This week’s images of 16 galaxies are from a variety of NASA telescopes. The galaxies are generally sorted into three types – spiral, elliptical, and irregular. For example, the Milky Way galaxy is a spiral galaxy, whereas Centaurus A (Cen A above) is a giant elliptical galaxy and NGC 1569 (also above) is a compact dwarf irregular galaxy.
Please go to this NASA link to see all of these galaxies in their full glory.
Earlier this week, NASA released the image above showing the crater created by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket’s upper stage. The upper stage was part of an earlier SpaceX mission from January 2025 that launched the Firefly Blue Ghost 1 mission. This lunar image was captured by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter between August 11 and 12.
NASA explained the complex process needed to locate the new crater:
Finding the impact site took global coordination among experts and hobbyists. Independent astronomers first identified the rocket’s trajectory using publicly available data. NASA’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies, which tracks natural objects that could pose hazards to Earth for the agency’s Planetary Defense program, used this opportunity to test and validate tools and techniques for predicting impacts.
Based at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, the center incrementally refined the trajectory until identifying the location of impact, which it provided to the Republic of Korea for their Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (Danuri) team. The team used the high-resolution LUTI camera on Danuri a few hours later to image the crater, finding the prediction was accurate to about 0.6 miles.
After capturing images of the crater, the Danuri mission sent coordinates to NASA’s LRO team to help refine their follow-up imaging sequence. Comparing their new crater images with the pre-impact images, the LRO team updated the crater center coordinates: 19.4759°N, 266.7138°E, 511 meters elevation.
This image is just one of many highlighted by CNN from this week’s solar eclipse. Go to this link for more.
This week’s image is from the U.S. National Science Foundation’s (NSF) National Solar Observatory (NSO). It shows the highest resolution image ever captured of the Sun’s surface. The image was captured by the Inouye Solar Telescope located in Maui, Hawaii.
Here is more from the NSF about this image:
Using the world’s most powerful solar telescope, the NSF Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope near the summit of Maui’s Haleakalā, combined with computer simulations, an international team of scientists from the NSO, NSF NCAR High Altitude Observatory (HAO), and the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) found the signature of Kelvin-Helmholtz instability (KHI), tiny swirling patterns like small whirlpools, on the Sun’s surface. Researchers suggest that KHI might be a key reason why the Sun’s outer atmosphere gets so hot, and why magnetic energy builds up and moves around on the Sun. Magnetic energy fuels solar flares and eruptions—the kind of solar activity that can send bursts of energy toward Earth and affect satellites, power grids, and other technology. The discovery opens a new window into the fundamental physics of the Sun and other stars while underscoring the unmatched capabilities of the Inouye Solar Telescope.
The image above, taken on July 20th, shows one of the many teams working on the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope as it gets ready for its launch on August 30th. The pictured individuals are part of the propellant, safety, and quality assurance team.
NASA’s latest update on the mission stated:
Technicians completed fueling NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, bringing it an important step closer to launch. On July 25, the team completed operations that carefully loaded 290 gallons of hydrazine fuel into the observatory at the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
After launch and separation from the rocket, Roman will use this onboard propellant to perform maneuvers as it travels to Sun-Earth Lagrange point 2, or L2, located about one million miles from Earth. There, about four times the distance to the Moon, it will have an ideal home for astronomy.
