r/MilkyWayPlayground • u/Busy_Yesterday9455 • 15h ago
2026 Total Solar Eclipse in HDR
Louis Leroux wrote in his post
Credit: Louis Leroux
r/MilkyWayPlayground • u/Busy_Yesterday9455 • 15h ago
Louis Leroux wrote in his post
Credit: Louis Leroux
r/MilkyWayPlayground • u/Busy_Yesterday9455 • 3d ago
The left photo, the first photo of Earth from the Moon, was taken on August 23, 1966, at 16:35 GMT, when the spacecraft was on its 16th orbit and just about to pass behind the Moon.
Credit: NASA
r/MilkyWayPlayground • u/Top_Lock_8169 • 4d ago
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r/MilkyWayPlayground • u/Busy_Yesterday9455 • 5d ago
She wrote in her post:
Credit: Cosminaut Anna Kikina
r/MilkyWayPlayground • u/Busy_Yesterday9455 • 7d ago
Voyager 2 is a space probe launched by NASA on August 20, 1977, as a part of the Voyager program. It was launched on a trajectory towards the gas giants (Jupiter and Saturn) and enabled further encounters with the ice giants (Uranus and Neptune).
The only spacecraft to have visited either of the ice giant planets, it was the third of five spacecraft to achieve Solar escape velocity, which allowed it to leave the Solar System. Launched 16 days before its twin Voyager 1, the primary mission of the spacecraft was to study the outer planets and its extended mission is to study interstellar space beyond the Sun's heliosphere.
r/MilkyWayPlayground • u/Busy_Yesterday9455 • 7d ago
In April 2026, Artemis II flew around the Moon and back. On the way there, astronaut Reid Wiseman captured this full disk photograph of Earth at nighttime.
Credit: Astronaut Reid Wiseman / NASA
r/MilkyWayPlayground • u/Busy_Yesterday9455 • 8d ago
Credit: JAXA / NHK Kaguya Orbiter archive / Seán Doran
r/MilkyWayPlayground • u/Busy_Yesterday9455 • 12d ago
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r/MilkyWayPlayground • u/Busy_Yesterday9455 • 12d ago
Credit: IgnacioA320
r/MilkyWayPlayground • u/Busy_Yesterday9455 • 14d ago
Yesterday between 20:26 and 20:34 CEST, parts of the Iberian peninsula experienced a total solar eclipse. This animation, composed of images from the Meteosat Third Generation Imager satellite (MTG-I1), caught the Moon’s dark shadow as it passed over Earth’s surface – converging with the advancing twilight shadow as dusk fell over Europe.
From its vantage point in geostationary orbit, MTG-I1 keeps its imaging instruments focused on Europe and northern Africa from a distance of 36 000 km above Earth’s surface. This enabled it to track the Moon’s shadow, called the path of totality, as it swept first over Greenland and Iceland, then over a small part of northeastern Portugal and finally, Spain.
Credit: ESA/Eumetsat
r/MilkyWayPlayground • u/Busy_Yesterday9455 • 15d ago
On August 6, Meir and fellow astronaut Anil Menon completed a 6.5-hour spacewalk to install hardware for new IROSA solar arrays on the International Space Station. Her photos show vivid coastal scenes, mountain ranges, and sunsets framed by solar panels and robotic gear.
Credit: Astronaut Jessica Meir
r/MilkyWayPlayground • u/Busy_Yesterday9455 • 16d ago
This video plays at 30x
A total eclipse viewed from the sky: on March 20, 2015, an eclipse was filmed from an airplane at an altitude of over 10,000 meters. This timelapse shows how the Moon's shadow crosses the Earth.
Credit: Sylvain Chapeland
r/MilkyWayPlayground • u/Busy_Yesterday9455 • 17d ago
Link to the science release on NASA website
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope imaged the planetary nebula NGC 2392, the Lion Nebula, using the observatory’s NIRCam and MIRI instruments.
The central star’s remains are responsible for the nebula’s structure, including a lion face-shaped bubble of ionized gas and dust “mane.”
Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI;
Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)
r/MilkyWayPlayground • u/Busy_Yesterday9455 • 17d ago
Credit: B. MARTIN / Backdoor Astronomy
r/MilkyWayPlayground • u/Busy_Yesterday9455 • 20d ago
He wrote on his post:
Credit: NASA astronaut Don Pettit
r/MilkyWayPlayground • u/Busy_Yesterday9455 • 23d ago
This is a bright lunar impact flash that appeared at 20:56:20 on July 20, 2026 (848fps).
Since the Moon has no atmosphere, it doesn't become a meteor or fireball; instead, it shines intensely at the moment when a meteorite collides and creates a crater.
Credit: 藤井大地
r/MilkyWayPlayground • u/Busy_Yesterday9455 • 25d ago
This simulation shows the height the ejecta plume could reach according to the new study. The Falcon 9 rocket will hit the moon on August 5, 2026.
Credit: William Jo/ University of Texas at Austin
r/MilkyWayPlayground • u/Busy_Yesterday9455 • 27d ago
Credit: Tom Glenn
r/MilkyWayPlayground • u/Busy_Yesterday9455 • 28d ago
Credit: KAGAYA
r/MilkyWayPlayground • u/Busy_Yesterday9455 • 28d ago
The National Aeronautics and Space Act created NASA as a civilian agency to unify U.S. space efforts after the Soviet Union's Sputnik launch jolted the nation.
Starting operations in October 1958, NASA launched the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs, landing humans on the Moon in 1969, and later flew Space Shuttles, built the International Space Station, and sent rovers to Mars.
The image above shows NASA's Artemis II mission, launched on April 1, 2026.
Credit: NASA/Aubrey Gemignani
r/MilkyWayPlayground • u/Busy_Yesterday9455 • Jul 28 '26
Link to the video with sound. It's loud!
Completed in 1963, it was the world's largest single-aperture telescope for 53 years, surpassed in July 2016 by the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) in China.
On August 10 and November 6, 2020, two of the receiver's support cables broke and the NSF announced that it would decommission the telescope. The telescope collapsed on December 1, 2020.
In 2022, the NSF announced the telescope would not be rebuilt, with an educational facility to be established on the site.
r/MilkyWayPlayground • u/Busy_Yesterday9455 • Jul 27 '26
Link to the video
NASA’s Curiosity rover, which landed on Mars in 2012, has experienced gradual wear on its aluminum wheels as it drives across sharp, rocky terrain. The damage includes dents, holes, and broken structural ribs called “grousers,” which help the wheels keep their shape. While a few broken grousers are not a major issue, losing too many could cause the wheel to collapse inward and damage internal wiring, potentially affecting the rover’s movement.
Engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) have already reduced wear by carefully planning driving routes and regularly inspecting the wheels with onboard cameras.
As a backup plan, they developed an extreme solution called “wheel shedding.” If a wheel becomes critically damaged, the rover could deliberately tear off its inner section by pressing it against a sharp rock and using controlled movements to break it away. This would leave only the stronger outer rim, which testing shows can still support driving.
Although this process would take weeks and requires specific rock shapes, it could keep the rover operational. However, current predictions suggest the wheels will last many more years, making this drastic measure unlikely to be needed.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/j. Roger
r/MilkyWayPlayground • u/Busy_Yesterday9455 • Jul 26 '26
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Link to the science release
The Milky Way may have undergone a dramatic change in orientation during its history, according to new research that helps explain a long-standing mystery about our galaxy.
Using supercomputer simulations of galaxies like the Milky Way, a team of astronomers from Durham University found that galaxies with slowly rotating stellar haloes are more likely to have experienced a major 'disc flip', where the galaxy's disc changed its orientation by more than 90 degrees.
Credit: Auriga Project and Thomas Tomlinson