Jump to content

Evening Mood - Night Sky / Milky Way Time Lapse Video (Edvard Grieg - Morning Mood)


Recommended Posts

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Similar Topics

    • By USH
      These images captured by the Curiosity rover in 2014 reveals yet another unexplained aerial phenomenon in the Martian atmosphere, a cigar-shaped object with a consistent width and rounded ends. 

      What makes this anomaly particularly compelling is the sharp clarity of the image. According to Jean Ward the stars in the background appear crisp and unblurred, indicating that the object is not the result of motion blur or a long exposure. Notably, the object appears in five separate frames over an 8-minute span, suggesting it is moving relatively slowly through space, uncharacteristic of a meteorite entering the atmosphere. It also lacks the fiery tail typically associated with atmospheric entry. 

      Rather than a meteor, the object more closely resembles a solid, elongated craft of unknown origin. When oriented horizontally, it even appears to feature a front-facing structure, possibly a porthole or raised dome, hinting at a cockpit or command module. 

      Whether this object is orbiting beyond the visible horizon or connected to the surface far in the distance, its sheer size is unmistakable. Its presence raises compelling questions, could this be further evidence of intelligently controlled craft, whether of extraterrestrial or covert human origin, navigating through Martian airspace?View the full article
    • By NASA
      Arsia Mons, an ancient Martian volcano, was captured before dawn on May 2, 2025, by NASA’s 2001 Mars Odyssey orbiter while the spacecraft was studying the Red Planet’s atmosphere, which appears here as a greenish haze.NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU The 2001 Odyssey spacecraft captured a first-of-its-kind look at Arsia Mons, which dwarfs Earth’s tallest volcanoes.
      A new panorama from NASA’s 2001 Mars Odyssey orbiter shows one of the Red Planet’s biggest volcanoes, Arsia Mons, poking through a canopy of clouds just before dawn. Arsia Mons and two other volcanoes form what is known as the Tharsis Montes, or Tharsis Mountains, which are often surrounded by water ice clouds (as opposed to Mars’ equally common carbon dioxide clouds), especially in the early morning. This panorama marks the first time one of the volcanoes has been imaged on the planet’s horizon, offering the same perspective of Mars that astronauts have of the Earth when they peer down from the International Space Station.
      Launched in 2001, Odyssey is the longest-running mission orbiting another planet, and this new panorama represents the kind of science the orbiter began pursuing in 2023, when it captured the first of its now four high-altitude images of the Martian horizon. To get them, the spacecraft rotates 90 degrees while in orbit so that its camera, built to study the Martian surface, can snap the image.
      Arsia Mons is the southernmost of the three volcanoes that make up Tharsis Montes, shown in the center of this cropped topographic map of Mars. Olympus Mons, the solar system’s largest volcano, is at upper left. The western end of Valles Marineris begins cutting its wide swath across the planet at lower right.NASA/JPL-Caltech The angle allows scientists to see dust and water ice cloud layers, while the series of images enables them to observe changes over the course of seasons.
      “We’re seeing some really significant seasonal differences in these horizon images,” said planetary scientist Michael D. Smith of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “It’s giving us new clues to how Mars’ atmosphere evolves over time.”
      Understanding Mars’ clouds is particularly important for understanding the planet’s weather and how phenomena like dust storms occur. That information, in turn, can benefit future missions, including entry, descent and landing operations.
      Volcanic Giants
      While these images focus on the upper atmosphere, the Odyssey team has tried to include interesting surface features in them, as well. In Odyssey’s latest horizon image, captured on May 2, Arsia Mons stands 12 miles (20 kilometers) high, roughly twice as tall as Earth’s largest volcano, Mauna Loa, which rises 6 miles (9 kilometers) above the seafloor.
      The southernmost of the Tharsis volcanoes, Arsia Mons is the cloudiest of the three. The clouds form when air expands as it blows up the sides of the mountain and then rapidly cools. They are especially thick when Mars is farthest from the Sun, a period called aphelion. The band of clouds that forms across the planet’s equator at this time of year is called the aphelion cloud belt, and it’s on proud display in Odyssey’s new panorama.
      “We picked Arsia Mons hoping we would see the summit poke above the early morning clouds. And it didn’t disappoint,” said Jonathon Hill of Arizona State University in Tempe, operations lead for Odyssey’s camera, called the Thermal Emission Imaging System, or THEMIS.
      The THEMIS camera can view Mars in both visible and infrared light. The latter allows scientists to identify areas of the subsurface that contain water ice, which could be used by the first astronauts to land on Mars. The camera can also image Mars’ tiny moons, Phobos and Deimos, allowing scientists to analyze their surface composition.
      More About Odyssey
      NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the Mars Odyssey Project for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington as part of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program portfolio. Lockheed Martin Space in Denver built the spacecraft and collaborates with JPL on mission operations. THEMIS was built and is operated by Arizona State University in Tempe.
      For more about Odyssey:
      https://science.nasa.gov/mission/odyssey/
      News Media Contacts
      Andrew Good
      Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
      818-393-2433
      andrew.c.good@jpl.nasa.gov
      Karen Fox / Molly Wasser
      NASA Headquarters, Washington
      202-358-1600
      karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / molly.l.wasser@nasa.gov
      2025-077
      Share
      Details
      Last Updated Jun 06, 2025 Related Terms
      Mars Odyssey Jet Propulsion Laboratory Mars Explore More
      6 min read NASA’s Ready-to-Use Dataset Details Land Motion Across North America
      Article 22 mins ago 5 min read 3 Black Holes Caught Eating Massive Stars in NASA Data
      Black holes are invisible to us unless they interact with something else. Some continuously eat…
      Article 2 days ago 4 min read NASA’s MAVEN Makes First Observation of Atmospheric Sputtering at Mars
      After a decade of searching, NASA’s MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere Volatile Evolution) mission has, for the…
      Article 1 week ago Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA
      Missions
      Humans in Space
      Climate Change
      Solar System
      View the full article
    • By European Space Agency
      The European Space Agency’s (ESA) newest planetary defender has opened its ‘eye’ to the cosmos for the first time. The Flyeye telescope’s ‘first light’ marks the beginning of a new chapter in how we scan the skies for new near-Earth asteroids and comets.
      View the full article
    • By NASA
      2 Min Read June’s Night Sky Notes: Seasons of the Solar System
      Two views of the planet Uranus appear side-by-side for comparison. At the top, left corner of the left image is a two-line label. The top line reads Uranus November 9, 2014. The bottoms line reads HST WFC3/UVIS. At the top, left corner of the right image is the label November 9, 2022. At the left, bottom corner of each image is a small, horizontal, white line. In both panels, over this line is the value 25,400 miles. Below the line is the value 40,800 kilometers. At the top, right corner of the right image are three, colored labels representing the color filters used to make these pictures. Located on three separate lines, these are F467M in blue, F547M in green, and F485M in red. On the bottom, right corner of the right image are compass arrows showing north toward the top and east toward the left. Credits:
      NASA by Kat Troche of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific
      Here on Earth, we undergo a changing of seasons every three months. But what about the rest of the Solar System? What does a sunny day on Mars look like? How long would a winter on Neptune be? Let’s take a tour of some other planets and ask ourselves what seasons might look like there.
      Martian Autumn
      Although Mars and Earth have nearly identical axial tilts, a year on Mars lasts 687 Earth days (nearly 2 Earth years) due to its average distance of 142 million miles from the Sun, making it late autumn on the red planet. This distance and a thin atmosphere make it less than perfect sweater weather. A recent weather report from Gale Crater boasted a high of -18 degrees Fahrenheit for the week of May 20, 2025.
      Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Seven Years of Summer
      Saturn has a 27-degree tilt, very similar to the 25-degree tilt of Mars and the 23-degree tilt of Earth. But that is where the similarities end. With a 29-year orbit, a single season on the ringed planet lasts seven years. While we can’t experience a Saturnian season, we can observe a ring plane crossing here on Earth instead. The most recent plane crossing took place in March 2025, allowing us to see Saturn’s rings ‘disappear’ from view.
      A Lifetime of Spring
      NASA Hubble Space Telescope observations in August 2002 show that Neptune’s brightness has increased significantly since 1996. The rise is due to an increase in the amount of clouds observed in the planet’s southern hemisphere. These increases may be due to seasonal changes caused by a variation in solar heating. Because Neptune’s rotation axis is inclined 29 degrees to its orbital plane, it is subject to seasonal solar heating during its 164.8-year orbit of the Sun. This seasonal variation is 900 times smaller than experienced by Earth because Neptune is much farther from the Sun. The rate of seasonal change also is much slower because Neptune takes 165 years to orbit the Sun. So, springtime in the southern hemisphere will last for several decades! Remarkably, this is evidence that Neptune is responding to the weak radiation from the Sun. These images were taken in visible and near-infrared light by Hubble’s Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2. Credit: NASA, L. Sromovsky, and P. Fry (University of Wisconsin-Madison) Even further away from the Sun, each season on Neptune lasts over 40 years. Although changes are slower and less dramatic than on Earth, scientists have observed seasonal activity in Neptune’s atmosphere. These images were taken between 1996 and 2002 with the Hubble Space Telescope, with brightness in the southern hemisphere indicating seasonal change.
      As we welcome summer here on Earth, you can build a Suntrack model that helps demonstrate the path the Sun takes through the sky during the seasons. You can find even more fun activities and resources like this model on NASA’s Wavelength and Energy activity. 
      View the full article
    • By NASA
      5 min read
      Percolating Clues: NASA Models New Way to Build Planetary Cores
      NASA’s Perseverance rover was traveling in the channel of an ancient river, Neretva Vallis, when it captured this view of an area of scientific interest nicknamed “Bright Angel” – the light-toned area in the distance at right. The area features light-toned rocky outcrops that may represent either ancient sediment that later filled the channel or possibly much older rock that was subsequently exposed by river erosion. NASA/JPL-Caltech A new NASA study reveals a surprising way planetary cores may have formed—one that could reshape how scientists understand the early evolution of rocky planets like Mars.
      Conducted by a team of early-career scientists and long-time researchers across the Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science (ARES) Division at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, the study offers the first direct experimental and geochemical evidence that molten sulfide, rather than metal, could percolate through solid rock and form a core—even before a planet’s silicate mantle begins to melt.
      For decades, scientists believed that forming a core required large-scale melting of a planetary body, followed by heavy metallic elements sinking to the center. This study introduces a new scenario—especially relevant for planets forming farther from the Sun, where sulfur and oxygen are more abundant than iron. In these volatile-rich environments, sulfur behaves like road salt on an icy street—it lowers the melting point by reacting with metallic iron to form iron-sulfide so that it may migrate and combine into a core. Until now, scientists didn’t know if sulfide could travel through solid rock under realistic planet formation conditions.
      Working on this project pushed us to be creative. It was exciting to see both data streams converge on the same story.
      Dr. Jake Setera
      ARES Scientist with Amentum
      The study results gave researchers a way to directly observe this process using high-resolution 3D imagery—confirming long-standing models about how core formation can occur through percolation, in which dense liquid sulfide travels through microscopic cracks in solid rock.
      “We could actually see in full 3D renderings how the sulfide melts were moving through the experimental sample, percolating in cracks between other minerals,” said Dr. Sam Crossley of the University of Arizona in Tucson, who led the project while a postdoctoral fellow with NASA Johnson’s ARES Division. “It confirmed our hypothesis—that in a planetary setting, these dense melts would migrate to the center of a body and form a core, even before the surrounding rock began to melt.”
      Recreating planetary formation conditions in the lab required not only experimental precision but also close collaboration among early-career scientists across ARES to develop new ways of observing and analyzing the results. The high-temperature experiments were first conducted in the experimental petrology lab, after which the resulting samples—or “run products”—were brought to NASA Johnson’s X-ray computed tomography (XCT) lab for imaging.
      A molten sulfide network (colored gold) percolates between silicate mineral grains in this cut-out of an XCT rendering—rendered are unmelted silicates in gray and sulfides in white. Credit: Crossley et al. 2025, Nature Communications X-ray scientist and study co-author Dr. Scott Eckley of Amentum at NASA Johnson used XCT to produce high-resolution 3D renderings—revealing melt pockets and flow pathways within the samples in microscopic detail. These visualizations offered insight into the physical behavior of materials during early core formation without destroying the sample.
      The 3D XCT visualizations initially confirmed that sulfide melts could percolate through solid rock under experimental conditions, but that alone could not confirm whether percolative core formation occurred over 4.5 billion years ago. For that, researchers turned to meteorites.
      “We took the next step and searched for forensic chemical evidence of sulfide percolation in meteorites,” Crossley said. “By partially melting synthetic sulfides infused with trace platinum-group metals, we were able to reproduce the same unusual chemical patterns found in oxygen-rich meteorites—providing strong evidence that sulfide percolation occurred under those conditions in the early solar system.”
      To understand the distribution of trace elements, study co-author Dr. Jake Setera, also of Amentum, developed a novel laser ablation technique to accurately measure platinum-group metals, which concentrate in sulfides and metals.
      “Working on this project pushed us to be creative,” Setera said. “To confirm what the 3D visualizations were showing us, we needed to develop an appropriate laser ablation method that could trace the platinum group-elements in these complex experimental samples. It was exciting to see both data streams converge on the same story.”
      When paired with Setera’s geochemical analysis, the data provided powerful, independent lines of evidence that molten sulfide had migrated and coalesced within a solid planetary interior. This dual confirmation marked the first direct demonstration of the process in a laboratory setting.
      Dr. Sam Crossley welds shut the glass tube of the experimental assembly. To prevent reaction with the atmosphere and precisely control oxygen and sulfur content, experiments needed to be sealed in a closed system under vacuum. Credit: Amentum/Dr. Brendan Anzures The study offers a new lens through which to interpret planetary geochemistry. Mars in particular shows signs of early core formation—but the timeline has puzzled scientists for years. The new results suggest that Mars’ core may have formed at an earlier stage, thanks to its sulfur-rich composition—potentially without requiring the full-scale melting that Earth experienced. This could help explain longstanding puzzles in Mars’ geochemical timeline and early differentiation.
      The results also raise new questions about how scientists date core formation events using radiogenic isotopes, such as hafnium and tungsten. If sulfur and oxygen are more abundant during a planet’s formation, certain elements may behave differently than expected—remaining in the mantle instead of the core and affecting the geochemical “clocks” used to estimate planetary timelines.
      This research advances our understanding of how planetary interiors can form under different chemical conditions—offering new possibilities for interpreting the evolution of rocky bodies like Mars. By combining experimental petrology, geochemical analysis, and 3D imaging, the team demonstrated how collaborative, multi-method approaches can uncover processes that were once only theoretical.
      Crossley led the research during his time as a McKay Postdoctoral Fellow—a program that recognizes outstanding early-career scientists within five years of earning their doctorate. Jointly offered by NASA’s ARES Division and the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, the fellowship supports innovative research in astromaterials science, including the origin and evolution of planetary bodies across the solar system.
      As NASA prepares for future missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond, understanding how planetary interiors form is more important than ever. Studies like this one help scientists interpret remote data from spacecraft, analyze returned samples, and build better models of how our solar system came to be.
      For more information on NASA’s ARES division, visit: https://ares.jsc.nasa.gov/
      Victoria Segovia
      NASA’s Johnson Space Center
      281-483-5111
      victoria.segovia@nasa.gov
      Share








      Details
      Last Updated May 22, 2025 Related Terms
      Astromaterials Planetary Science Planetary Science Division The Solar System Explore More
      6 min read NASA’s Dragonfly Mission Sets Sights on Titan’s Mysteries


      Article


      2 hours ago
      4 min read Eclipses, Auroras, and the Spark of Becoming: NASA Inspires Future Scientists


      Article


      1 week ago
      6 min read NASA Observes First Visible-light Auroras at Mars


      Article


      1 week ago
      Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA
      Planetary Science Stories



      Astromaterials



      Latest NASA Science News



      Solar System


      View the full article
  • Check out these Videos

×
×
  • Create New...