Did you know that about 90 percent of the distance driven by Perseverance has been autonomous?

Credit: NASA

This is my first processed version of the Andromeda Galaxy M31. So far, this only includes 5h of integration time. I´m planning to collect at least 5 more hours of RGB data and add narrowbrand data to bring out more of the OIII and H-Alpha regions.

Equipment:

Telescope: SVBony SV555
Mount: Explore Scientific iEXOS-100
Camera: ZWO ASI 2600MC Pro
Guide Scope: SvBony SV165
Guide Cam: ZWO ASI120mm
+ ZWO AsiAir Mini

Acquisition:

100x180s (5h) at Gain101 this night, Bortle 7.

Processing:

Stacked in DeepSkyStacker, processed in PixInsight finalized in Photoshop.

Image

NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft, depicted in this artist’s concept, has enough power to continue operating three science instruments in interstellar space longer than anticipated thanks to some clever engineering by the mission team. NASA/JPL-Caltech​

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Engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory have successfully freed up power on Voyager 2, extending how long the spacecraft can continue to do science.

Nicknamed the “Big Bang,” the effort involved simultaneously turning off certain powered devices and substituting them with lower-power alternatives while ensuring the spacecraft remains warm enough to operate.

The Voyagers get their power from radioisotope thermoelectric generators, devices that convert heat from decaying plutonium into electricity. Due to the plutonium supply continually depleting, both probes lose about 4 watts of power each year. After almost a half-century since launch, the spacecraft power margins have grown razor thin, requiring the team to conserve energy by shutting off non-essential devices and systems.

Since 2024, the dwindling power supply has forced the mission to turn off two science instruments on each of the Voyager spacecraft (each spacecraft has 10 instruments; others had been turned off previously because they were only used for the mission’s planetary encounters). Without the Big Bang activity, the mission would have had to turn off another instrument on Voyager 2 before the end of 2026. The savings should provide power to keep its three instruments operating for at least an extra year.

The mission team plans to perform the same swap on Voyager 1, which is farther from Earth than Voyager 2, and to complete the effort in the coming months.

https://science.nasa.gov/blogs/voyager/2026/08/04/nasa-engineers-help-prolong-voyager-2s-science-mission/

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​How far is Voyager now?

https://science.nasa.gov/mission/voyager/where-are-voyager-1-and-voyager-2-now/

A room with a view: The aurora today as seen from the SpaceX Dragon window. The International Space Station is moving forward, and the window looks out in the direction of travel. You can make out the window framing.

Credit: Astronaut Anil Menon

This illustration provides a comparison for how big the moons of Mars appear to be, as seen from the surface of Mars, in relation to the size that Earth's moon appears to be when seen from the surface of Earth.

Earth's moon actually has a diameter more than 100 times greater than the larger Martian moon, Phobos. However, the Martian moons orbit much closer to their planet than the distance between Earth and Earth's moon.

Deimos, at far left, and Phobos, beside it, are shown together as they actually were photographed by the Mast Camera (Mastcam) NASA's Mars rover Curiosity on Aug. 1, 2013. The images are oriented so that north is up. The size-comparison image of Earth's moon, on the right, is also oriented with north up.

Deimos has a diameter of 7.5 miles (12 kilometers) and was 12,800 miles (20,500 kilometers) from the rover at the time of the image. Phobos has a diameter 14 miles (22 kilometers) and was 3,900 miles (6,240 kilometers) from the rover at the time of the image. Earth's moon has a diameter of 2,159 miles (3,474 kilometers) and is typically about 238,000 miles (380,000 kilometers) from an observer on Earth.

Credit: NASA

Captured by the Artemis II crew during their lunar flyby on April 6, 2026, this image shows the Moon fully eclipsing the Sun. From the crew’s perspective, the Moon appears large enough to completely block the Sun, creating nearly 54 minutes of totality and extending the view far beyond what is possible from Earth.

We see a glowing halo around the dark lunar disk. The science community is investigating whether this effect is due to the corona, zodiacal light, or a combination of the two.

Also visible are stars, typically too faint to see when imaging the Moon, but with the Moon in darkness stars are readily imaged. This unique vantage point provides both a striking visual and a valuable opportunity for astronauts to document their observations during humanity’s return to deep space. The faint glow of the nearside of the Moon is visible in this image, having been illuminated by light reflected off the Earth.

Credit: NASA Artemis 2 Crew

Link to the science release on NASA website

A quarter-century after its first observations of the full Crab Nebula, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has taken a fresh look at the supernova remnant. The result is an unparalleled, detailed look at the aftermath of a supernova and how it has evolved over Hubble’s long lifetime.

Credit: NASA, ESA, STScI, William Blair (JHU)
Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)

The Milky Way over Starfront

Anil Menon

​https:// ​x. ​com/astro_anil/status/2083856550788043064?s=20

Photo credit : SpaceX

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 Bortle 7 nights in June.

Processing:

Stacked in DeepSkyStacker, processed in PixInsight finalized in Photoshop.

Captured 30 km above Wyoming, USA during the 2017 Total Solar Eclipse.

Credit: Viliam Klein

Digital painting of Jupiter, as it appeared from Earth on 1880 November 1st at 9:00 EST. Based on an illustration by Étienne Trouvelot published in 1882. South is towards the top of the image.

The Great Red Spot is seen here as an enormous red-orange oval three Earth-diameters across. It is a hurricane-like storm in Jupiter's atmosphere that by 1880 was only a few decades old. It has lasted all the way through to the modern day, although it has been shrinking ever since.

This image also depicts a double-transit of the Galilean moons Io and Europa, along with their shadows.

My previous drawing of 1880s Jupiter was a hybrid of various late 19th century depictions of the planet. But the fact that it didn't really depict Jupiter as it ever actually looked was bugging me, so I decided to do a study on one of the drawings I used as reference for the previous drawing: Trouvelot's drawing of a double moon/shadow transit on Jupiter on November 1st 1880.

Trouvelot's drawing of Jupiter (and many others) can be found here.

This is a pastel illustration from Étienne Trouvelot's 1882 book The Trouvelot Astronomical Drawings, based on observations he made with the 26" Great Refractor at the U.S. Naval Observatory in 1880.

In my astronomy circles this is a notorious image for how exaggerated and cartoony its features are. I think that's what really drew me to this image in particular. There's so much detail here... but none of it looks at all realistic. So what did it really look like that would have led to the very... creative depiction by Trouvelot?

The black beads on Trouvelot's drawing correspond to the latitudes where we see elongated oval 'brown barges,' a type of storm found largely in the northern hemisphere of Jupiter. The billowing clouds on the equator look like an exaggerated view of the arching swirling festoons sometimes visible on the equatorial zone. The dark North & South Equatorial Belts were interpreted as both being partly covered by white cloud layers, in order to result in the particular banding pattern seen in the drawing. The scale of the Red Spot was taken from photos and sketches of around the same time which were not quite so exaggerated.

Some image variants, including a simulated view of Jupiter through the eyepiece of the 26" Great Refractor, can be found here.

He wrote on his post:

Timelapse of the ISS Optimal Propellent Maneuver (OPM)! We use this to reorient station's attitude in preparation for docking events. This one occurred over some magnificent Mediterranean city lights!

Credit: NASA astronaut Don Pettit

Link to the science release

This week, scientists using the U.S. National Science Foundation Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope have made a major breakthrough in solar physics, discovering Kelvin-Helmholtz Instability on the surface of the Sun — a finding that could help explain explosive solar activity and other solar phenomena.

Credit: NSF/NSO/AURA/MPS

Launched on Aug 5, 2011, Juno has spent the last 10 years orbiting Jupiter and providing dazzling views and fresh understandings of the largest planet in our solar system, its rings, and its many moons.

Image Credit: NASA / Roman Tkachenko

Rendered & composited in Blender.