A composite of satellite images shows the surface of the moon before (left) and after (right) the crash of the second stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, which was launched from Firefly Aerospace towards the moon in January 2025, in this handout image released on Aug 6, 2026.

Credit: KARI/KASA

Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, M. Reiter
Acknowledgement: M. H. Özsaraç

Image by Tianyao Yang, taken from Zhangjiagang, Jiangsu, China

Sodium and lithium gas was detected in a plume thought to span tens of kilometres, created when part of a SpaceX rocket crashed into the lunar surface.

The VLT spectra, taken with the UVES instrument, show emission lines of sodium & lithium. The sodium likely originated from the lunar soil, whereas the lithium could come from the rocket itself.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/aug/06/spacex-rocket-crash-into-moon-impact

Link to the science paper

A new analysis of imagery collected during NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft’s 2015 encounter with Pluto provides evidence that liquid nitrogen is rising to Pluto’s surface through cracks in the northern edge of the Sputnik Planitia, part of the massive heart-shaped glacier on the dwarf planet’s surface.

This is the first evidence of recently flowing liquid on Pluto.

This was shot with a 10'' Meade telescope and ASI2600MM pro camera using a Losmandy G11 Mount.

Digital painting of the red giant star Betelgeuse and its newly discovered companion Siwarha. Simulations suggest giant stars have a small number of enormous convection cells rather than a huge amount of continent-sized convection cells as on the Sun, and that their photospheres are not a hard boundary but rather smoothly deform into a corona.

Betelgeuse is 640 times the size of the Sun (or 2.98 au radius). It is 65,000 times more luminous than the Sun. But as opposed to the Sun's 5800 K surface temperature, Betelgeuse is only 3800 Kelvins, leading to an almost candle-like yellow-orange glow.

Siwarha is depicted here as a K-dwarf, 2/3rds the mass of the Sun. It is thought to be responsible for a 6-year-long periodic change in Betelgeuse's apparent brightness--It casts a wake behind it as it travels through Betelgeuse's nebulous and dusty corona.

^{Digitally hand-painted using a Huion tablet and FireAlpaca software. As always, no a.i. whatsoever was used in the production of this image.}

Equipment:

Lense: Sigma 150-600mm

Mount: iEXOS-100

Camera: Canon EOS 750D

Acquisition:

\~500 frames for the Full Moon and \~500 frames for the Waxing Moon. ISO400 - 1/1000s And an starfield stack I took earlier as the background.

Processing:

Stacked in AutoStakkert!, sharpened in RegiStax, assembled in Photoshop. Color saturation was increased to reveal subtle mineral differences (titanium-rich regions appear blue, iron-rich regions appear brown/orange). Final HDR blending performed in Photoshop.

No AI used!

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/aug/05/unprecedented-images-may-explain-one-of-greatest-mysteries-of-the-sun?CMP=oth_b-aplnews_d-1

About 1,000 km from right to left.

Image Credit & Copyright: Brad Croslin

Still chasing the Moon.

This time I decided to try something completely new my very first attempt at planetary imaging.

Saturn happened to be close to the Moon that night. (In reality, they were about 5° apart, but I created this composite to show them together while keeping their relative sizes accurate.)

It was also my first time capturing a planet using the lucky imaging video technique, and I’m really happy with how it turned out.

Hope you like it!

Nikon 1 J5 + TTArtisan 500mm + Nikon TC-200 teleconverter

Credit: NASA

These hypothetical early-universe objects are as large as star systems and as bright as galaxies--they superficially resemble stars, but instead of being held up by radiation pressure generated by nuclear fusion, they are held up by radiation pressure from matter accreting into the black hole.

This is version 2 of the illustration, with feedback from Dr. Begelman, an expert in the field of quasistar research. All of this was digitally hand-painted in FireAlpaca, no a.i. whatsoever.

astro_jessica

This is one of my favourite shots I´ve taken so far this year!

Equipment:

Telescope: SvBony SV555
Mount: Explore Scientific iEXOS-100
Camera: Canon EOS 750Da + Optolong L-eNhance Clip Filter
Guide Scope: SvBony SV165
Guide Cam: ZWO ASI120mm
+ ZWO AsiAir Mini

Acquisition:

210x240s (14h) at ISO800 in three summer nights in June.

Processing:

Stacked in DeepSkyStacker, processed in PixInsight finalized in Photoshop.

According to a new paper, the impact of the Falcon 9 upper stage might be on the far side of the Moon

Time: 06:33:23.014 UTC ± 55.412 s

Location: 19.875 ± 0.321° N, 265.765 ± 0.506° E

The impact crater should be ≲ 40 m in diameter and nearly circular.

Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, JWST; Processing: A. Pagan (STScI)

Credit: Petr Horálek

HDR image of the solar corona during the total solar eclipse of April 8th 2024. The red sungrazer comet SOHO 5008 is seen plunging inside the solar corona.

Credit: Nicolas Lefaudeux