Wednesday, May 27, 2026

Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

Monday, 18 May 2026

Moon-Venus Conjunction

The Moon and Venus, center, are seen in conjunction above the Washington Monument, Monday, May 18, 2026, as viewed from the Mary W. Jackson NASA Headquarters Building in Washington.

The Moon and Venus look close together because they line up from our point of view on Earth. In reality, they are separated by millions of miles in space.

Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA; Text: ESA

Tuesday, 19 May 2026

A Galactic Hybrid

This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image showcases the remarkable galaxy UGC 12591. UGC 12591 sits somewhere between a lenticular and a spiral. It lies just under 400 million light-years away from us in the westernmost region of the Pisces–Perseus Supercluster, a long chain of galaxy clusters that stretches out for hundreds of millions of light-years — one of the largest known structures in the cosmos.

The galaxy itself is also extraordinary: it is incredibly massive. The galaxy and its halo together contain several hundred billion times the mass of the sun, four times the mass of the Milky Way. It also whirls around extremely quickly, rotating at speeds of up to 1.8 million kilometers per hour.

Observations with Hubble are helping astronomers determine the mass of UGC 12591 and whether the galaxy formed and grew slowly over time or grew unusually massive by colliding and merging with another large galaxy at some point in its past.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Wednesday, 20 May 2026

Curiosity Shakes Loose a Pesky Rock

After NASA’s Curiosity #Mars rover drilled a sample from this rock on April 25, 2026, it withdrew its robotic arm and pulled the entire rock off the surface with it. Engineers spent several days repositioning the arm and vibrating the drill to try to loosen the rock. When it finally detached on May 1, the rock broke into pieces.

This close-up image of the rock was produced by Curiosity’s Mast Camera, or Mastcam, on May 6. Nicknamed “Atacama,” the rock is estimated to be 1.5 feet in diameter at its base and 6 inches thick. It would weigh roughly 28.6 pounds on Earth (and about a third of that on Mars). The circular hole produced by Curiosity’s drill is visible in the rock.

Credit: NASA/ESA – S. Adenot

Thursday, 21 May 2026

A Lyrid From Orbit

The Expedition 74 crew on the International Space Station turned into meteor chasers as Earth passed through a cloud of dust and small debris left behind by comet Thatcher in 1861.

ESA astronaut Sophie Adenot set up a camera to automatically record thousands of images in the hope of catching a shooting star, an elusive event that often lasts only a fraction of a second.

“In scientific terms, a shooting star is actually a meteor: a tiny fragment of rock or dust from space that disintegrates as it enters Earth’s atmosphere, after traveling astronomical distances. For those with their heads full of dreams, seeing a shooting star often feels like the perfect moment to make a wish… just in case!” says Sophie.

Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, A. Leroy

Friday, 22 May 2026

Messier 77 from JWST

Messier 77, also known as the Squid Galaxy, was imaged by the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope in the mid-infrared. The six orange lines emanating from the center of the image are an effect of the telescope's optics, while the bright region at the center of the galaxy marks where material is falling around a supermassive black hole.

News

Related News

VIEW ALL
Featured Image
Jul 8, 2026
Planetary Picture of the Day - Week of June 29, 2026
From a marathon milestone on Mars to a sky filled with satellite trails above Chile’s deserts, this week’s collection highlights humanity’s growing exploration of both Earth and space. The images also showcase some of the solar system’s most unusual worlds, including the rubble-pile asteroid Itokawa, the sponge-like moon Hyperion, and the striking Richat Structure—a geologic wonder so distinctive it can be spotted from orbit. #PPOD
Featured Image
Jul 1, 2026
Planetary Picture of the Day - Week of June 22, 2026
From asteroid fragments drifting through space to icy moons orbiting distant planets, this collection highlights the dynamic and ever-changing nature of our solar system. The images capture everything from a beautiful planetary conjunction in Earth’s skies to active wind-shaped landscapes on Mars, revealing how impacts, gravity, and weather continue to shape worlds both near and far. #PPOD
Featured Image
Jun 24, 2026
Planetary Picture of the Day - Week of June 15, 2026
This collection showcases a solar system in motion, from Saturn’s moons playing tricks on perspective and a comet’s dramatic collision with Jupiter to winds swirling across Earth’s southern oceans and ancient landscapes on Mars. Together, these images reveal the forces that shape worlds over time—erosion, impacts, atmospheric currents, and planetary evolution—while capturing moments of beauty, violence, and wonder across the cosmos. #PPOD
Featured Image
Jun 16, 2026
Planetary Picture of the Day - Week of June 8, 2026
Ancient Martian landscapes, glowing auroras, and stellar nurseries come together in this week’s PPOD collection, highlighting worlds and phenomena shaped by billions of years of cosmic history. From a rare meteorite born in the earliest days of the solar system to colorful nebulae where new stars are forming today, these images offer a remarkable look at both our origins and the ongoing evolution of the universe. #PPOD
Featured Image
Jun 10, 2026
Planetary Picture of the Day - Week of June 1, 2026
Our solar system contains dynamic worlds near and far, and our cameras capture amazing images of them every day, from a close-up flyby of Mars and the Moon’s beautiful Bay of Rainbows to the swirling storms of Jupiter. We also explore landscapes shaped by change, including Siberia’s expanding Batagaika mega-slump and a young star’s planet-forming disk, offering a glimpse of both Earth’s evolving surface and the processes that build new worlds. #PPOD
Featured Image
Jun 3, 2026
Planetary Picture of the Day - Week of May 25, 2026
This week's images journeyed from the shimmering Crystal Ball Nebula to the icy south pole of Mars, highlighting beauty and change across our solar system and beyond. The collection also captured stars being born in a ghostly nebula, the dramatic rays of Mercury’s Hokusai Crater, and a distant galaxy caught in transition—offering a striking look at cosmic evolution across space and time. #PPOD
Jul 8, 2026
Planetary Picture of the Day - Week of June 29, 2026
From a marathon milestone on Mars to a sky filled with satellite trails above Chile’s deserts, this week’s collection highlights humanity’s growing exploration of both Earth and space. The images also showcase some of the solar system’s most unusual worlds, including the rubble-pile asteroid Itokawa, the sponge-like moon Hyperion, and the striking Richat Structure—a geologic wonder so distinctive it can be spotted from orbit.
#PPOD
Jul 1, 2026
Planetary Picture of the Day - Week of June 22, 2026
From asteroid fragments drifting through space to icy moons orbiting distant planets, this collection highlights the dynamic and ever-changing nature of our solar system. The images capture everything from a beautiful planetary conjunction in Earth’s skies to active wind-shaped landscapes on Mars, revealing how impacts, gravity, and weather continue to shape worlds both near and far.
#PPOD
Jun 24, 2026
Planetary Picture of the Day - Week of June 15, 2026
This collection showcases a solar system in motion, from Saturn’s moons playing tricks on perspective and a comet’s dramatic collision with Jupiter to winds swirling across Earth’s southern oceans and ancient landscapes on Mars. Together, these images reveal the forces that shape worlds over time—erosion, impacts, atmospheric currents, and planetary evolution—while capturing moments of beauty, violence, and wonder across the cosmos.
#PPOD
Jun 16, 2026
Planetary Picture of the Day - Week of June 8, 2026
Ancient Martian landscapes, glowing auroras, and stellar nurseries come together in this week’s PPOD collection, highlighting worlds and phenomena shaped by billions of years of cosmic history. From a rare meteorite born in the earliest days of the solar system to colorful nebulae where new stars are forming today, these images offer a remarkable look at both our origins and the ongoing evolution of the universe.
#PPOD
Jun 10, 2026
Planetary Picture of the Day - Week of June 1, 2026
Our solar system contains dynamic worlds near and far, and our cameras capture amazing images of them every day, from a close-up flyby of Mars and the Moon’s beautiful Bay of Rainbows to the swirling storms of Jupiter. We also explore landscapes shaped by change, including Siberia’s expanding Batagaika mega-slump and a young star’s planet-forming disk, offering a glimpse of both Earth’s evolving surface and the processes that build new worlds.
#PPOD
Jun 3, 2026
Planetary Picture of the Day - Week of May 25, 2026
This week's images journeyed from the shimmering Crystal Ball Nebula to the icy south pole of Mars, highlighting beauty and change across our solar system and beyond. The collection also captured stars being born in a ghostly nebula, the dramatic rays of Mercury’s Hokusai Crater, and a distant galaxy caught in transition—offering a striking look at cosmic evolution across space and time.
#PPOD
VIEW ALL
Research

Related Projects

VIEW ALL
Featured Image
SkyMapper • SETI • Citizen Science • Astronomy
SkyMapper: Expanding Access to Real-time Astronomy Through a Global Astronomical Network
SkyMapper and the SETI Institute are connecting educators, students and the public to live astronomical observations through a distributed astronomical network. #SkyMapper #SETI #Citizen Science #Astronomy
Featured Image
VPL
Virtual Planetary Laboratory
How can we best assess whether an exoplanet supports life? #VPL
Featured Image
Discovery and Futures Lab
Discovery and Futures Lab
What happens if life beyond Earth is discovered? The Discovery and Futures Lab at the SETI Institute fosters novel and anticipatory research at the intersection of science, society, our planet, and the search for life beyond Earth.  #Discovery and Futures Lab
May 17, 2026
SkyMapper: Expanding Access to Real-time Astronomy Through a Global Astronomical Network
SkyMapper and the SETI Institute are connecting educators, students and the public to live astronomical observations through a distributed astronomical network.
#SkyMapper #SETI #Citizen Science #Astronomy
May 5, 2026
Virtual Planetary Laboratory
How can we best assess whether an exoplanet supports life?
#VPL
Apr 16, 2026
Discovery and Futures Lab
What happens if life beyond Earth is discovered? The Discovery and Futures Lab at the SETI Institute fosters novel and anticipatory research at the intersection of science, society, our planet, and the search for life beyond Earth. 
#Discovery and Futures Lab
VIEW ALL
Support Us

Support the
SETI Institute

Scientists are getting closer in their search for life beyond earth. But with limited federal funding for the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, supporters are the reason cutting-edge scientists can keep their eyes on the sky.

DONATE NOW