The surface of comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko

It may look like snowfall on the surface of the comet.

In fact, however, it consists of cosmic rays, elementary particles moving in outer space, as well as dust and ice particles from the comet.

Arecibo Radio Telescope

With an antenna diameter of more than 300 meters, covered with about 40,000 perforated aluminum plates (about 1 × 2 meters) laid on a grid of steel cables.

The Arecibo area was not chosen by chance to build such a telescope. Here the water flowing down the karst hills formed many giant sinkholes. One of them was used as the base for a huge radio telescope antenna.

Extraordinary "monster galaxy" COSMOS-AzTEC-1 in the artist's view

So-called "monster galaxies" are those forming stars at an incredible speed, up to 1,000 times faster than the Milky Way.

They are the ancestors of the huge elliptical galaxies in the modern Universe. By studying them scientists are paving the way to better understand the formation and evolution of giant stellar structures.

Why are all the planets, except ours, named after the Roman gods?

The tradition of naming planets after gods dates back to ancient times, and then the Greeks and Romans borrowed this idea later.

They named the red planet after the god of war.
The fastest planet was named after the god of commerce and cunning.
The planet that shines beautifully in the pre-dawn rays was named after the goddess of love and beauty.

Eventually it was the Roman names and the associated myths and symbolism that stuck with the planets.

However, this didn't apply to the Earth simply as the Earth wasn't considered a planet at the time. There was simply earth, with a lowercase letter - dirt underfoot. Certainly, when it finally became clear that the Earth was a planet, it was too late to rename it

Solar Flares ☀️

This video is compiled from images taken by the camera of the STEREO spacecraft. It looks in the visible range in the 20-degree region of space centered at 25 degrees from the Sun.

The spacecraft itself is on the opposite side of the Sun (hence Earth appears to be close to the Sun).

The gusty material emanating from the left is solar outflow - specifically, solar wind plus a couple of coronal mass ejections.

The extra bright static object on the right is the Earth. In the background, you see many stars moving through the field, including the Pleiades cluster.

Starring an astronaut who spent 197 days on the ISS😱

All those days he was in weightlessness, his muscles atrophied. So he learns to walk again.

Photograph of a crater on Mars

It was taken as part of the ExoMars project, a joint program of the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Russian state corporation Roscosmos to explore Mars.

The goal of this project is to find evidence of past and present life on Mars.

Stage of SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket returns to Earth

The glowing circles in the sky are the result of orientation control engines.

First selfies in space

Buzz Aldrin took this photo against the Earth during the Gemini 12 mission in November 1966.

Astronauts on the ISS watch 15-16 sunsets and sunrises every day😱

The International Space Station is about 220 km above Earth and travels at 27,700 km/h.

This means that it orbits every 92 minutes. Therefore, the astronauts on board see sunsets and sunrises every 45 minutes.

The Moon's passage over the Sun's disk

Visually, during a similar ring-shaped eclipse, the Moon passes over the Sun's disk, but it is smaller in diameter than the Sun and cannot completely hide it.

At the maximum phase of the eclipse, the Sun is covered by the Moon, but a bright ring of the uncovered part of the solar disk can be seen around the Moon. The sky during an annular eclipse remains bright, no stars appear, and it is impossible to observe the Sun's corona.

The Moon has no atmosphere, so we can see the clear boundaries of the satellite during its transit around the Sun.

Coca-Cola released a soda with a taste of space 🔥

According to the manufacturer, the new soda conveys the taste of space travel and nighttime gatherings by the fire.

✔️The drink is limited to North America, Europe and Asia and will be available for six months.

Why isn't Mercury the hottest planet? 🤔

The fact is that Mercury's low mass and its proximity to the Sun prevents the planet from holding an atmosphere.

It's the atmosphere that helps planets keep heat from escaping into outer space. Without an atmosphere, Mercury gives off a lot of heat into space instead of sharing it with its darkened side.

The hottest planet is Venus, the second planet from the Sun. It has a dense atmosphere that envelops it, keeping it warm.

The Moon appears to us as a pretty bright body 🌔

But in fact, its surface albedo (so its reflectivity is called) is only 13%, which is almost three times less than Earth's albedo.

That's why in almost all photographs the brightness of the Moon is increased to make it more contrasting.

Syzygy

When three (or more) celestial bodies are visibly too close to each other.

In this case, they are Jupiter (top), Venus (bottom left), and Mercury (bottom right). This arrangement of the planets does not occur more often than once every few years.

Image taken at ESO La Silla (Chile) in May 2011.

Subterranean oceans on moons of exoplanets

In our search for extraterrestrial life, we have so far mainly looked at terrestrial planets, where temperatures are between freezing and boiling point of water.

But if we take our own solar system as an example, the moons look more promising than the planets. Enceladus, Europa, and about six other satellites of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune may have subsurface oceans.

They all live well outside the traditional habitable zone - their surface is severely frozen, but tidal interaction with their host planet warms their interior region.

There was a prolonged flare on the Sun with an ejection towards the Earth!

Around midnight (March 10/11, 2022), an unusually long flare (6 hours) occurred on the Sun from the AR2962 sunspot group.

Although its power was not too high at its peak (C3), but its duration allowed it to eject large volumes of coronal masses into interplanetary space.

And the direction of the shock wave coincided exactly with that of our planet.

What can be seen in the Andromeda Galaxy through a telescope?

This cosmic lady is one of the most distant objects that humans can see with the naked eye. And through a telescope, it is realistic to observe several curious objects already inside the galaxy.

In small telescopes away from the city lights we can see bright satellite galaxies M 32 and M 110, dust bands, some globular star clusters and the star-forming region NGC 206.

With more powerful instruments, the structure of the galaxy is already observed as more detailed. We can see the star-like core, not only globular and scattered star clusters, but also individual stars, such as the AF Andromeda, a bright blue pulsating hypergiant.

In telescopes with a lens diameter of 500 mm or more, you will be able to see the nearest companions of Andromeda - the dwarf spheroidal galaxies Andromeda I, II and III.

Strange things take place on Mercury

Mercury is one of the least explored planets in the solar system. Still, partly due to its proximity to the Sun, and partly due to the peculiarities of the planet itself (the strong attraction of the Sun and the weak attraction of Mercury).

For example, with the slightest pointing error the Hubble telescope will focus on the Sun and be knocked out by it. And spacecraft require complex maneuvers.

Nevertheless, scientists have obtained a lot of interesting data. Such as, that at some points on the surface you can watch the Sun rise and set twice 🙂

In the sky of Mercury, it describes a loop: it rises, stops, turns back and sets. Then it rises again for a long time. And then repeats the trick at sunset.

The most spectacular globular star clusters seen in our sky 🌌

M13 or "The Hercules Globular Cluster" is the brightest and most spectacular globular star cluster in the northern sky, as well as one of the most well-studied. Even with binoculars under good viewing conditions, you can see individual stars in the cluster.

The M2 cluster is also one of the most saturated and compact globular clusters of indescribable beauty in the constellation Aquarius. M5 is one of the largest and oldest in our Galaxy, a rich "swarm" of stars of different spectral classes.