Can the Sun appear to rise twice at the same time? This was just the case a few days ago from Les Escoumins, Quebec, Canada as our Solar System's bright central orb rose just as it was being partially eclipsed by the Moon. The featured video shows this unusual double-sunrise in real time and being reflected by the St. Lawrence River. Soon after the initial two spots of light appear over distant clouds, what appears to be bright horns become visible -- which are really just parts of the Sun not being eclipsed. Soon, the entire eclipsed Sun is visible above the horizon. In all, this broken sunrise took less than two minutes during a partial eclipse that lasted many times longer. Although the Moon circles the Earth once a month (moon-th), it does not always eclipse the Sun because its tilted orbit usually takes it above or below.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap250401.html ( April 01, 2025)

If you watch long enough, a comet will appear. Before then, you will see our Solar System from inside the orbit of Mercury as recorded by NASA's Parker Solar Probe looping around the Sun. The video captures coronal streamers into the solar wind, a small Coronal Mass Ejection, and planets including, in order of appearance, Mercury, Venus, Saturn, Earth, Mars, and Jupiter. Between the emergence of Earth and Mars, Comet Tempel 1 appears with a distinctive tail. The continuous fleeting streaks are high energy particles from the Sun impacting Parker's sideways looking camera. The featured time-lapse video was taken last year during Encounter 21, Parker's 21st close approach to the Sun. Studying data and images from Parker are delivering a better understanding of the dynamic Sun's effects on Earth's space weather as well as humanity's power grids, spacecraft, and space-faring astronauts.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap250331.html ( March 31, 2025)

What if the Sun and Moon rose together? That happened yesterday over some northern parts of planet Earth as a partial solar eclipse occurred shortly after sunrise. Regions that experienced the Moon blocking part of the Sun included northeastern parts of North America and northwestern parts of Europe, Asia, and Africa. The featured image was captured yesterday over the Grábrók volcanic crater in Iceland where much of the Sun became momentarily hidden behind the Moon. The image was taken through a cloudy sky but so well planned that the photographer's friend appeared to be pulling the Sun out from behind the Moon. No part of the Earth experienced a total solar eclipse this time. In the distant past, some of humanity was so surprised when an eclipse occurred that ongoing battles suddenly stopped. Today, eclipses are not a surprise and are predicted with an accuracy of seconds.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap250330.html ( March 30, 2025)

Stereo Helene

Get out your red/blue glasses and float next to Helene, small, icy moon of Saturn. Appropriately named, Helene is a Trojan moon, so called because it orbits at a Lagrange point. A Lagrange point is a gravitationally stable position near two massive bodies, in this case Saturn and larger moon Dione. In fact, irregularly shaped ( about 36 by 32 by 30 kilometers) Helene orbits at Dione's leading Lagrange point while brotherly ice moon Polydeuces follows at Dione's trailing Lagrange point. The sharp stereo anaglyph was constructed from two Cassini images captured during a close flyby in 2011. It shows part of the Saturn-facing hemisphere of Helene mottled with craters and gully-like features.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap250329.html ( March 29, 2025)

Lunar Dust and Duct Tape

Why is the Moon so dusty? On Earth, rocks are weathered by wind and water, creating soil and sand. On the Moon, eons of constant micrometeorite bombardment have blasted away at the rocky surface creating a layer of powdery lunar soil or regolith. For the Apollo astronauts and their equipment, the pervasive, fine, gritty dust was definitely a problem. On the lunar surface in December 1972, Apollo 17 astronauts Harrison Schmitt and Eugene Cernan needed to repair one of their rover's fenders in an effort to keep the rooster tails of dust away from themselves and their gear. This picture reveals the wheel and fender of their dust covered rover along with the ingenious application of spare maps, clamps, and a grey strip of "duct tape".

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap250328.html ( March 28, 2025)

Messier 81

One of the brightest galaxies in planet Earth's sky is similar in size to our Milky Way Galaxy: big, beautiful Messier 81. Also known as NGC 3031 or Bode's galaxy for its 18th century discoverer, this grand spiral can be found toward the northern constellation of Ursa Major, the Great Bear. The sharp, detailed telescopic view reveals M81's bright yellow nucleus, blue spiral arms, pinkish starforming regions, and sweeping cosmic dust lanes. But some dust lanes actually run through the galactic disk (left of center), contrary to other prominent spiral features. The errant dust lanes may be the lingering result of a close encounter between M81 and the nearby galaxy M82 lurking outside of this frame. Scrutiny of variable stars in M81 has yielded a well-determined distance for an external galaxy -- 11.8 million light-years.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap250327.html ( March 27, 2025)

You'd think the Pacman Nebula would be eating stars, but actually it is forming them. Within the nebula, a cluster's young, massive stars are powering the pervasive nebular glow. The eye-catching shapes looming in the featured portrait of NGC 281 are sculpted dusty columns and dense Bok globules seen in silhouette, eroded by intense, energetic winds and radiation from the hot cluster stars. If they survive long enough, the dusty structures could also be sites of future star formation. Playfully called the Pacman Nebula because of its overall shape, NGC 281 is about 10,000 light-years away in the constellation Cassiopeia. This sharp composite image was made through narrow-band filters in Spain in mid 2024. It combines emissions from the nebula's hydrogen and oxygen atoms to synthesize red, green, and blue colors. The scene spans well over 80 light-years at the estimated distance of NGC 281.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap250326.html ( March 26, 2025)

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/ap250325.html ( March 25, 2025)

This was once a beach -- on ancient Mars. The featured 360-degree panorama, horizontally compressed, was taken in 2017 by the robotic Curiosity rover that explored the red planet. Named Ogunquit Beach after its terrestrial counterpart, evidence shows that at times long ago the area was underwater, while at other times it was at the edge of an ancient lake. The light peak in the central background is the top of Mount Sharp, the central feature in Gale Crater where Curiosity explored. Portions of the dark sands in the foreground were scooped up for analysis. The light colored bedrock is composed of sediment that likely settled at the bottom of the now-dried lakebed. The featured panorama (interactive version here) was created from over 100 images and seemingly signed by the rover on the lower left.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap250323.html ( March 23, 2025)

SuperCam Target on Maaz

What's the sound of one laser zapping? There's no need to consult a Zen master to find out, just listen to the first acoustic recording of laser shots on Mars. On Mars Rover Perseverance mission sol 12 (March 2, 2021) the SuperCam instrument atop the rover's mast zapped a rock dubbed Ma'az 30 times from a range of about 3.1 meters. Its microphone recorded the soft staccato popping sounds of the rapid series of SuperCam laser zaps. Shockwaves created in the thin Martian atmosphere as bits of rock are vaporized by the laser shots make the popping sounds, sounds that offer clues to the physical structure of the target. This SuperCam close-up of the Ma'az target region is 6 centimeters (2.3 inches) across. Ma'az means Mars in the Navajo language.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap250322.html ( March 22, 2025)