Space Mysteries

In daylight our big blue marble is all land, oceans and clouds. But the night - is electric. This view of Earth at night is a cloud-free view from space as acquired by the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership Satellite (Suomi NPP). A joint program by NASA and NOAA, Suomi NPP captured this nighttime image by the satellite's Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS). The day-night band on VIIRS detects light in a range of wavelengths from green to near infrared and uses filtering techniques to observe signals such as city lights, gas flares, and wildfires. This new image is a composite of data acquired over nine days in April and thirteen days in October 2012. It took 312 satellite orbits and 2.5 terabytes of data to get a clear shot of every parcel of land surface. This video uses the Earth at night view created by NASA's Earth Observatory with data processed by NOAA's National Geophysical Data Center and combined with a version of the Earth Observatory's Blue Marble: Next Generation.

From year to year, the moon never seems to change. Craters and other formations appear to be permanent now, but the moon didn't always look like this. Thanks to NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, we now have a better look at some of the moon's history. Learn more in this video!

This artist’s rendering illustrates new findings about a star shredded by a black hole. When a star wanders too close to a black hole, intense tidal forces rip the star apart. In these events, called “tidal disruptions,” some of the stellar debris is flung outward at high speed while the rest falls toward the black hole. This causes a distinct X-ray flare that can last for a few years. NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, Swift Gamma-ray Burst Explorer, and ESA/NASA’s XMM-Newton collected different pieces of this astronomical puzzle in a tidal disruption event called ASASSN-14li, which was found in an optical search by the All-Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae (ASAS-SN) in November 2014. The event occurred near a supermassive black hole estimated to weigh a few million times the mass of the sun in the center of PGC 043234, a galaxy that lies about 290 million light-years away. Astronomers hope to find more events like ASASSN-14li to test theoretical models about how black holes affect their environments. During the tidal disruption event, filaments containing much of the star's mass fall toward the black hole. Eventually these gaseous filaments merge into a smooth, hot disk glowing brightly in X-rays. As the disk forms, its central region heats up tremendously, which drives a flow of material, called a wind, away from the disk.

What are some skywatching highlights in August 2023? Saturn reaches opposition this month, meaning it's at its biggest and brightest for the year, and visible all night. The "shooting stars" of the annual Perseid meteors are a must-see, overnight on August 12th. And this month brings two full moons – the second of which is a "Super Blue Moon."

A Super Moon is an impressive sight in the night sky – glowing larger and brighter than a typical full moon, it can be a spectacular show for stargazers. Super Moons occur when the moon is at the closest point in its orbit to Earth and its gravitational pull is strongest, making it appear larger than normal. The various types of Super Moons all have different names, and each is special in its own way. In this video, we will go through what are some of the most common types of Super Moons and what makes them so remarkable. First, what exactly is a Super Moon? A Blood Moon is a type of Super Moons. This makes for a spectacularly large and bright moon in the night sky. During a Blood Moon, the Moon can appear to be a vivid red or orange color, hence its name, making for some truly stunning visuals. Another type is the Blue Moon. We’ve all used the expression “once every blue moon” to describe something that happens rarely, like going to the gym for example A Harvest Moon occurs when the full moon is closest to the autumnal equinox, that is, the first day of autumn. Equinox is like a special day that happens twice a year. On the day of the Equinox, the sun is right in the middle of the earth, so it's like the sun is giving us a big hug! And finally, there is the Pink Moon. Just like the Harvest Moon rises in time for Autumn, this type of Super Moon occurs when the full moon is closest to the spring equinox.