#PPOD: This artist's concept illustrates Kepler-16b, the first planet known to definitively orbit two stars -- what's called a circumbinary planet. The planet, which can be seen in the foreground, was discovered by NASA's Kepler mission. The two orbiting stars regularly eclipse each other, as seen from our point of view on Earth. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle
#PPOD: Rising from turbulent waves of dust and gas is the Horsehead Nebula, Barnard 33, which resides roughly 1,300 light-years away, and the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope has captured the sharpest infrared images to date. Webb’s new view focuses on the illuminated edge of the top of the nebula’s distinctive dust and gas structure. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, K. Misselt (University of Arizona) and A. Abergel (IAS/University Paris-Saclay, CNRS)
#PPOD: View of the north polar region of Jupiter's moon Io, in approximate natural color, made from images captured with NASA's Galileo spacecraft on March 28, 1998. The background is filled with Jupiter's clouds. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ Galileo Imaging Team/Jason Major
#PPOD: ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst took this photo of a 13-kilometer (8-mile) wide impact crater in Chad from the International Space Station in 2020. Credit: ESA-A.Gerst
#PPOD: The final resting place of the Mars Ingenuity helicopter, imaged on 25 February 2024 by NASA's Perseverance rover's SuperCam Remote Micro-Imager. The helicopter flew for its 72nd and final time on 18 January 2024. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL/CNES/IRAP/Paul Byrne
#PPOD: In celebration of the 34th anniversary of the launch of NASA’s legendary Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers took a snapshot of the Little Dumbbell Nebula, also known as Messier 76, or M76, located 3,400 light-years away in the northern circumpolar constellation Perseus. The name 'Little Dumbbell' comes from its shape which is a two-lobed structure of colorful, mottled, glowing gases resembling a balloon that’s been pinched around a middle waist. Credit: NASA, ESA, STScI
#PPOD: Check out this fun rock garden at Jezero! NASA's Perseverance rover captured this image of some interesting Martian rocks on Sept. 17, 2023. The image was selected by public vote as an "Image of the Week" for the mission. It has been edited to bring out more detail. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / ASU / Edited by The Planetary Society
#PPOD: In this image released on March 9, 2024, the NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope gives us a more detailed view of a well-studied but still mysterious region, NGC 604. The most noticeable features are tendrils and clumps of emission that appear bright red, extending out from areas that look like clearings, or large bubbles in the nebula. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI
#PPOD: Io is the volcanic moon of Jupiter and is seen here in an image taken in 1979 by NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft. Loki Patera is Io's largest volcanic depression at 202 kilometers in diameter and contains an active volcanic lake. Io's volcanism results from the gravitational forces being applied to the tiny moon by Jupiter on one side and the larger Galilean moons on the other. Credit: NASA/JPL/Voyager-ISS/ @andrealuck CC BY (https://www.flickr.com/photos/192271236@N03/53668923876/ )
#PPOD: How does a comet tail change? It depends on the comet. The ion tail of Comet 12P/Pons–Brooks has been changing markedly, as detailed in the featured image sequenced over nine days from March 6 to 14 (top to bottom). Reasons for tail changes include the rate of ejection of material from the comet's nucleus, the strength and complexity of the passing solar wind, and the rotation rate of the comet. Credit: Shengyu Li & Shaining via APOD
#PPOD: This near-infrared, color mosaic from NASA's Cassini spacecraft shows the sun glinting off of Titan's north polar seas. The sunglint, a specular reflection, is the bright area near the 11 o'clock position at upper left. This mirror-like reflection, known as the specular point, is in the south of Titan's largest sea, Kraken Mare, just north of an island archipelago separating two separate parts of the sea. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona/University of Idaho
#PPOD: Shown in the center of this image, Pan (28 kilometers) orbits within the Encke Gap of the A ring. Other bright specks in the image are background stars. As Saturn approaches its August 2009 equinox, the planet's moons cast shadows onto the rings. This view looks toward the unilluminated side of the rings from about 51 degrees above the ringplane. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft on May 2, 2009. Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute/CICLOPS
#PPOD: In the far southeast corner of Libya, in the Libyan Desert, lie the uplifted massifs of Jebel Awenat and Jebel Arkenu. Both expose ancient Precambrian rocks, intruded by granites and then overlain with sandstones. Folding and doming have produced these interesting shapes, rising above the surrounding sand sea. Presently, the area receives less than one inch of rain per year. Credit: NASA/METI/AIST/Japan Space Systems, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team
#PPOD: On April 8, 2024, a NASA photographer captured the total solar eclipse in Dallas. A small part of North America, from Mexico’s Pacific coast to the Atlantic coast of Newfoundland, Canada, saw the total solar eclipse, while all of North America and parts of Central America and Europe saw a partial solar eclipse. The next total solar eclipse that will travel across the lower 48 states from coast to coast is in 2045. Credit: NASA/Keegan Barber
#PPOD: The Moon's shadow, or umbra, is pictured covering portions of the Canadian provinces of Quebec and New Brunswick and the American state of Maine in this photograph from the International Space Station as it soared into the solar eclipse from 420 kilometers above the surface of Earth. The diameter of the shadow is 160 km. Credit: NASA
#PPOD: Saturn's moon Enceladus was caught spraying icy vapor into space from its south pole. Image taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft on May 2, 2012. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI/CICLOPS/Jason Major
#PPOD: Though #Mars is the Red Planet, false-color images can help us learn about its weather and geology. This image shows various wind-related features on the Red Planet near the center of Gamboa Crater. Larger sand dunes form sinuous crests and individual domes. There are tiny ripples on the tops of the dunes, only several feet from crest to crest. These merge into larger mega-ripples about 30 feet apart that radiate outward from the dunes. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona
#PPOD: From yesterday's eclipse live stream, scientist Ryan Lambert captured a special moment during totality when he removed the solar filter from his Unistellar Odyssey telescope. At the bottom of the disk, peeking out from behind the Moon is a large solar prominence. A smaller one can be seen at the 4 o'clock position. Credit: Ryan Lambert, Franck Marchis
#PPOD: Nebula Pa 30 appears in the same sky direction now as a bright "guest star" did in the year 1181. Although Pa 30's filaments look similar to that created by a nova (for example GK Per), and a planetary nebula (for example NGC 6751), some astronomers now propose that it was created by a rare type of supernova: a thermonuclear Type Iax, and so is (also) named SN 1181. Credit: NASA, ESA, USAF, NSF
#PPOD: Taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft on September 12, 2007, this image of Saturn's outermost large moon Iapetus has been assembled from infrared, green, and ultraviolet-filtered images (IR1/GRN/UV3). The large craters Engelier and Gerin are near the top right. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI/CICLOPS/Kevin M. Gill
#PPOD: This spectacular view of Gosses Bluff (known as Tnorala to the Aboriginal people), Northern Territory, Australia, was photographed from the International Space Station. About 142 million years ago in the early Cretaceous period a meteorite probably one kilometre in diameter struck in the heart of Australia, blasting a 22-kilometre-wide hole out of the earth's crust. Credit: NASA
#PPOD: This massive dust storm was captured by multiple Martian orbiters on June 1, 2022. The composite here is compiled from images taken by China's Tianwen-1 spacecraft. The storm looms near the mighty Olympus Mons (not seen in this photo).
#PPOD: Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks graces the evening sky above the summits of Kežmarský štít (8,389 ft/2,557 m), at right, and Lomnický štít (8,635 ft/2,632 m), at left in the Tatra Mountains of Slovakia. At the summit of Lomnický štít is a small domed building. This structure is the Skalnaté pleso Observatory, one of the highest astronomical observatories in central Europe. Credit: Petr Horálek - Institute of Physics in Opava (https://www.petrhoralek.com/)
#PPOD: This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows LEDA 42160, a galaxy about 52 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Virgo. The dwarf galaxy is one of many forcing its way through the comparatively dense gas in the massive Virgo cluster of galaxies. The pressure exerted by this intergalactic gas, known as ram pressure, has dramatic effects on star formation in LEDA 42160. Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, M. Sun