Astronomy Magazine: Space News, Observing, Planets, Galaxies

Picture of the Day

On a black, star-filled background float two large, wispy blue bubbles of gas. The rounder one at left has a small bright pink-and-white knot at its lower edge. The bigger, more tangled structure at right blends pale blue filaments with patches of red, all scattered across thousands of faint stars.

An extragalactic supernova remnant

Charles Pevsner, taken from Rio Hurtado, Chile

LHA 120-N 40 is the glowing debris of a star that exploded in the Large Magellanic Cloud, the Milky Way satellite galaxy about 163,000 light-years away in Dorado. The shell that appears in blue was blown out by the supernova, while smaller regions of emission appear as reddish knots. Pevsner gathered 7¾ hours of exposure in Hα/OIII/RGB filters with a 5-inch f/7.7 refractor.

In the Sky

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Sky chart showing Venus and Regulus in close conjunction low in the western sky on July 9, 2026. Venus appears as a bright, glowing white disk near the center of the frame, with the star Regulus just below it. The Sickle asterism of Leo is labeled above and to the right. The sky transitions from deep blue at the top to a warm orange-brown glow near the horizon, suggesting twilight conditions.

Observing

The Sky Today on Thursday, July 9: Venus stands above Regulus

What’s Launching This Week

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What’s Launching This Week

Transporter-17, two debut flights, and more Starlinks

Today in the History of Astronomy

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A digital illustration shows a large, tan- and cream-banded planet on the left and a dark spacecraft with a prominent white dish antenna positioned to its right. Long, thin booms and antennas extend from the spacecraft, crossing in front of the planet and out toward the sides of the frame where several small, textured moons are scattered. The entire scene is set against a dark background dense with countless tiny, faint stars.

Robotic Spaceflight, Today in the History of Astronomy

July 9, 1979: Voyager 2’s Jupiter visit

More News

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$A James Webb Space Telescope deep field image showing hundreds of distant galaxies scattered across a black background in a range of shapes — spirals, ellipticals, and elongated streaks — in colors from white and blue to orange and red. A large, detailed barred spiral galaxy with a bright white core and faint blue spiral arms dominates the center-left of the frame. Several foreground stars display the distinctive six-pointed diffraction spikes characteristic of JWST imagery.$

Cosmology, Stars