The Soviet Union put Sputnik, the world's first artificial satellite, into Earth's orbit. Sputnik contained a radio transmitter that sent back the “beep-beep-beep” heard around the world.

Image Credit: NSSDC, NASA

Link to the science release on NASA website

Jupiter's moon Io, its night side illuminated by reflected sunlight from Jupiter, or "Jupitershine."

Image data: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS
Image processing by Emma Wälimäki © CC BY

She wrote in her post

Room with a view. Check out my new digs as I camp out in Dragon until our departure. With Crew-13’s arrival we have a very full house on the International Space Station. Luke is living in my previous crew quarters, and I’ve pitched a tent in Dragon.

Credit: Astronaut Jessica Meir

Images of Helene taken by the Cassini spacecraft, with resolutions of up to 24 meters per pixel, show a landscape characterized by broad 2–10 km scale depressions with interior slopes no greater than 12°. These basins are likely the decayed remains of old impact craters.

Thin, elongated km-scale raised grooves trace the slopes of many of Helene's basins, likely representing mass flow features and indicating that the moon is undergoing active geologic processes such as mass wasting and erosion. Digital elevation models suggest that the grooves have a positive relief of between 50 and 100 meters. Helene has more than 70 craters, while it shows a bimodal appearance—the heavily cratered trailing hemisphere exhibits a crater density ten times greater than the smooth-looking leading hemisphere.

Credit: NASA / Jet Propulsion Laboratory / Space Science Institute

While hiking, I found these cool rocks with Cygnus on top. At 50mm this is a target with so many details, but I've taken it so many times over the years that this time I wanted to do something different and capture the dust nearby. I took 4 panels with 4 hours of integration each. It surprised me how faint the dust in this area is. The Hydrogen Alpha is another story, there's so much and some OIII, specially in the North America Nebula. 

ig: @ igneis.nightscapes

NO generative AI involved.

GEAR:

Sony a7IV astromodified x2, twin setup

Sony 50mm GM f/1.4

ZWO AM3N

The gegenschein, a faint glow of sunlight scattered back toward Earth by dust grains in the inner solar system, sits in Aquarius at the point directly opposite the Sun in this all-sky view.

The opposition surge (sometimes known as the opposition effect, opposition spike or Seeliger effect) is the brightening of a rough surface, or an object with many particles, when illuminated from directly behind the observer.

Two physical mechanisms have been proposed for this observational phenomenon: shadow hiding and coherent backscatter.

Credit: Backdoor Astronomy
Edit: Milky Way

This is a view of the surface of asteroid Ryugu captured by the MASCOT probe during its descent on October 3, 2018 after separation from Japan's Hayabusa-2 spacecraft.

The area in the foreground spans about 29 cm/11.4 inches across.

Credit: MASCOT/DLR/JAXA
Edit by Jason Major

Space Shuttle Atlantis launched on its first mission. The Shuttle and crew traveled 1.7 million miles before returning to Earth.

Credit: Erik Fraser

Hi everyone. This image was taken from a remote telescope in South Australia. More details about the image can be found here:https://app.astrobin.com/i/7g7zwp

Feel free to visit my website for more nebula images: steevebody.com

Taken On Celestron Powerseeker 120EQ & Iphone 16e! Decided To Grab A Used One For Planetary Imaging. (8 Images Stacked In Astroshader)

Edited In PS Express.

This footage consists of 10 images of HR 8799 taken with the Keck Telescope over 12 years. Video made by Jason Wang, data reduced by William Thompson and Christian Marois, and observations organized by Quinn Konopacky. Bruce Macintosh, Travis Barman, and Ben Zuckerman assisted in the observations.

Emission nebulae NGC 6914. 111 minutes. 190 mm, f/3.8

Actual color (saturation pushed).

I shot last night before attacking the Moon.

Tech specs; https://www.astrobin.com/lyldyy/

Taken On Seestar S50 Using 4:11:00 Integration (10S Subs)

Edited In PS Express.

Xiaomi 13 Ultra (3.2x telephoto)

[ISO 3200 | 5s] x 447 lights (RAW/DNG)

Total integration time: 37m 15s

Equipment:

- Sky-Watcher 150/750 Newtonian scope;

- EQ3-2 mount with OnStep;

- SVBONY SV190 18mm Ultra Flat Field eyepiece;

- SVBONY SV214 Pro 3-Axis Universal Smartphone Adapter.

Stacked with Astro Pixel Processor

Processed with GraXpert, Siril, AstroSharp and Photoshop (Camera Raw)

An X-37B onboard camera, used to ensure the health and safety of the vehicle, captures an image of Earth while conducting experiments in HEO in 2024.

The X-37B executed a series of first-of-kind maneuvers, called aerobraking, to safely change its orbit using minimal fuel.

Credit: U.S. Space Force Courtesy Photo Master Sgt. Gustavo Castillo

I've tried making a moon watch before, but it was using a photo not depth map. I finally found a depth map from NASA that was a rectangular image. I used Blender to wrap that image around a sphere and then exported a rendering that was laser-engrave worthy. This version is accurate, and finally achieved what I failed to do on my previous attempt. Couple of issues on this one, the depth of the dial is a bit much, you can see i had to bend the hands to elevate above the surface. Good not great. But the way light catches this dial is something else!

On sol 1943 of its journey of exploration across the surface of Mars, the Curiosity Rover recorded this selfie at the south rim of Vera Rubin Ridge. Of course a sol is a Martian solar day, about 40 minutes longer than an Earth day. Curiosity's sol 1943 corresponds to Earth date January 23, 2018.

Also composed as an interactive 360 degree VR, the mosaicked panorama combines 61 exposures taken by the small car-sized rover's Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI). Frames containing the imager's arm have been edited out while the extended background used was taken by the rover's Mastcam on sol 1903.

At the top of the rover's mast, sitting above the Mastcam, the laser-firing ChemCam housing blocks out the distant, 5 kilometer high peak of Mount Sharp. On Earth date August 26, 2026, Curiosity marked an total elevation gain of 1 kilometer in its trek from the floor of Gale Crater up the slope of Mount Sharp.

Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, MSSS - Panorama: Andrew Bodrov

Explanation: What does it take to image hundreds of nebulas? Today’s image contains the entire Sharpless Catalog of H II Regions, totaling 313 objects.

​Zoom in and explore! You may spot fan favorites like the Eagle (Sh2-49), Heart (Sh2-190), and Orion (Sh2-281) Nebulas. Despite its name, this catalog contains more than the glow of ionized hydrogen that makes up H II regions.

​There are planetary nebulas (the Medusa Nebula, Sh2-274) and supernova remnants (the Spaghetti Nebula, Sh2-240) as well. Astrophotographer Bing Xin traversed the dark skies of Eastern China and Inner Mongolia to catch them all.

​Narrowband filters that primarily capture light from ionized hydrogen and oxygen as well as red-green-blue filters were used. Each object took 2 to 6 hours to capture, with the entire catalog taking around 800 hours to complete! Which object is your favorite?

Date: October 2, 2026

Credit: Bing Xin​

https://science.nasa.gov/image-article/apod-2026-october-2-the-complete-sharpless-catalog-313-nebulae/

https://www.xiaohongshu.com/user/profile/5f49cf24000000000101c8c7?fbclid=IwY2xjawUtzO1leHRuA2FlbQIxMABwZG9mAWJyaWQRMDBzalN3TEFhUTZPSGhwODFzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEei4tFxGd5JtrgzAb_gLraVTD4rsFo31sgs6XhwGlDbTFix0b6g43Wj-f0rvo_aem_I72U_3ez2_CUpDaOwCuqHg​

Credit: USAF/Brian Shul

This abandoned train station in the middle of the Namib Desert could easily be just another forgotten building. But Garub has a lot of history behind it.

Built in 1906, the station became an important water stop on the railway connecting the interior of Namibia with Lüderitz, the diamond mining town on the Atlantic coast.

It also played a role during World War I, when South African and German forces confronted each other in this remote part of the desert.

I’m usually not a big fan of light painting, but this was one of those places that felt like it needed to be brought back to life, even if only for a few seconds.

The station has been abandoned for more than 70 years, surrounded by nothing but desert, silence, and an incredibly dark sky.

And the best part is that the Milky Way aligns almost perfectly with the old station.

Sky: panorama of 4 images at 20 mm. X2 stacked frames at 80 sec. f/2, ISO 1600

Foreground: Panorama of 3 images at 14 mm. 30 sec. f/2.2, ISO 6400. Several images for bracketing lights.

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