Jupiter In Near-Infrared  Jupiter And Ganymede In Near-UV And Blue 

The phases of Venus as it orbits the Sun, illustrated by John Emslie in Astronomical Diagrams, 1851.

Crescent Mars

Commander Terry Virts  posted video of his view. You may want to see this.

NGC 1999

Just south of the Orion nebula is a dense area of dust and gas forming stars, in fact, the first Herbig-Haro stars were located here, protostars pushing intense beams of matter out at the poles.

The mystery is the black blob in the white region, a reflective nebula from the star V380 Ori, but what is the dark patch ?

Originally it was thought to be a dense dark cloud of dust, hiding the light, however further analysis has found it is indeed a hole, made to look black in contrast to the bright reflective surroundings.

Barbados Caribbean Cloudscape by Mike Toy

Thousands of Stars in the Orion Nebula

Close inspection of the 2006 Hubble Space Telescope color mosaic of the Orion Nebula (M42) reveals numerous treasures that reside within the nearby, intense star- forming region. Southwest of the Trapezium stars located in the center of the nebula, a stunning Hubble Heritage portrait captures a variety of intricate objects. Deeply contrasting areas of light and dark blend with a palette of colors mix to form rich swirls and fluid motions that would make even the best artists stand back and admire their work.

Visible slightly bottom right center is the star LL Orionis (LL Ori), originally release by the Hubble Heritage Project in 2002. The delicate bow shock that surrounds LL Ori points towards the stream of gas flowing slowly away from the center of the Orion Nebula, near the Trapezium stars located off the image to the upper left. Close examination of the ends of the bow shock show secondary shocks that are formed as a two-sided jet of gas flowing away from this forming star at high velocity strikes the stream of low velocity gas from the center. To the right of LL Ori, a ghostly veil of material hangs thick and dark, obscuring portions of the nebula behind it.

Credit: NASA/Hubble

Better late than never!

Here’s a comic about a star that erupts water bullets! OoO!

https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/06/110613-space-science-star-water-bullets-kristensen/

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/star-shooting-water-jets-herschel_n_879211

https://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2011-06/herschel-spots-young-star-spewing-water-jets-interstellar-space?cmpid=tw

https://www.digitaltrends.com/web/young-stars-shoot-epic-quantities-of-water-into-space-study-shows/

Happy Earth Day everyone!

Planet X came to join the party with a topic on earth like planets! Source: http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/space/photos/10-nasa-images-of-planets-like-earth/more-discoveries-to-come#top-desktop

This is a small portion of NGC 2023

Credit: Judy Schmidt

The central bulge of our Milky Way Galaxy rises above a sea of clouds in this ethereal scene. An echo of the Milky Way’s dark dust lanes, the volcanic peak in foreground silhouette is on France’s Réunion Island in the southern Indian Ocean. Photo by Luc Perrot.