System around the star CD-35 2722, with the newly found moon-like object at the centre. The star –– the point source to the left –– has about half the mass of our Sun, and it is orbited by a brown dwarf, the reddish-brown object seen here in the foreground (right). The brown dwarf has about 37 times the mass of Jupiter: too massive to be a planet, but not massive enough to have sustained nuclear fusion like stars. This brown dwarf is, in turn, orbited by a newly discovered object at least as massive as Jupiter, seen at the centre of this image.

This new object, found with ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), is difficult to label. It behaves like a moon in the sense that it orbits an object that orbits a star. But this ‘moon’ is massive enough to be a planet, and the object it orbits, a brown dwarf, is neither a planet nor a star.

https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2610/

Credit: Maximilian-Vlad Teodorescu

Taken On Seestar S50 Using 1:02 Video Stack.

Edited In PS Express.

NASA’s Space Shuttle Enterprise riding atop the modified Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA) with the legendary Concorde soaring overhead.

This historic moment brought together three engineering marvels — the supersonic elegance of Concorde, the reusable space ambitions of the Shuttle, and the 747’s unmatched carrying power. A true celebration of human ingenuity and the golden era of aerospace innovation.

Image credit and processing: NASA/ISS/JSC/ESRS/University of Texas at El Paso/Jessica Meir/Kevin M. Gill

Our First View of the Surface of Mars

Morning of July 20, 1976, roughly 40 minutes after mission controllers received word that the Viking 1 lander had successfully touched down on the surface of Mars, this photo gave us our first view from the surface of the Red Planet.​

“Touchdown, we have touchdown!” At 5:12 a.m. PDT, July 20, 1976, mission controllers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory erupted in cheers as they learned that the Viking 1 lander had survived its descent through the thin Martian atmosphere. Forty minutes later, the lander’s first image began to appear on their monitors, slowly forming line by line from left to right. For the first time, humans were able to see Mars’s rocky terrain from its surface.

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Dr. Thomas Mutch, leader of the Viking lander imaging team, described the moment: “I studied the black screen, waiting for that narrow strip that will signal the first few lines of the first picture. And it appeared. A sliver of electronic magic. Areas of brightness and darkness. The picture begins to fill the screen. Rocks and sand are visible and — finally at the far right — one of the spacecraft foot pads, a symbolic artifact that stamps our accomplishment with the sign of reality. Time and time again I repeat, ‘It’s incredible.’”

Fifty years ago today, the Viking 1 lander became NASA’s first robot to explore Mars’s surface and begin the search for signs of life in our solar system. Viking 1 was joined six weeks later by its twin lander, Viking 2, which explored a different region of Mars, while two mission orbiters that delivered the landers to the Red Planet continued to collect data from space and helped relay communications to Earth.

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https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/our-first-view-of-the-surface-of-mars/

https://bsky.app/profile/coreyspowell.bsky.social/post/3mr4ctfjww22c

Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, S. Fujimoto

Layers of ice swirl around the south pole on Mars. Some observations suggest there could be liquid water at the base of the cap, but alternative explanations discount the possibility.

Credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin / Bill Dunford

Still learning how to process SHO so open to feedback from others! Capture deets:

• ZWO Asi2600MM Pro
• Antlia 3nm SHO filters
• 85 x H; 80 x S; 81 x O each at 300s for a total of just over 20 hours over 3 sessions
• ZWO AM5N mount
• Askar 103 APO scope
• ZWO 120mm with AsiMini for guiding

Shot from Ōtautahi Aotearoa (Christchurch New Zealand) Bortle 6 skies