BevelGear

Beautiful island universe Messier 94 lies a mere 15 million light-years distant in the northern constellation of the hunting dogs, Canes Venatici. A popular target for earth-based astronomers, the face-on spiral galaxy is about 30,000 light-years across, with spiral arms sweeping through the outskirts of its broad disk. But this Hubble Space Telescope field of view spans about 7,000 light-years or so across M94's central region. The sharp close-up examines the galaxy's compact, bright nucleus and prominent inner dust lanes, surrounded by a remarkable bluish ring of young, massive stars. The massive stars in the ring appear to be less than about 10 million years old, indicating the galaxy experienced a corresponding well-defined era of rapid star formation. As a result, while the small, bright nucleus is typical of the Seyfert class of active galaxies, M94 is also known as a starburst galaxy. Because M94 is relatively nearby, astronomers can explore in detail reasons for the galaxy's burst of star formation.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap250306.html

There's a new lander on the Moon. Yesterday Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost executed the first-ever successful commercial lunar landing. During its planned 60-day mission, Blue Ghost will deploy several NASA-commissioned scientific instruments, including PlanetVac which captures lunar dust after creating a small whirlwind of gas. Blue Ghost will also host the telescope LEXI that captures X-ray images of the Earth's magnetosphere. LEXI data should enable a better understanding of how Earth's magnetic field protects the Earth from the Sun's wind and flares. Pictured, the shadow of the Blue Ghost lander is visible on the cratered lunar surface, while the glowing orb of the planet Earth hovers just over the horizon. Goals for future robotic Blue Ghost landers include supporting lunar astronauts in NASA's Artemis program, with Artemis III currently scheduled to land humans back on the Moon in 2027.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap250303.html

Discovered by Charles Messier in 1764, the globular cluster M14 is home to over 150,000 stars and has an apparent magnitude of 8.3. It is located 29,000 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Ophiuchus, and is best observed with a telescope during July.

In the summer of 1938, M14 played host to a nova – an extraordinarily rare event in a cluster of its kind. A nova is a sudden stellar eruption where, in just a few days, a star’s brightness increases by a factor of 10,000. Then over the following months the outburst fades away and the star returns to its normal brightness.

More info

Me right now

Explanation: Why are there so many bright blue stars? Stars are usually born in clusters, and the brightest and most massive of these stars typically glow blue. Less-bright, non-blue stars like our Sun surely also exist in this M41 star cluster but are harder to see. A few bright orange-appearing red giant stars are visible. The red-light filaments are emitted by diffuse hydrogen gas, a color that was specifically filtered and enhanced in this image. In a hundred million years or so, the bright blue stars will have exploded in supernovas and disappeared, while the slightly different trajectories of the fainter stars will cause this picturesque open cluster to disperse. Similarly, billions of years ago, our own Sun was likely born into a star cluster like M41, but it has long since drifted apart from its sister stars. The featured image was captured over four hours with Chilescope T2 in Chile.

Source: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap250225.html

Expedition 68 Flight Engineers (middle left to right) Frank Rubio and Josh Cassada, both from NASA, assist astronauts (far left and right) Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and Nicole Mann from NASA out of their Extravehicular Mobility Units (EMUs), or spacesuits. The spacewalkers had just finished a seven-hour and 21-minute spacewalk installing a modification kit on the International Space Station's starboard truss structure preparing the orbital lab for its next roll-out solar array. Roscosmos cosmonaut Anna Kikina is in the background participating in post-spacewalk photography activities.

https://www.nasa.gov/image-detail/amf-iss068e041399/

The rising Earth is about five degrees above the lunar horizon in this telephoto view taken from the Apollo 8 spacecraft near 110 degrees east longitude. Astronaut Bill Anders took the photo on the morning of Dec. 24, 1968. The South Pole is in the white area near the left end of the terminator. North and South America are under the clouds.

Image Credit: NASA

https://www.nasa.gov/image-detail/as08-14-2383orig/

This probably doesn't belong here, but I thought it was cute.

cross-posted from: https://pawb.social/post/19879524

Source