Image (Credit): “Moonrise Perfection over the Dolomites” by Fabian Dalpiaz. (Royal Observatory Greenwich)
This week’s image is one of the winning photographs in the Royal Observatory Greenwich’s Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2025 contest. The photograph, ranked as highly commended under Skyscapes, was submitted by Fabian Dalpiaz and is titled “Moonrise Perfection over the Dolomites.” It was taken on November 15, 2024 in Santuario di Pietralba, Deutschnofen, South Tyrol, Italy.
This is a perfectly planned shot of the Full Moon rising above the rugged peaks of the Dolomites. With no clouds in sight and in flawless conditions, the golden light of sunset bathes the mountains, creating harmony between Earth and sky. All it takes is being in the right place at the right time and pressing the shutter button.
Earlier today, Jared Isaacman was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as the new administrator of NASA. The final Senate vote was was 67-30, which is an encouraging sign showing that he is off to a good start. Anything bipartisan is unique in this environment.
Sean Duffy, the acting administrator, can now go back to the Department of Transportation. Fortunately, his effort to make NASA a sub-component of his department has failed.
The Planetary Society had a nice statement welcoming Mr. Jared to his new role and also emphasizing what needs to be done in partnership with the Congress:
The Planetary Society congratulates Jared Isaacman on becoming NASA’s 15th Administrator. After nearly a year of historic disruptions to the agency’s workforce, facilities, and budget, Mr. Isaacman has the opportunity to stabilize and reinvigorate the U.S. space program.
Congress is on a path to provide Mr. Isaacman with a restored budget that better funds national priorities: returning humans to the Moon, maintaining U.S. leadership in space science and exploration, and training the next generation of scientists and aerospace engineers. This is a remarkable statement of support for NASA’s mission, and Mr. Isaacman publicly committed to make full use of the funds that Congress provides.
The Planetary Society is ready to work with the new Administrator to advance our shared goals of maintaining NASA as the world leader in space science and exploration.
We should all wish Mr. Isaacman the best of luck in his new role. He will need all the support he can get to set the agency on a sustainable path.
Okay, you are running out of time to buy the perfect gift. Yet you do not need to fret. You still have some good options for that friend or family member.
First, why not consider getting this person a membership in a space-advocacy organization. In this way, they can stay abreast of space news while also supporting an organization pushing (1) Congress for more space funding and (2) NASA in the direction of more exploration.
Here are three such organizations you can support:
All three space advocacy organizations also have great magazines for members.
And speaking of magazines, another option is to get this person an annual subscription to a space magazine. Here are some magazines covering astronomy that are worth considering.
I am not getting a red cent by endorsing any of these organizations and magazines, but it does make a lot of sense to consider these gift options. It is a quick and easy way to give a great gift while supporting those organizations that educate the public on space.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California on Wednesday inaugurated its Rover Operations Center (ROC), a center of excellence for current and future surface missions to the Moon and Mars. During the launch event, leaders from the commercial space and AI industries toured the facilities, participated in working sessions with JPL mission teams, and learned more about the first-ever use of generative AI by NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover team to create future routes for the robotic explorer.
About a month after a tiny piece of space debris stranded three astronauts for nine days aboard China’s Tiangong space station, the taikonauts aboard the orbital outpost have begun making some modifications. According to state media network CGTN, the country’s space travelers Zhang Lu and Wu Fei endured an eight-hour spacewalk earlier this week in order to install a debris protection panels on the space station’s outer hull. While there, they also performed an inspection of Tiangong’s exterior, along with other minor repairs.
What do fizzing champagne glasses and our universe have in common? They’re both full of bubbles! The cosmic bubbles are vast structures hundreds of millions of light-years across. Their walls are outlined by collections of galaxies. The details of these bubbles – their size, shape, and distribution – can tell us more about the mysterious force known as dark energy that is causing the universe’s expansion to accelerate. The upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will detect and measure tens of thousands of cosmic voids, some as small as just 20 million light-years across.
While all the talk right now is ranking the TV shows of 2025 (which I have yet to do), I am already looking forward to 2026.
If you are not happy about the two-year delay in the return of season five of Apple TV’s For All Mankind, you can rest easy knowing that 2026 will not only have season five of this favorite, but also the premiere of a spin-off called Star City. Yes, the premiere of Star Citywas announced by Apple TV two-and-a-half years ago with the season five news, but it seems 2026 will see both shows break loose
So what is Star City about? That earlier announcement shared this from executive producers Matt Wolpert and Ben Nedivi:
Our fascination with the Soviet space program has grown with every season of ‘For All Mankind…The more we learned about this secret city in the forests outside Moscow where the Soviet cosmonauts and engineers worked and lived, the more we wanted to tell this story of the other side of the space race. We could not be more excited to continue building out the alternate history universe of ‘For All Mankind’ with our partners at Apple and Sony.
Wolpwert also had this to say about where season five of For All Mankind was heading:
We can say that, obviously, season four ended with an asteroid being stolen, and so there are a lot of people on Earth who are pretty pissed off about that. I think that more than anything, I would say the thrust of the season five story is how a rift is forming between the people who live on Mars, and more and more people are now living on Mars, and the people who have stayed back on Earth. And so, this show that started with a US versus USSR Cold War is now developing into a Mars versus Earth political schism, and how that impacts all of the characters we’ve come to know and love is really fun.
Okay, after that preamble, what are the premiere dates of these shows? That is unclear, though Apple TV already has a placeholder forStar City on its website, or at least this is the case in New Zealand. I know, very odd.
I am not sure why Apple TV is so quiet about all of this. The secrecy is worst than a classified Russian space program. The delays only frustrate the fan base, though it was smart that the creators showed up at San Diego Comic-Con 2025 to share more about these shows.
Maybe Pluribus is sucking up all of the oxygen in the room at the moment, but I think it is time for Apple TV to start talking about these other shows given that a very eager fan base is getting antsy.
Our Awesome Universe 