NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day

August 20, 2025

Perseid Meteors from Durdle Door

Explanation: What are those curved arcs in the sky? Meteors – specifically, meteors from this year's Perseid meteor shower. Over the past few weeks, after the sky darkened, many images of Perseid meteors were captured separately and merged into a single frame, taken earlier. Although the meteors all traveled on straight paths, these paths appear slightly curved by the wide-angle lens of the capturing camera. The meteor streaks can all be traced back to a single point on the sky called the radiant, here just off the top of the frame in the constellation of Perseus. The same camera took a deep image of the background sky that brought up the central band of our Milky Way galaxy running nearly vertically through the featured image's center. The limestone arch in the foreground in Dorset, England is known as Durdle Door, a name thought to survive from a thousand years ago.

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

NASA and IBM Unveil AI That Helps Scientists Forecast Solar Storms

August 20, 2025

Earlier this year, local and national officials gathered for a first-of-its-kind tabletop exercise to test their readiness for a severe solar storm.

The simulation exposed major gaps in scientists’ ability to forecast space weather, which threatens critical infrastructure on Earth and in orbit.

On Wednesday, August 20, IBM and NASA unveiled Surya: an open-source AI model that could begin to fill those gaps. Heliophysicists currently rely on complex computer models to monitor and predict the Sun’s activity.

Surya improves upon the lead time and accuracy of existing solar forecasting technologies, allowing scientists to not only predict a solar flare two hours out but also visually pinpoint where it should occur on the Sun’s surface, according to IBM.

“It’s very important to have a mechanism to look into the Sun and understand how these events [are going to happen], when they’re going to happen, why they’re going to happen, and start predicting the occurrence so that we can be prepared,” Juan Bernabé-Moreno, director of IBM Research Europe for Ireland and the U.K., told Gizmodo.

The hazards of solar weather

The surface of the Sun is a violent place. Our host star is constantly emitting bursts of energy such as solar flares, high-speed solar winds, and coronal mass ejections.

When Earth is in the line of fire during one of these events, the onslaught of high-energy particles can trigger a geomagnetic storm in the upper atmosphere.

Such storms result from disturbances in Earth’s magnetic field and can damage or disrupt satellites, power grids, and radio communication systems, according to NASA.

Being able to anticipate these outbursts gives decision-makers critical lead time to protect vulnerable infrastructure, potentially avoiding billions of dollars in damage.

According to a systemic risk analysis by Lloyd’s, a severe solar storm could result in losses to the global economy of $2.4 trillion over a five-year period.

Forecasting flares with Surya

Bernabé-Moreno thinks of Surya as a powerful AI telescope that also lets you look into the future.

Whereas traditional solar weather prediction relies on partial satellite views of the Sun’s surface, Surya trained on nine years of high-resolution solar observation data gathered by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory.

This telescope launched in 2010 and has been continuously observing the Sun for the past 15 years, capturing images every 12 seconds at various wavelengths to take the temperature of its layers and map magnetic activity.

Heliophysicists will be able to use Surya in a variety of ways, but its most novel application is solar flare prediction, IBM senior research scientist and technical project lead Johannes Schmude told Gizmodo in an email.

The model does this by generating an image of an event that the SDO satellite is likely to see, essentially predicting what the surface of the Sun will look like hours ahead.

Testing showed that Surya can predict a solar flare two hours in advance with a 16% improvement in flare classification accuracy, but IBM is exploring the accuracy of even longer lead time predictions, according to Schmude.

It’s important to note, however, that Surya trained on data from the previous solar cycle.

“Testing the model’s applicability to Solar cycle 25 is one of the post-release tasks on our list, but we plan to explore continuous training and other fine-tuning with data from Solar Cycle 25,” Schmude said.

Following the release of this open-source AI model, Bernabé-Moreno is excited for the scientific community to begin using it on a wider scale, identifying new applications and challenging its capabilities.

“That is going to create utility,” he said. “That, for us, is the most important thing.”

https://gizmodo.com/nasa-and-ibm-unveil-ai-that-helps-scientists-forecast-solar-storms-2000645123

https://research.ibm.com/blog/surya-heliophysics-ai-model-sun

https://science.nasa.gov/sun/solar-storms-and-flares/

See auroras from space in this 'wild' timelapse captured by NASA astronaut on space station

Updated Aug 18, 2025

Auroras on Earth are a stunning sight to behold – and a rare one at that from the continental United States.

Lucky enough to have witnessed a phenomenon that in the Northern Hemisphere is known as the northern lights? Well, now imagine what that would look like from about 250 miles above.

One astronaut aboard the International Space Station recently caught a glimpse of the incredible light show, and was kind enough to share footage of it with all of us still on the ground.

"I don’t have words yet for the whole experience, so a picture will have to do," NASA astronaut Zena Cardman said in an Aug. 14 post on social media site X.

Here's a look at what Cardman documented from space, and how it's the latest in a long line of striking astral photography.

What are auroras? Astronaut captures phenomenon from ISS

The auroras are a natural light display in Earth's sky that are famously best seen in high-latitude regions of the Northern and Southern hemispheres.

The glowing phenomenon appears as rays, spirals and flickers that most commonly manifest in hues of red and green. Most of us in the Northern Hemisphere are likely most familiar with the aurora borealis, or northern lights.

But because Cardman said the view she captured was over the South Pacific Ocean, that would likely make the display the southern lights, or the aurora australis, in the Southern Hemisphere.

The 40-second timelapse she shared to social media also shows the Orion constellation and satellites, Cardman said.

Other astronauts document Earthly phenomenon from space

Cardman is far from the first astronaut to document such an incredible cosmic sight from space.

Astronaut Nichole Ayers, who was part of the since-departed Crew-10 mission, captured a few different phenomena during her time at the orbital outpost.

Ayers' astral photography included photos of lightning in June from the space station and, in July, photos of a rare event known as a "sprite."

The phenomenon, which scientists refer to as transient luminous events (TLEs), happens above the clouds during periods of intense electrical activity, like lightning.

Coincidentally, Cardman said she recorded her recent timelapse video aboard the SpaceX Dragon capsule docked at the time at the station that Ayers rode in March to the ISS.

The Dragon undocked and landed Aug. 9 off the California coast with Ayers and three other Crew-10 members.

"It was a bittersweet farewell but marked the start of a new chapter in what feels already like a great story," Cardman said in her post.

Who is on the International Space Station?

Cardman is one of seven people living aboard the International Space Station.

Cardman arrived Aug. 2 at the orbital laboratory as part of a four-person contingent of a joint NASA and SpaceX mission known as Crew-11.

The other members of the mission are NASA astronaut Mike Fincke; Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA); and Russian Oleg Platonov, a Roscosmos cosmonaut.

Crew-11 launched Aug. 1 from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida aboard a Dragon capsule perched atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

Also aboard the station is NASA astronaut Jonny Kim, who reached the ISS in April with cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Alexey Zubritsky.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2025/08/18/auroras-northern-lights-nasa-astronaut-space-station/85706118007/

https://x.com/zenanaut/status/1955997190083445073

NASA’s Psyche Captures Images of Earth, Moon

Aug 19, 2025

Headed for a metal-rich asteroid of the same name, the Psyche spacecraft successfully calibrated its cameras by looking homeward.

On schedule for its 2029 arrival at the asteroid Psyche, NASA’s Psyche spacecraft recently looked back toward home and captured images of Earth and our Moon from about 180 million miles (290 million kilometers) away.

The images were obtained during one of the mission team’s periodic checkouts of the spacecraft’s science instruments.

On July 20 and July 23, the spacecraft’s twin cameras captured multiple long-exposure (up to 10-second) pictures of the two bodies, which appear as dots sparkling with reflected sunlight amid a starfield in the constellation Aries.

The Psyche multispectral imager instrument comprises a pair of identical cameras equipped with filters and telescopic lenses to photograph the asteroid Psyche’s surface in different wavelengths of light.

The color and shape of a planetary body’s spectrum can reveal details about what it’s made of. The Moon and the giant asteroid Vesta, for example, have similar kinds of “bumps and wiggles” in their spectra that scientists could potentially also detect at Psyche.

Members of the mission’s science team are interested in Psyche because it will help them better understand the formation of rocky planets with metallic cores, including Earth.

When choosing targets for the imager testing and calibration, scientists look for bodies that shine with reflected sunlight, just as the asteroid Psyche does.

They also look at objects that have a spectrum they’re familiar with, so they can compare previous telescopic or spacecraft data from those objects with what Psyche’s instruments observe.

Earlier this year, Psyche turned its lenses toward Jupiter and Mars for calibration — each has a spectrum more reddish than the bluer tones of Earth. That checkout also proved a success.

To determine whether the imager’s performance is changing, scientists also compare data from the different tests. That way, when the spacecraft slips into orbit around Psyche, scientists can be sure that the instrument behaves as expected.

“After this, we may look at Saturn or Vesta to help us continue to test the imagers,” said Jim Bell, the Psyche imager instrument lead at Arizona State University in Tempe.

“We’re sort of collecting solar system ‘trading cards’ from these different bodies and running them through our calibration pipeline to make sure we’re getting the right answers.”

Strong and Sturdy

The imager wasn’t the only instrument that got a successful checkout in late July: The mission team also put the spacecraft’s magnetometer and the gamma-ray and neutron spectrometer through a gamut of tests — something they do every six months.

“We are up and running, and everything is working well,” said Bob Mase, the mission’s project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.

“We’re on target to fly by Mars in May 2026, and we are accomplishing all of our planned activities for cruise.”

That flyby is the spacecraft’s next big milestone, when it will use the Red Planet’s gravity as a slingshot to help the spacecraft get to the asteroid Psyche.

That will mark Psyche’s first of two planned loops around the solar system and 1 billion miles (1.6 billion kilometers) since launching from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in October 2023.

https://www.nasa.gov/missions/psyche-mission/nasas-psyche-captures-images-of-earth-moon/

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

https://science.nasa.gov/mission/psyche/

NASA Mars Curiosity Rover

Sol 4625: Right Navigation Camera, Cylindrical Projection

August 19, 2025

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity took 31 images in Gale Crater using its mast-mounted Right Navigation Camera (Navcam) to create this mosaic.

The seam-corrected mosaic provides a 360-degree cylindrical projection panorama of the Martian surface centered at 210 degrees azimuth (measured clockwise from north).

Curiosity took the images on August 10, 2025, Sol 4625 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission at drive 762, site number 118.

The local mean solar time for the image exposures was 3 PM. Each Navcam image has a 45 degree field of view.

https://science.nasa.gov/resource/sol-4625-right-navigation-camera-cylindrical-projection/

Sol 4626: Right Navigation Camera, Cylindrical Projection

August 19, 2025

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity took 32 images in Gale Crater using its mast-mounted Right Navigation Camera (Navcam) to create this mosaic.

The seam-corrected mosaic provides a 360-degree cylindrical projection panorama of the Martian surface centered at 210 degrees azimuth (measured clockwise from north).

Curiosity took the images on August 11, 2025, Sols 4626-4625 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission at drive 762, site number 118.

The local mean solar time for the image exposures was from 9 AM to 3 PM. Each Navcam image has a 45 degree field of view.

https://science.nasa.gov/resource/sol-4628-right-navigation-camera-cylindrical-projection/

Sol 4628: Right Navigation Camera, Cylindrical Projection

August 19, 2025

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity took 31 images in Gale Crater using its mast-mounted Right Navigation Camera (Navcam) to create this mosaic.

The seam-corrected mosaic provides a 360-degree cylindrical projection panorama of the Martian surface centered at 268 degrees azimuth (measured clockwise from north).

Curiosity took the images on August 13, 2025, Sol 4628 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission at drive 924, site number 118.

The local mean solar time for the image exposures was from 1 PM to 2 PM. Each Navcam image has a 45 degree field of view.

Curiosity Blog, Sols 4631-4633: Radiant Ridge Revolution

August 19, 2025

Earth planning date: Friday, Aug. 15, 2025

Today we uplinked a three-sol weekend plan with lots of exciting activities — to support both the science and engineering teams!

While usually our science activities take front and center stage, we often also do engineering maintenance activities as well to maintain the mechanisms and engineering health state of the rover.

On Sol 4631, we planned a maintenance activity of our Battery Control Boards (BCBs) which are electronic control boards attached to the rover’s batteries and are what let us interact with the batteries as needed.

This maintenance is done periodically to correct for any time drift on the BCBs, so we get as accurate of data as possible.

On this sol, we also did a dump of all of our parameters — these are essentially variables set onboard the rover which serve as inputs to a variety of functions.

Occasionally we send a list of all these variables back down to the ground so we can verify they match as expected. We don’t want to have set a value and then forget about it!

We, of course, also did science activities on this sol. After completing our engineering activities, we started off with some remote science; this included Mastcam imaging and ChemCam measurements of several interesting targets.

These were chosen in order to assess variability within the “Cerro Paranal” ridge within view, and to document any layering or fractures in the rock.

We then completed several arm activities in order to get more information on these targets through the use of our APXS spectrometer.

On Sol 4632, we planned some remote atmospheric science, including a Navcam dust-devil survey, a Mastcam tau (measurement of the atmospheric opacity), APXS atmospheric observations, and more imaging of some of the ridge targets we looked at in the previous sol.

On Sol 4633, we continued with more science imaging, including a horizon movie using Navcam and a dust-devil movie, before proceeding into our drive.

We planned a drive of about 19 meters (about 62 feet) to the south, along the eastern edge of Cerro Paranal. After the drive, it is then standard for us to take new imaging of our new location.

We’re excited to get these science images back and to hear how the drive went when the team comes back on Monday!

https://science.nasa.gov/blog/curiosity-blog-sols-4631-4633-radiant-ridge-revolution/

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Curiosity Blog, Sols 4634-4635: A Waiting Game

August 19, 2025

Earth Planning Date: Monday, Aug. 18, 2025

The downlink data from our weekend activities arrived on Earth as we started planning this morning.

As the APXS payload uplink and downlink lead, I assess the downlink data to ensure that our observations executed and that the instrument is healthy before we can proceed with the day’s activities.

We also need that downlink data to assess which targets we can safely touch with Curiosity’s arm, to place APXS and MAHLI to analyze chemistry and closeup textures, respectively, as well as target for Mastcam and ChemCam, and plan the next drive.

Because of the relatively late downlink, we all waited patiently for the necessary data to be processed before we could really start to plan in earnest.

It is always exciting to see our new parking spot and the view in front of the rover. Today was no exception.

The drive executed as planned and we are on stable ground, which will enable us to unstow the arm for contact science with APXS and MAHLI.

We selected a representative bedrock patch (“Gil”) that was large enough and smooth enough to brush for dust removal, and to place APXS and MAHLI on. ChemCam will also analyze this target with LIBS, and Mastcam will capture a documentation image.

The bedrock at this location is representative of an intermediate zone between the large resistant ridges and hollows that comprise the boxwork terrain that we are currently exploring.

Mastcam will image the wall of a prominent resistant ridge that we are driving to (“Río Frío”), as well as a narrow, sand-filled trough (“Cusi Cusi”).

The remote long-distance imaging capabilities of ChemCam will be used to look at the base of the Mishe Mokwa butte, off to the east.

Observations to monitor the atmosphere are also planned before we drive away from this location.

They include a Navcam large dust-devil survey and suprahorizon movie, and a Mastcam tau observation to observe dust in the atmosphere.

After the touch (and targeted science) part of this touch-and-go plan, the drive (go part) should take us about 36 meters (about 118 feet) to the wall of Río Frío. (see associated image).

After the drive, we will document the ground beneath the rover’s wheels with MARDI before some untargeted science.

Mastcam will again image Río Frío in early morning light, trying to highlight structures and veins that might be present, and ChemCam will utilize their autonomous targeting capabilities to analyze a bedrock target in our new workspace.

Two more atmospheric observations are also squeezed in before we hand over to the next plan: a Navcam cloud-altitude observation and line-of-sight scan.

Standard REMS, DAN and RAD activities round out this jam-packed plan. The downlink was well worth the wait!

https://science.nasa.gov/blog/curiosity-blog-sols-4634-4635-a-waiting-game/

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Massive Solar Blast, AMOC and Amazon, Pole Shift | Suspicous 0bservers News

Aug.20.2025

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIKmP6iYIT0

https://www.spaceweather.com/