OMG.
A triangle of glowing plasma.
Bigger than the Earth.
Hovering over the surface of the Sun last week.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html #space #science #astronomy #sky

Poetry in motion 🌕🛰️🌏

A week ago today, ESA's Jupiter-bound JUICE mission was approaching Earth, a day after its close flyby of the Moon.

You'll have seen some of the monitoring camera shots that @stim3on & I processed, & here's the chaser: a timelapse of both flybys that I set to some brilliant music by Gautier Acher 🎶

The full 4K version has been released by ESA here: https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Videos/2024/08/Juice_s_lunar-Earth_flyby_the_movie/?1

Credit: ESA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

#SpaceFlight #SpaceScience #SpaceExploration #Astrodon #Astronomy

Here's an old pic I took back in 2019, showing the UT4 telescope at ESO's Paranal Observatory shooting its four mighty lasers. These lasers excite sodium atoms high up in the atmosphere, creating fake "stars" that we monitor in real time to measure and correct atmospheric turbulence, thus yielding very sharp images.

The two faint smudges flanking UT4 are he Andromeda (left) and Triangulum (right) galaxies.

#astrodon #astronomy #astrophotography #science