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NASA’s Perseverance used its navigation cameras to capture its record-breaking drive of 1,350.7 feet (411.7 meters) on June 19, 2025. The navcam images were combined with rover data and placed into a 3D virtual environment, resulting in this reconstruction with virtual frames inserted about every 4 inches (0.1 meters) of drive progress. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech​

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After nearly five years on Mars, NASA’s Perseverance rover has traveled almost 25 miles (40 kilometers), and the mission team has been busy testing the rover’s durability and gathering new science findings on the way to a new region nicknamed “Lac de Charmes,” where it will be searching for rocks to sample in the coming year.

Like its predecessor Curiosity, which has been exploring a different region of Mars since 2012, Perseverance was made for the long haul. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which built Perseverance and leads the mission, has continued testing the rover’s parts here on Earth to make sure the six-wheeled scientist will be strong for years to come. This past summer, JPL certified that the rotary actuators that turn the rover’s wheels can perform optimally for at least another 37 miles (60 kilometers); comparable brake testing is underway as well.

Over the past two years, engineers have extensively evaluated nearly all the vehicle’s subsystems in this way, concluding that they can operate until at least 2031.​

More

https://www.nasa.gov/missions/mars-2020-perseverance/perseverance-rover/nasas-perseverance-mars-rover-ready-to-roll-for-miles-in-years-ahead/

More information at

https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-names-astronaut-christina-koch-acting-deputy-chief-engineer/

Following the expected LSP minimum in June 2026 (Goldberg et al., 2024, ApJ, 977, 35), Betelgeuse has been steeply declining in brightness, going from V ~ 0.5 mag to V ~ 0.95 mag between August and October 2026.

If similar to the Great Dimming, there are only a few weeks remaining until the minimum brightness (likely around November 2026).

This picture was taken with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), reveals one of the most detailed views yet of the surface of Betelgeuse.

Image Credit: ALMA(ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/W. Dent et al.

SN 1987A was a Type II supernova in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. It occurred approximately 51.4 kiloparsecs (168,000 light-years) from Earth and was the closest observed supernova since Kepler's Supernova in 1604.

Light and neutrinos from the explosion reached Earth on February 23, 1987, and it was designated "SN 1987A" as the first supernova discovered that year. Its brightness peaked in May of that year, with an apparent magnitude of about 3, brighter than the constellation's brightest star, Alpha Doradus.

Credit: David Malin AAT.

The city lights outshine the stars in the City That Never Sleeps. Who would have thought that the Milky Way could be visible in this sky?

This image was taken with a filter that blocks most visible light, capturing instead only light in the near-infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum (with lower energy than visible light). The astrophotographer's clever setup blocks most of the light pollution from the city: old incandescent light bulbs and some neon lights are still bright in the near-infrared, but fluorescent and LED light bulbs are not.

Of course, stars are also bright in the near-infrared! This image is a reminder that we all live under the same sky, and astronomy allows all of us to learn more about humanity's place in the Cosmos.

Credit: Jason Kurth, Ty Buckley

Captured just after sunset on October 13, 2024.

This time-lapse plays at 160x speed.

Credit: 星の観察館「満天星」

Videos from https://www.spaceweather.gov/products/goes-solar-ultraviolet-imager-suvi

Taken On Seestar S50 Using 2:51:10 Integration (10S Subs)

Edited In PS Express.

This was taken from my backyard with my 10” Meade telescope. I hope you like all the tiny details.

I used a 6-inch refractor telescope, an astronomy camera, and specialized filters to capture light from singly ionized Hydrogen, doubly ionized Oxygen, and singly ionized Sulfur emissions. I then processed the image and assigned each wavelength color using the Hubble / SHO palette.

The Pelican Nebula (also known as IC 5070^\1])) is an H II region associated with the North America Nebula in the constellation of Cygnus). The gaseous contortions of this emission nebula bear a resemblance to a pelican, giving rise to its name.^\1]) The Pelican Nebula is located nearby first magnitude star Deneb, and is divided from its more prominent neighbour, the North America Nebula, by a foreground molecular cloud filled with dark dust.^\2]) Both are part of the larger H II region of Westerhout 80.^\2])

The Pelican is much studied because it has a particularly active mix of star formation and evolving gas clouds. The light from young energetic stars is slowly transforming cold gas to hot and causing an ionization front gradually to advance outward. Particularly dense filaments of cold gas are seen to still remain, and among these are found two jets emitted from the Herbig–Haro object 555.^\1]) Millions of years from now this nebula might no longer be known as the Pelican, as the balance and placement of stars and gas will leave something that appears completely different. - Wiki

Credit: ESO/F. Peißker et al.

Credit: Petr Horálek (Institute of Physics in Opava), Josef Kujal, Vojan Höfer

MMX is going to explore Phobos and Deimos, Mars’s two moons and our German-French rover Idefix is coming along for the ride. 🚀

We’re livestreaming the launch in German together with YouTuber Senkrechtstarter on Monday, 19 October, from 18:15 UTC.
👉 Watch with us: LIVE: MMX Start

Idefix was developed and built by DLR and CNES in close cooperation with JAXA.
Find out more about the rover and its mission here: https://www.dlr.de/en/research-and-transfer/projects-and-missions/mmx

Credit: Dr. Sebastian Voltmer

Tracked + Blended image, alignment is real and all images were shot at the same time on the same night

Credit: Nick Krasznavolgyi

Credit Asher B.

https:// ​x. ​com/asherbphotos/status/2110176170704851361

This stairway in Chile only gets you a little closer to heaven—but the sky above is stunning. The Desert Staircase sculpture stands before a near-vertical Milky Way over the Atacama Desert.

Visible: zodiacal light (upper left), green/red airglow near the horizon, star Spica, and the Small Magellanic Cloud (top right). Along the horizon: Andes Mountains, Licancabur volcano, and San Pedro de Atacama town lights.

Wide-angle composite, July 2025.

Credit: Julien Looten / NASA APOD
Source: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap261013.html

Taken On Seestar S50 Using 4:18:50 Integration (10S Subs)

Edited In PS Express.

Hello, everyone! Here’s my latest look at Orion, captured in just 102 minutes from my Bortle 4.5 backyard with the Sharpstar 13028 telescope and ToupTek 2600C astrophotography camera.

Do you notice anything different about this rendition? If you thought “white balance” that's exactly it! I went for SPCC of KV5 instead of Sb galaxy, or G2V or average spiral galaxy. This cooler white makes the Blue giants pop and add that contrast to the reddish hues of the nebula itself.

M42 is a stellar nursery, with young stars lighting up the gas around them. I love the detail in its bright centre, but this wider view gives the neighbouring objects some room too. Above M42 is the bluish Running Man Nebula. Its dust reflects light from nearby stars, while the darker gaps make up the figure that gave it its name.

Look near the bottom of the image for a much smaller blue glow: NGC 1999. Close-up images reveal a dark patch inside it shaped like a keyhole. Astronomers once thought it was a dense clump of dust blocking the light, but later observations showed it’s a cavity in the cloud. How that hole formed is still a mystery.

Clear skies,

Oleg

Tidally locked in synchronous rotation, the Moon always presents its familiar nearside to denizens of planet Earth. This sharp picture, a mosaic from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter's wide angle camera, is centered on the lunar farside. Part of a global mosaic of over 15,000 images acquired between November 2009 and February 2011, the highest resolution version shows features at a scale of 100 meters per pixel.

Surprisingly, the rough and battered surface of the farside looks very different from the nearside covered with smooth dark lunar maria. A likely explanation is that the farside crust is thicker, making it harder for molten material from the interior to flow to the surface and form dark, smooth maria.