APOD: 2024 January 22 Б Shadows of Mountain and Moon
22.01.2024

Can the Moon and a mountain really cast similar shadows? Yes, but the division between light and dark does not have to be aligned. Pictured, a quarter moon was captured above the mountain Grivola in Italy in early October of 2022.

APOD: 2024 May 30 Б A Lunar Corona over Paris
30.05.2024

Why does a cloudy moon sometimes appear colorful? The effect, called a lunar corona, is created by the quantum mechanical diffraction of light around individual, similarly-sized water droplets in an intervening but mostly-transparent cloud. Since light of different colors has different wavelengths, each color diffracts differently.

Moon Pi and Mountain Shadow
14.03.2024

What phase of the Moon is 3.14 radians from the Sun? The Full Moon, of course. Even though the Moon might look full for several days, the Moon is truly at its full phase when it is Pi radians (aka 180 degrees) from the Sun in ecliptic longitude.

Odysseus on the Moon
2.03.2024

Methalox rocket engine firing, Odysseus' landing legs absorb first contact with the lunar surface in this wide-angle snapshot from a camera on board the robotic Intuitive Machines Nova-C moon lander. Following the landing on February 22, broken landing legs, visible in the image, ultimately left the lander at rest but tilted.

Odysseus and The Dish
1.03.2024

Murriyang, the CSIROБs Parkes radio telescope points toward a nearly Full Moon in this image from New South Wales, Australia, planet Earth. Bathed in moonlight, the 64 meter dish is receiving weak radio signals from Odysseus, following the robotic lander's February 22 touch down some 300 kilometers north of the Moon's south pole.

The Last Full Moon
30.12.2023

Known to some in the northern hemisphere as December's Cold Moon or the Long Night Moon, the last full moon of 2023 is rising in this surreal mountain and skyscape. The Daliesque scene was captured in a single exposure with a camera and long telephoto lens near Monte Grappa, Italy.

APOD: 2023 December 25 Б Cathedral, Mountain, Moon
25.12.2023

Single shots like this require planning. The first step is to realize that such an amazing triple-alignment actually takes place. The second step is to find the best location to photograph it. But it was the third step: being there at exactly the right time -- and when the sky was clear -- that was the hardest.

Orion and the Ocean of Storms
7.12.2023

On December 5, 2022, a camera on board the uncrewed Orion spacecraft captured this view as Orion approached its return powered flyby of the Moon. Beyond one of Orion's extended solar arrays lies dark, smooth, terrain along the western edge of the Oceanus Procellarum.

APOD: 2023 December 4 Б Plane Crossing Crescent Moon
4.12.2023

No, the Moon is not a bow, and no, it did not shoot out a plane like an arrow. What is pictured is a chance superposition. The plane's contrail would normally appear white...

APOD: 2023 December 3 Б Moon Setting Behind Teide Volcano
3.12.2023

These people are not in danger. What is coming down from the left is just the Moon, far in the distance. Luna appears so large here because she is being photographed through a telescopic lens.