2019 October 23 Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh Painting Credit: Vincent van Gogh; Digital Rendering: MoMA, Google Arts & Culture, via Wikipedia Explanation: The painting Starry Night is one of the most famous icons of the night sky ever created. The scene was painted by Vincent van Gogh in sou […]
NASA astronaut Christina Koch conducts her fourth spacewalk at the International Space Station. She and fellow NASA astronaut Jessica Meir (out of frame) ventured into the vacuum of space for seven hours and 17 minutes on Oct. 18, 2019, to swap a failed battery charge-discharge unit (BCDU) with a sp
2019 October 22 Night Sky Reflections from the World’s Largest Mirror Image Credit & Copyright: Jheison Huerta Explanation: What’s being reflected in the world’s largest mirror? Stars, galaxies, and a planet. Many of these stars are confined to the grand arch that runs across t
2019 October 21 A Mercury Transit Music Video from SDO Video Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Genna Duberstein; Music: Encompass by Mark Petrie Explanation: What’s that small black dot moving across the Sun? Mercury. Possibly the clearest view of Mercury crossing in front of t
2019 October 20 Pluto at Night Image Credit: NASA, Johns Hopkins Univ./APL, Southwest Research Institute Explanation: The night side of Pluto spans this shadowy scene, a stunning spacebased view with the Sun 4.9 billion kilometers (almost 4.5 light-hours) behind the dim and distant world. It was cap
2019 October 19 All Female Spacewalk Repairs Space Station Image Credit: NASA TV, Expedition 61 Explanation: The failed unit was beyond the reach of the robotic Canadarm2. Therefore, this repair of the International Space Station would require humans. The humans on duty were NASA’s Jessica Mei
2019 October 18 Interstellar Interloper 2I/Borisov Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and D. Jewitt (UCLA) et al. Explanation: After the 2017 detecton of 1I/’Oumuamua, comet 2I/Borisov has become the second recognized interstellar interloper. Like ‘Oumuamua, Borisov’s measured hyperbolic tra
2019 October 17 Moons of Saturn Image Credit: Cassini Imaging Team, SSI, JPL, NASA Explanation: On July 29, 2011 the Cassini spacecraft’s narrow-angle camera took this snapshot and captured 5 of Saturn’s moons, from just above the ringplane. Left to right are small moons Janus and Pandor
2019 October 16 BHB2007: A Baby Binary Star in Formation Image Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), F. O. Alves et al. Explanation: How do binary stars form? To help find out, ESO’s Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) recently captured one of the highest resolution images yet taken of a binary star
2019 October 15 The Galaxy Above Image Credit & Copyright: Rodrigo Guerra Explanation: Have you contemplated your home galaxy lately? If your sky looked like this, perhaps you’d contemplate it more often! The featured picture is actually a composite of two images taken last month from the
