejecta are accentuated by long shadows at the terminator, the boundary between lunar day and night. The image was captured with a handheld camera at a focal length of 400 mm, as the crew flew around the far side of the Moon.

Credit: Josh Dury Photography

Friday, 8 May 2026

Flower Moon, 2026

Photographer Josh Dury captured this gorgeous view of the Flower Moon on May 1, 2026, hanging above a cherry tree in full bloom and giving weight to the origin of the moon's name.

"May Day; the second quarter day. With rich smells and colours all around, it is yet another signal that solstice is not far away. Within the period of this lunar cycle - flowers come, flowers go. From vibrant blossom displays, to moonlight stretching across a carpet of bluebells."

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