NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day

March 25, 2025

A Blue Banded Blood Moon

What causes a blue band to cross the Moon during a lunar eclipse? The blue band is real but usually quite hard to see. The featured HDR image of last week's lunar eclipse, however taken from Norman, Oklahoma (USA) has been digitally processed to exaggerate the colors. The gray color on the upper right of the top lunar image is the Moon's natural color, directly illuminated by sunlight. The lower parts of the Moon on all three images are not directly lit by the Sun since it is being eclipsed it is in the Earth's shadow. It is faintly lit, though, by sunlight that has passed deep through Earth's atmosphere. This part of the Moon is red and called a blood Moon for the same reason that Earth's sunsets are red: because air scatters away more blue light than red. The unusual purple-blue band visible on the upper right of the top and middle images is different its color is augmented by sunlight that has passed high through Earth's atmosphere, where red light is better absorbed by ozone than blue.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

NASA reveals astronauts’ return 'would not have happened' without Trump’s intervention

March 25, 2025 7:25am EDT

NASA spokeswoman Bethany Stevens credited President Donald Trump for securing the return of two astronauts stranded for more than nine months on the International Space Station.

In an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital, Stevens said the mission to rescue astronauts Barry "Butch" Wilmore and Suni Williams was a "huge win for the Trump administration."

The success is just the beginning, she said, as Trump's nominee to become NASA administrator, Jared Isaacman, looks to "Mars and beyond."

"This is a huge win for the Trump administration. And it would not have happened without President Trump's intervention. U

p next on the docket, to continue implementing President Trump's ambitious space agenda that he touted in his inaugural address is to confirm his nominee for NASA administrator, Jared Isaacman," Stevens said.

She highlighted that Isaacman "was the very first civilian to do a human spacewalk" and is a humanitarian who has worked extensively with St. Jude. Like Trump, Isaacman is an "outsider," she said.

"President Trump was also once considered an outsider, and the American people have put him back into office, just showing how much they appreciate the business side that he brings to the table.

And Mr. Isaacman also has a background as an entrepreneur of an extremely successful business," Stevens said.

"I believe that he is well-suited, as do 30 astronauts who wrote in support of him and multiple GOP governors, that he is well suited to take the helm here at NASA and to implement the president's agenda."

Last Tuesday, Wilmore, 62, and Williams, 59, splashed down in the Gulf of America off the coast of Tallahassee, Florida, after Elon Musk’s SpaceX Dragon spacecraft arrived at the ISS just days before.

Stevens made clear that NASA is ready to "get the ball rolling" after their safe return to Earth, but noted their mission is set to launch in the heart of Washington, D.C.

Isaacman faces an upcoming Senate confirmation hearing as Trump looks to secure yet another nominee appointed to his administration.

Earlier this month, eight Republican governors – Ron DeSantis, of Florida; Sarah Huckabee Sanders of Arkansas; Gregg Abbott of Texas; Bill Lee of Tennessee; Brian Kemp of Georgia; Mike Kehoe of Missouri; and Kevin Stitt of Oklahoma – wrote to Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee Chairman Ted Cruz, R-Texas.

They advocated for a "swift" confirmation, noting the Trump nominee’s "unparalleled ability to drive bold initiatives" and Isaacman’s understanding of "the complex landscape of modern space exploration."

I think that these governors are cognizant that the result of the November election was a mandate from the American people to implement change and to bring about change," Stevens told Fox News Digital.

"And President Trump has been bringing about that change since day one. The next step here is to confirm Jared Isaacman expeditiously, so that we can get to work on the president's ambitious space agenda, as he touted in his inaugural address."

"We were going to go to the moon and to Mars and beyond, and we have less than four years at this point to get through that considerably ambitious agenda," she said.

"And we need to implement his leadership here at NASA in order to get the ball rolling there. So I think that's the next step towards being America First in Space."

Fox News Digital also obtained an exclusive letter from Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, another Republican who joined her fellow state leaders in endorsing a speedy confirmation of the NASA administrator.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/nasa-reveals-astronauts-return-would-not-have-happened-without-trumps-intervention

Expedition 72 Astronauts Relax as Cosmonauts Keep Up Research, Maintenance

March 24, 2025

Four Expedition 72 astronauts took a well-deserved break on Monday following last week’s busy period of crew swap activities and advanced microgravity research.

The rest of the International Space Station residents kicked off the week with ongoing space science and life support maintenance duties.

NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers along with JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Takuya Onishi and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov are in their second week aboard the orbiting lab.

They arrived at the space station on March 15 as SpaceX Crew-10 members inside a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft. McClain and Onishi are both space veterans on their second station mission while Ayers and Peskov are first-time space flyers.

The four crewmates continue getting up to speed with living in weightlessness and the numerous space station systems they will use every day.

They are also beginning a series of both new and ongoing station experiments benefiting humans living on and off the Earth.

However, McClain, Ayers, and Onishi relaxed on Monday with NASA Flight Engineer Don Pettit who has been aboard the space station since Sept. 11, 2024.

Pettit assisted the new crewmates last week helping them adjust to life on orbit and start their first space science investigations.

The quartet used the free time for catching up with family on the ground, personal activities such as reading and listening to music, and looking at the Earth below from the cupola.

Peskov stayed busy on Monday along with his fellow cosmonauts station Commander Alexey Ovchinin and Flight Engineer Ivan Vagner.

Peskov began his day with water transfers then ended his shift inspecting and cleaning the station’s Roscosmos modules.

Ovchinin installed and activated a camera remotely controlled by students to photograph landmarks on Earth from the Harmony module.

Vagner worked in the Nauka science module’s glovebox exploring methods to create sterile conditions aboard spacecraft for safe biological research activities.

https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/spacestation/2025/03/24/expedition-72-astronauts-relax-as-cosmonauts-keep-up-research-maintenance/

https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/spacestation/

NASA’s Webb Telescope Unmasks True Nature of the Cosmic Tornado

Mar 24, 2025

Craving an ice cream sundae with a cherry on top? This random alignment of Herbig-Haro 49/50 — a frothy-looking outflow from a nearby protostar — with a multi-hued spiral galaxy may do the trick.

This new composite image combining observations from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) and MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) provides a high-resolution view to explore the exquisite details of this bubbling activity.

Herbig-Haro objects are outflows produced by jets launched from a nearby, forming star. The outflows, which can extend for light-years, plow into a denser region of material.

This creates shock waves, heating the material to higher temperatures. The material then cools by emitting light at visible and infrared wavelengths.

HH 49/50 is located in the Chamaeleon I Cloud complex , one of the nearest active star formation regions in our Milky Way, which is creating numerous low-mass stars similar to our Sun.

This cloud complex is likely similar to the environment that our Sun formed in.

Past observations of this region show that the HH 49/50 outflow is moving away from us at speeds of 60-190 miles per second (100-300 kilometers per second) and is just one feature of a larger outflow.

Webb’s NIRCam and MIRI observations of HH 49/50 trace the location of glowing hydrogen molecules, carbon monoxide molecules, and energized grains of dust, represented in orange and red, as the protostellar jet slams into the region.

Webb’s observations probe details on small spatial scales that will help astronomers to model the properties of the jet and understand how it is affecting the surrounding material.

The arc-shaped features in HH 49/50, similar to a water wake created by a speeding boat, point back to the source of this outflow.

Based on past observations, scientists suspect that a protostar known as Cederblad 110 IRS4 is a plausible driver of the jet activity. Located roughly 1.5 light-years away from HH 49/50 (off the lower right corner of the Webb image), CED 110 IRS4 is a Class I protostar.

Class I protostars are young objects (tens of thousands to a million years old) in the prime time of gaining mass. They usually have a discernable disk of material surrounding them that is still falling onto the protostar.

Scientists recently used Webb’s NIRCam and MIRI observations to study this protostar and obtain an inventory of the icy composition of its environment.

These detailed Webb images of the arcs in HH 49/50 can more precisely pinpoint the direction to the jet source, but not every arc points back in the same direction.

For example, there is an unusual outcrop feature (at the top right of the main outflow) which could be another chance superposition of a different outflow, related to the slow precession of the intermittent jet source.

Alternatively, this feature could be a result of the main outflow breaking apart.

The galaxy that appears by happenstance at the tip of HH 49/50 is a much more distant, face-on spiral galaxy. It has a prominent central bulge represented in blue that shows the location of older stars.

The bulge also shows hints of “side lobes” suggesting that this could be a barred-spiral galaxy. Reddish clumps within the spiral arms show the locations of warm dust and groups of forming stars.

The galaxy even displays evacuated bubbles in these dusty regions, similar to nearby galaxies observed by Webb as part of the PHANGS program.

Webb has captured these two unassociated objects in a lucky alignment. Over thousands of years, the edge of HH 49/50 will move outwards and eventually appear to cover up the distant galaxy.

Want more? Take a closer look at the image, “fly through” it in a visualization, and compare Webb’s image to the Spitzer Space Telescope’s.

Herbig-Haro 49/50 is located about 625 light-years from Earth in the constellation Chamaeleon.

https://science.nasa.gov/missions/webb/nasas-webb-telescope-unmasks-true-nature-of-the-cosmic-tornado/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_GviglW954

NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 Astronauts to Discuss Science Mission

Mar 24, 2025

After completing a long-duration stay aboard the International Space Station, NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 astronauts will discuss their science mission during a postflight news conference at 2:30 p.m. EDT Monday, March 31, from the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Following the news conference, the crew will be available for a limited number of individual interviews at 3:30 p.m.

NASA astronauts Nick Hague, Suni Williams, and Butch Wilmore will answer questions about their time in space.

The three NASA crew members and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov returned to Earth on March 18. Gorbunov will not participate in the news conference because of his travel schedule.

Watch live coverage on NASA+. Learn how to watch NASA content through a variety of additional platforms, including social media.

Media are invited to attend in person or virtually. U.S. media requesting in-person attendance or media seeking an interview with the crew must contact the NASA Johnson newsroom no later than 5 p.m. on Friday, March 28, at 281-483-5111 or jsccommu@mail.nasa.gov.

A copy of NASA’s media accreditation policy is available on the agency’s website. Media participating by phone must dial into the news conference no later than 10 minutes before the start of the event to ask questions.

Questions also may be submitted on social media using #AskNASA.

Hague and Gorbunov lifted off at 1:17 p.m. Sept. 28, 2024, on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

The next day, they docked to the forward-facing port of the station’s Harmony module. Williams and Wilmore launched aboard Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft and United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket on June 5, 2024, from Space Launch Complex 41 as part of the agency’s Boeing Crew Flight Test.

The duo arrived at the space station on June 6. In August, NASA announced the uncrewed return of Starliner to Earth and integrated Wilmore and Williams as part of the space station’s Expedition 71/72 for a return on Crew-9.

Williams and Wilmore traveled 121,347,491 miles during their mission, spent 286 days in space, and completed 4,576 orbits around Earth.

Hague and Gorbunov traveled 72,553,920 miles during their mission, spent 171 days in space, and completed 2,736 orbits around Earth.

Hague, Williams, and Wilmore completed over 900 hours of research, conducting more than 150 unique experiments.

During their time in orbit, the crew studied plant growth and development, tested stem cell technology to improve patient outcomes on Earth, and participated in research to understand how the space environment affects material degradation.

They also performed a spacewalk and collected samples from the station’s exterior, studying the survivability of microorganisms in space.

Additionally, the crew supported 30 ham radio events with students worldwide and conducted a student-led genetic experiment, helping to inspire the next generation of explorers.

https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasas-spacex-crew-9-astronauts-to-discuss-science-mission/

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-curiosity-rover-detects-largest-organic-molecules-found-on-mars/

https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.2420580122

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wektNJExGks

NASA’s Curiosity Rover Detects Largest Organic Molecules Found on Mars

March 24, 2025

The finding expands on the kinds of ancient molecules that can be preserved in the Martian surface.

Scientists analyzing pulverized rock onboard NASA’s Curiosity rover have found the largest organic compounds on the Red Planet to date.

The finding, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests prebiotic chemistry may have advanced further on Mars than previously observed.

Scientists probed an existing rock sample inside Curiosity’s Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) mini-lab and found the molecules decane, undecane, and dodecane.

These compounds, which are made up of 10, 11, and 12 carbons, respectively, are thought to be the fragments of fatty acids that were preserved in the sample.

Fatty acids are among the organic molecules that on Earth are chemical building blocks of life.

Living things produce fatty acids to help form cell membranes and perform various other functions.

But fatty acids also can be made without life, through chemical reactions triggered by various geological processes, including the interaction of water with minerals in hydrothermal vents.

While there’s no way to confirm the source of the molecules identified, finding them at all is exciting for Curiosity’s science team for a couple of reasons.

Curiosity scientists had previously discovered small, simple organic molecules on Mars, but finding these larger compounds provides the first evidence that organic chemistry advanced toward the kind of complexity required for an origin of life on Mars.

The new study also increases the chances that large organic molecules that can be made only in the presence of life, known as “biosignatures,” could be preserved on Mars, allaying concerns that these compounds get destroyed after tens of millions of years of exposure to intense radiation and oxidation.

This finding bodes well for plans to bring samples from Mars to Earth to analyze them with the most sophisticated instruments available here, the scientists say.

“Our study proves that, even today, by analyzing Mars samples we could detect chemical signatures of past life, if it ever existed on Mars,” said Caroline Freissinet, the lead study author and research scientist at the French National Centre for Scientific Research in the Laboratory for Atmospheres, Observations, and Space in Guyancourt, France.

In 2015, Freissinet co-led a team that, in a first, conclusively identified Martian organic molecules in the same sample that was used for the current study. Nicknamed “Cumberland,” the sample has been analyzed many times with SAM using different techniques.

Curiosity drilled the Cumberland sample in May 2013 from an area in Mars’ Gale Crater called “Yellowknife Bay.”

Scientists were so intrigued by Yellowknife Bay, which looked like an ancient lakebed, they sent the rover there before heading in the opposite direction to its primary destination of Mount Sharp, which rises from the floor of the crater.

The detour was worth it: Cumberland turns out to be jam-packed with tantalizing chemical clues to Gale Crater’s 3.7-billion-year past. Scientists have previously found the sample to be rich in clay minerals, which form in water.

It has abundant sulfur, which can help preserve organic molecules. Cumberland also has lots of nitrates, which on Earth are essential to the health of plants and animals, and methane made with a type of carbon that on Earth is associated with biological processes.

Perhaps most important, scientists determined that Yellowknife Bay was indeed the site of an ancient lake, providing an environment that could concentrate organic molecules and preserve them in fine-grained sedimentary rock called mudstone.

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>>22818632

“There is evidence that liquid water existed in Gale Crater for millions of years and probably much longer, which means there was enough time for life-forming chemistry to happen in these crater-lake environments on Mars,” said Daniel Glavin, senior scientist for sample return at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and a study co-author.

The recent organic compounds discovery was a side effect of an unrelated experiment to probe Cumberland for signs of amino acids, which are the building blocks of proteins.

After heating the sample twice in SAM’s oven and then measuring the mass of the molecules released, the team saw no evidence of amino acids. But they noticed that the sample released small amounts of decane, undecane, and dodecane.

Because these compounds could have broken off from larger molecules during heating, scientists worked backward to figure out what structures they may have come from.

They hypothesized these molecules were remnants of the fatty acids undecanoic acid, dodecanoic acid, and tridecanoic acid, respectively.

The scientists tested their prediction in the lab, mixing undecanoic acid into a Mars-like clay and conducting a SAM-like experiment.

After being heated, the undecanoic acid released decane, as predicted. The researchers then referenced experiments already published by other scientists to show that the undecane could have broken off from dodecanoic acid and dodecane from tridecanoic acid.

The authors found an additional intriguing detail in their study related to the number of carbon atoms that make up the presumed fatty acids in the sample.

The backbone of each fatty acid is a long, straight chain of 11 to 13 carbons, depending on the molecule. Notably, non-biological processes typically make shorter fatty acids, with less than 12 carbons.

It’s possible that the Cumberland sample has longer-chain fatty acids, the scientists say, but SAM is not optimized to detect longer chains.

Scientists say that, ultimately, there’s a limit to how much they can infer from molecule-hunting instruments that can be sent to Mars.

“We are ready to take the next big step and bring Mars samples home to our labs to settle the debate about life on Mars,” said Glavin.

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>>22818638

Now thats a cool apod!