Pic of the Week: The Hazy Disc of Messier 81

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Image (Credit): Close up image of Messier 81 as captured by ESA’s Euclid space telescope. (ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA, image processing by J.-C. Cuillandre and E. Bertin)

This week’s space image was captured by the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Euclid space telescope, launched in July 2023. The is the first batch of data being released as part of the space telescope’s mission to map the universe.

Here is the ESA’s explanation of what you are seeing:

As part of this very large data release, Euclid observed the core of the Messier 81 galaxy group…The haze dominating the right side of the frame is the star-filled disc of Messier 81, the largest galaxy in the group. It shows how Euclid clearly captured individual stars within this disc. Many background galaxies are visible across this image, including red-hued galaxies lying far from us and distant spirals with blue swirling arms. The loose collection of blue stars seen just left of centre is a dwarf irregular galaxy known as Holmberg IX. Gravitational interactions between Messier 81 and Messier 82 may have sparked star formation in this galaxy. The Messier 81 galaxy group lies around 12 million light-years away from us.

Pic of the Week: The Dementors of Cepheus

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Image (Credit): “The Dementors of Cepheus,” by Julien De Winter, Landon Boehm, and Brian Diaz. (Astronomy Magazine)

This week’s image is the winning entry from Astronomy magazine’s 2026 Astrophotography Contest. The winning image is titled “The Dementors of Cepheus,” captured by Julien De Winter, Landon Boehm, and Brian Diaz. It was one of about 1,400 entries in the contest.

The magazine defines the image in this way:

A pair of shadowy, wraithlike figures weave their way through a grand tapestry of stellar life and death in our grand-prize-winning image. The imagers refer to them as the “Dementors of Cepheus” — a reference to the wardens of the prison Azkaban in the Harry Potter series. Here, they guard not convicts, but a corpse: The filaments of gas in the center of the frame are the remnants of a supernova, cataloged as SNR G110.3+11.3, that blew apart a massive star.

The supernova is approximately 1,300 light-years away in the constellation Cepheus.

You can read more about this winning image as well as the winners in other categories at the magazine’s gallery site.

Pic of the Week: Star Trek’s Patrick Stewart

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Image (Credit): Actor Patrick Stewart. (Eric Carter/Los Angeles Times)

This week’s image is in memory of Patrick Stewart, who died yesterday at the age of 86 at his home in Los Angeles.

Mr. Stewart will be remember for many of his roles, but his most iconic was his role as Captain Jean-Luc Picard on the starship USS Enterprise. His talents brought the Star Trek series to a whole new level that has yet to be matched.

Born in Yorkshire, England, he joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1966, the same year that the first Star Trek series premiered on television. Little did he know then, but 21 years later he would find himself on the bridge of a starship exploring the galaxy. Even Shakespeare would be impressed with this career path, yet it was just as he wrote in Twelfth Night:

Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them.

Mr. Stewart came to see his role on Star Trek as something akin to a religious ministry:

It was about truth and fairness and honesty and respect for others, no matter who they were or what strange alien creature they looked like…And if they needed help, Jean-Luc Picard and his crew, his team, were there to give it. So, yes, in a sense, we were ministers. And I have heard now so many times from individuals who have been honest enough and brave enough to tell me aspects of their life, of their health, of their mental health, and how it was all saved and improved by watching every week.”

George Takei, who played Hikaru Sulu in the original Star Trek series, had this to say about Mr. Stewart:

Fans across the world mourn the passing of a true and irreplaceable legend…As Captain Jean-Luc Picard, Patrick Stewart took the starship Enterprise to places it had never gone before, and he inspired a whole next generation of star-gazers who looked longingly ahead to a brighter future for all humanity.

You can read more on Mr. Stewart’s life and career at these sites:

National Public Radio
ABC News
BBC News

Rest in peace.

Pic of the Week: The Starry Night Story

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Image (Credit): Vincent Van Gogh’s The Starry Night. (MoMA)

This week’s image is from the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City. It shows Vincent Van Gogh’s famous painting The Starry Night. Created during his time at the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole asylum in Saint-Rémy, it is believed Van Gogh painted the piece in June 1989. But is it a true recreation of the night sky that June?

In a recent study, scientists from South Korea stated they now believe the painting shows the night sky on July 22, 1989 with its portrayal of the Moon, Venus, and the Hyades star cluster in the constellation Taurus. The team of scientists used various pieces of evidence, including letters from the artist, to get a better idea of the night sky and weather during that summer.

You can read more about this new study, The Actual Sky of Van Gogh’s Starry Night: a Multidisciplinary Reconstruction, at this link.

If you are simply interested in the art itself, this link at MoMA will tell you more.

Pic of the Week: Nebula Pa 30 – Space Fireworks

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Image (Credit): Nebula Pa 30 as captured by the Gemini North Telescope. (International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSG/AURA)

This week’s image is from the Gemini North Telescope in Hawaii. The spectacular explosion you see here is not the end of the Death Star, but rather Nebula Pa 30.

Here is what NASA’s Astronomy Photo of the Day website has to say about this image:

It is likely the remnant of an old supernova explosion: separate historical records by Chinese, Japanese and Arabic astronomers tell of a “guest star” that appeared in the sky for 185 days in the year 1181. It is believed that this bright new point of light came from the supernova that caused the fireworks in Pa 30. Astronomers don’t know exactly what happened in this unusual explosion, classified as a Type Iax supernova, but it is thought to be caused by the merger of two white dwarfs. The mysterious central star in the image is extremely hot and produces a strong wind, possibly forming the radial filaments. Look closely at them: those pearl-like knots stringing the filaments are 4 light-days in diameter. Understanding how a supernova created this amazing nebula continues an 845-year old mystery (and counting).