Planetary Landscapes

10/31/2026

I will leave you tonight with a Martian (Rocky) Flower, possibly concretions or differential erosion captured by the cameras of our Curiosity rover at Gale crater. I have seen some similar formation in ancient cold seeps in the Andes at the sites of paleolakes. Goodnight Earthlings, and have a wonderful weekend! Credit Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech; Sol 3397, imaged acquired with MAHLI and ChemCam.

10/30/2026

The Carina Nebula | A cosmic masterpiece drifting 7,500 light-years away, where stellar nurseries glow in vibrant hues of gas and dust and newborn stars ignite the darkness of space. Credit Image: NASA/ Hubble Space Telescope

10/30/2026

This tiny moon has been nibbling away at Saturn's rings for millions of years: Credit: NOVA | PBS. https://www.facebook.com/reel/1389313736640706

10/30/2026

Patrick Stewart, renowned actor and ‘Star Trek’s’ Captain Picard, dies at 86 😢. Less than a week after the fates took Walter Koenig from our galaxy, another "Star Trek" legend has left us: Sir Patrick Stewart has died. https://www.space.com/entertainment/patrick-stewart-renowned-actor-and-star-treks-captain-picard-dies-at-86?fbclid=IwY2xjawVQxQZleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBwZG9mAXNydGMGYXBwX2lkEDIyMjAzOTE3ODgyMDA4OTIAAR-h367mXs9QI7WVgYJjA5UAD7xlxGCO8NGehl0ljUWJHtkoPawmnGEeTtxctA_aem_Rx97z7LQyDgKsFFv9YrEzA

The distinguished British actor of stage and screen passed away Wednesday (Oct. 28) in Los Angeles.

10/30/2026

The Tallest Peaks --- Vertical structures, among the tallest seen in Saturn's main rings, rise abruptly from the edge of Saturn's B ring to cast long shadows on the ring in this image taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft two weeks before the planet's August 2009 equinox. Part of the Cassini Division, between the B and the A rings, appears at the top of the image, showing ringlets in the inner division.

10/30/2026

52 million years ago, in the dying days of the Permian Period, life on Earth was brought to its knees. An entire ancient world of diverse living creatures was brought to a sudden and brutal end by this event, a catastrophe known in the study of deep time simply as ‘The Great Dying.' https://www.facebook.com/reel/2029552377686234

10/30/2026

Hexagonal storm system at the north pole of Saturn. It is 29,000 km across—more than twice the diameter of Earth | Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI/Kevin M. Gill

10/30/2026

Good morning Earthlings! Let me greet you this morning with symbol of hope. Here is a protoplanetary disc in the Orion Nebula | Disks around young stars (also known as circumstellar or protoplanetary disks) are thought to be made up of 99% gas and 1% dust. Even that small amount of dust is enough to make the disks opaque and dark at visible wavelengths. The dark disk is seen in this image because they are silhouetted against the bright backdrop of the hot gas of the Orion nebula. In the very early stages over 4.5 billion years ago, our solar system would have looked just like that to an alien observer. Very moving. Have a fantastic day!

Credit: Mark McCaughrean (Max-Planck-Institute for Astronomy), C. Robert O'Dell (Rice University), and NASA/ESA

10/30/2026

This is M106, somewhere in the constellation Canes Venatici...How gorgeous is that? Goodnight from 22 million light-years away, Earthlings! Credit Image: Credit: NASA/ESA HST.

10/29/2026

The Eagle Nebula (Messier 16) is a breathtaking stellar nursery located roughly 7,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Serpens. Vast, glowing clouds of cosmic dust and hydrogen gas span 70 light-years across, sculpted and illuminated by the fierce radiation of newborn stars. At its very heart lie the iconic Pillars of Creation, towering structures of cold molecular gas where new stars are actively being born into the universe.

Credit: NASA Hubble Space Telescope.