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Happy Memorial Day Monday
NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day
May 26, 2025
Spiral Galaxy NGC 2566 from Webb
What’s happening in the center of spiral galaxy NGC 2566? First, the eight rays that appear to be coming out of the center in the featured infrared image are not real — they are diffraction spikes caused by the mechanical structure of the Webb space telescope itself. The center of NGC 2566 is bright but not considered unusual, which means that it likely contains a supermassive black hole, although currently not very active. At only 76 million light years away, the light we see from NGC 2566 today left when dinosaurs roamed the Earth. The picturesque galaxy is close enough so that Earthly telescopes, including Webb and Hubble, can resolve the turbulent clouds of gas and dust where stars can form and so allows study of stellar evolution. NGC 2566, similar in size to our Milky Way Galaxy, is notable for its bright central bar and its prominent outer spiral arms.
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
Video of Aurora Borealis Over America Shocks NASA Astronaut
Updated May 26, 2025 at 9:53 AM EDT
New video footage (shown above) from space showing Aurora Borealis over the northern United States and Canada has been revealed by an astronaut, who "wasn't expecting" to capture it.
U.S. astronaut Nichole Ayers, on the on the International Space Station as part of the SpaceX Crew 10 mission, said she had been trying to capture massive storms over North and South America, and unintentionally captured the Northern Lights
Sharing the footage to social media, she called it "a nice surprise."
What To Know
Aurora borealis is visible from space at certain times, one of which was captured on camera by Ayers as she surveyed the Earth's atmosphere.
In her video, filmed on on of the ISS's cameras, a green-purple aurora can be seen above the northern U.S. and Canada.
"The Aurora showed up this last weekend when I wasn't expecting it!" Ayers wrote on X.
"I was trying to capture the massive storms that went through both North and South America and got a nice surprise. The Aurora appeared right at sunset over the Northern US and Canada.
"I'm also fascinated by just how many satellites are orbiting the Earth at any given moment. There's so much to share with you all!"
Ayers travelled to the ISS aboard a SpaceX flight in March 2025, as part of the stations' 72 and 73rd expeditions. She is scheduled to return in July this year, after spending six months aboard the ISS.
Ayers is a pilot, and previously flew F-22s in the U.S. Air Force before swapping out jets for rockets, after being selected for NASA Astronaut Group 23 in 2021. Her current mission was her first time piloting a NASA flight.
What Are Northern Lights?
Aurora borealis, also known as the northern lights, are created when the sun releases solar wind into space. When the winds reach Earth, they collide with the atmosphere.
As the solar particles descend into the upper atmosphere, they mix with oxygen and nitrogen molecules in our air. These collisions emit the light that is visible during the northern lights.
Oxygen typically produces green and red hues, while nitrogen yields purples and blues.
What People Are Saying
Ayers said in another social media post: "We see beauty, while scientists see data.
As I continue taking pictures of our beautiful Earth, I'm constantly thinking about how these pictures could help researchers and scientists get the information they need.
This weekend, I was taking pictures of city lights over Italy, and we went right over Mt. Etna. I knew immediately where we were because of the void of lights where the volcano sits. It's an active volcano that is currently erupting."
What Happens Next
Ayers is set to travel back to Earth in July.
https://www.newsweek.com/aurora-borealis-video-america-shocks-nasa-astronaut-space-iss-2077031
https://x.com/Astro_Ayers/status/1925978984732311674
Red planet’s green sky: Mars has its own northern lights
Monday May 26 2025, 2.17pm BST
For the first time, a rover on the arid surface of Mars has witnessed an ethereal, jade-green aurora shimmering in the skies above another world.
The images offer a tantalising glimpse of the sights that would greet a crewed mission to the red planet. “It is likely that future Martian astronauts would be able to see this type of aurora,” Nasa said.
Auroras on Earth are a familiar marvel: shifting curtains of coloured light that ripple across the heavens, usually close to the poles.
The most celebrated — the aurora borealis, or the northern lights — are occasionally visible in the UK.
The displays occur when charged particles from the sun collide with gas atoms and molecules high in the atmosphere, causing them to glow.
For years, scientists had theorised that green auroras could occur on Mars, the result of solar particles kicking oxygen atoms high above the planet’s surface into “excited” states.
Until now, however, Martian auroras had been detected only by orbiting spacecraft, and only in ultraviolet — a wavelength invisible to the human eye.
That changed in March last year, when the sun emitted a powerful coronal mass ejection (CME) — a vast plume of charged plasma and magnetic energy that surged across the solar system.
When this reached Mars, it sparked a planetary-scale aurora, which Nasa’s Perseverance rover captured in visible green light for the first time.
“It was tremendously emotional,” said Dr Elise Wright Knutsen, an atmospheric physicist at the University of Oslo whose team predicted the aurora and led the effort to record it.
“It’s very satisfying when you finally find the exact thing you’ve been imagining for so long.” As an added bonus, the light show appeared on her birthday.
“For this particular aurora, it’s oxygen atoms,” she said. “They get excited, and when they de-excite, they emit a photon — and for this particular transition, it appears as a neon green to our eyes.”
The effect would be faint when seen with the naked eye. As with auroras on Earth, it would appear more vivid if snapped by a smartphone camera.
The results could also open up new ways of studying the impact on Mars of solar-driven space weather. Streams of charged particles flung off by the sun may pose a threat to both spacecraft and humans.
On Earth, auroras are sculpted by the planet’s magnetic field, which funnels solar particles towards the poles. Mars, however, lost its global magnetic field long ago.
As a result, its aurora was spread more evenly across the night sky, casting a faint, ghostly green glow.
The light corresponds to a wavelength of 557.7 nanometres — the same neon-green signature of oxygen seen in Earth’s auroras.
The discovery suggests that while Mars’s atmosphere and magnetic field differ greatly from our own, the atomic physics at play are similar.
Yet Mars’s magnetic landscape remains a puzzle. Inside the Earth there is a molten core of iron that churns, creating a planetary-scale magnetic field.
The interior of Mars appears to have cooled to a point where it can no longer do the same.
The planet is instead draped in an induced magnetosphere, which is shaped by the solar wind.
It is also peppered with localised crustal magnetic fields, which are locked into ancient rocks.
This chaotic structure may give rise to a subtle patchwork of patterns.
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/science/article/northern-lights-photographed-mars-nasa-tzvqz7vbk
THIS DAY IN HISTORY: President John F. Kennedy Challenges NASA To Visit the Moon In 1961
May 25, 2025
May 25, 1961
BREVARD COUNTY, FLORIDA – Sixty-four years ago today, on May 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy stood before a joint session of Congress and issued a bold challenge that would shape the course of American space exploration for generations.
In what became known as his “Urgent National Needs” speech, Kennedy called for the United States to significantly expand its efforts in space, setting forth a visionary goal that would ultimately culminate in the Apollo 11 Moon landing just eight years later.
“Now it is time to take longer strides—time for a great new American enterprise—time for this nation to take a clearly leading role in space achievement, which in many ways may hold the key to our future on Earth,” Kennedy declared.
Delivered amid Cold War tensions and growing competition with the Soviet Union, the speech outlined the strategic and inspirational value of space exploration.
At the time, the USSR had taken an early lead with the launch of Sputnik and the successful orbital flight of Yuri Gagarin.
Kennedy, advised by Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson and the National Space Council, believed that surpassing Soviet accomplishments in space was vital to national prestige, scientific advancement, and global influence.
The speech came just weeks after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion and at a moment when American confidence had been shaken.
Kennedy’s call for a dramatic expansion of the U.S. space program—including the famous pledge to land a man on the Moon before the end of the decade—was met with both skepticism and awe.
The goals Kennedy set forth that day would become the foundation for NASA’s Apollo program, leading to Neil Armstrong’s historic first steps on the Moon in July 1969.
Today, Kennedy’s words continue to resonate as a symbol of American ambition and innovation, marking a pivotal turning point in the nation’s journey beyond Earth.
https://spacecoastdaily.com/2025/05/this-day-in-history-john-f-kennedy-challenges-nasa-to-visit-the-moon-in-1961/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y08Vs7oUOYE