Pic of the Week: Trifid and Lagoon Nebulas

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): The Trifid and Lagoon Nebulas as captured by the Vera C. Rubin Observatory. (NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory)

This week’s colorful image is from the new Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile. It is part of the initial images being released as the observatory comes online. This particular image was created by combining 678 separate images. It shows clouds of gas and dust that comprise the Trifid nebula (top of image) and the Lagoon nebula (middle of image).

The new observatory is funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science, and is expected to operate for at least 10 years so it can provide more amazing images and information for astronomers. The timeline related to the creation of the observatory is provided below as well as via this link.

Dr. Vera C. Rubin was an American astronomer known for her work proving the existence “dark matter” in the Universe.

Credit: Vera C. Rubin Observatory.

Pic of the Week: Mars or Bust?

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): The explosion of a Starship rocket during testing at the Brownsville, Texas Starbase on June 18, 2025. (LabPadre Space)

As shown in the image above, SpaceX lost one of its Starships yesterday in a massive explosion at the Brownsville, Texas Starbase, making the Moon and Mars seem even farther away. Fortunately, no one was injured during this failed test firing of the Starship 36 rocket engines.

We should expect some problems along the way, but the trend is going backwards for Mr. Musk.

In a press release, SpaceX stated:

Engineering teams are actively investigating the incident and will follow established procedures to determine root cause. Initial analysis indicates the potential failure of a pressurized tank known as a COPV, or composite overwrapped pressure vessel, containing gaseous nitrogen in Starship’s nosecone area, but the full data review is ongoing. There is no commonality between the COPVs used on Starship and SpaceX’s Falcon rockets.

In separate comments, Mr. Musk initially stated:

Just a scratch.

Yes, the scratch heard round the world.

Pic of the Week: A Fun Evening Steven Colbert’s Guests

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): William Shatner and Neil deGrasse Tyson on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. (CBS)

This week’s image comes from an episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, which aired earlier this week. Mr. Colbert was interviewing William Shatner and Neil deGrasse Tyson about the absurdities on Earth and in the galaxy.

In an odd twist, Dr. Tyson was generally quiet on the sofa while Mr. Shatner carried the show with his antics. The image above shows one of the few times Dr. Tyson had a chance to explain a point. It is worth watching.

Shatner and Tyson will soon be on the road together with their own show. It is a live stage event on Wednesday, June 18, called ROCKING: The Universe is Absurd.

Pic of the Week: The Last SpaceX Dragon Approaching the ISS?

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): The SpaceX Dragon cargo craft, nosecone open, preparing to dock with the ISS on April 22, 2025. (NASA)

This week’s image shows the latest, but hopefully not last, docking of the SpaceX Dragon with the International Space Station (ISS) back in April.

Future flights of the Dragon to the ISS are now in question due to an ongoing feud between Elon Musk and Donald Trump, presumably over a bloated House budget bill. However, the issues also involve budget bill cuts to EV programs, the dropping of Musk’s friend as NASA administrator, and Musk’s departure from Washington after a less than sensational attempt to cut government programs.

In a tweet earlier today, Musk stated:

In light of the President’s statement about cancellation of my government contracts, @SpaceX will begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft immediately.

Oh yeah, Trump also threatened to end all SpaceX contracts, so I guess the Dragon would go anyway.

This is serious stuff, particularly after Musk and Trump attached Boeing earlier this year for “abandoning NASA astronauts on the ISS,” which was not true. Who is doing the abandoning now?

It appears Musk is already backing down, but the damage is done. He is demonstrating how NASA’s programs are under the control of this one, erratic man. Can things really go back to normal?

Stay tuned for more. I really just wanted to post a pic, but I had to say more today.

Pic of the Week: Galaxy Cluster Abell S1063

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Galaxy cluster Abell S1063. (ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, H. Atek, M. Zamani (ESA/Webb), R. Endsley)

This week’s image comes from the James Webb Space Telescope (Webb). The colorful image shows galaxy cluster Abell S1063 at its center. You can get dizzy if you stare at it too long. You are looking far back in time, which would make anyone dizzy.

Here is a description of what you are seeing:

This behemoth collection of galaxies, lying 4.5 billion light-years from Earth in the constellation Grus (the Crane), dominates the scene. Looking more closely, this dense collection of heavy galaxies is surrounded by glowing streaks of light, and these warped arcs are the true object of scientists’ interest: faint galaxies from the Universe’s distant past.

Abell S1063 was previously observed by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s Frontier Fields programme. It is a strong gravitational lens: the galaxy cluster is so massive that the light of distant galaxies aligned behind it is bent around it, creating the warped arcs that we see here. Like a glass lens, it focuses the light from these faraway galaxies. The resulting images, albeit distorted, are both bright and magnified — enough to be observed and studied. This was the aim of Hubble’s observations, using the galaxy cluster as a magnifying glass to investigate the early Universe.

The new imagery from Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) takes this quest even further back in time. This image showcases an incredible forest of lensing arcs around Abell S1063, which reveal distorted background galaxies at a range of cosmic distances, along with a multitude of faint galaxies and previously unseen features.