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Four astronauts in bright orange Orion spacesuits pose for an official crew portrait against a muted blue-gray background. Two stand at the back and two sit in front; all hold or rest their hands near their white helmets.

Human Spaceflight

The Sky This Week from June 5 to 12: Jupiter and Venus meet

$A curved, icy surface stretches across the lower portion of the frame, with multiple bright jets of vapor and particles erupting upward into a black sky from the moon's fractured southern terrain.$

Alien Life

Scientists used a method from ecology to identify whether icy moons could hold conditions for life

No matter how many Full Moons appear in any given timespan, its color will not actually change to blue. Credit: John Chumack.

Observing, The Moon

What is a Blue Moon? When’s the next one?

Alien Life

Could aliens ever visit Earth?

X-ray and optical composite image of IGR J11014-6103, a pulsar wind nebula, from the Chandra X-ray Observatory. A large, diffuse cloud of magenta/pink X-ray emission dominates the upper left, representing a supernova remnant. To the lower right, a smaller bright green and pink structure shows a pulsar with jets and a curved tail of X-ray emission trailing behind it, indicating rapid motion through space. Background stars are visible throughout. Credit: Chandra X-ray Center (chandra.si.edu).

Science

What does the term ‘supersonic’ mean in astronomy?

Two bright planets — Venus and Jupiter — shine as close points of light in a deep blue twilight sky above an illuminated city skyline at dusk. The city's skyscrapers, tower, and sprawling lights glow against a gradient sky that fades from deep blue above to lighter blue near the horizon, with low clouds hugging the rooftops.

Observing

June 2026: What’s in the sky this month? Venus and Jupiter have a spectacular conjunction, and the Moon occults Venus

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This artist’s conception illustrates one of the most primitive supermassive black holes known (central black dot) at the core of a young, star-rich galaxy. Astronomers using NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope have uncovered two of these early objects, dating back to about 13 billion years ago. The monstrous black holes are among the most distant known, and appear to be in the very earliest stages of formation, earlier than any observed so far. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

Science

Explore the science of space, from the astrophysics of stars to the ultimate fate of the universe.

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Observing

Learn about upcoming observing events such as eclipses, meteor showers, comets, conjunctions, and more.

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This 2016 Curiosity rover selfie shows the vehicle at the “Okoruso” drilling site on Mount Sharp’s Naukluft Plateau. The Martian scene is a mosaic of images taken with the arm-mounted Mars Hands Lens Imager (MAHLI). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS.

Space Exploration

Human and robotic missions are helping humanity explore our solar system and beyond.

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June 2026

Untangling the cosmic web
Our planet’s electronic vulnerability
How to observe the night sky under city lights
Capturing the night sky in Kyrgyzstan

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Sky This Week

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A photograph of a full Moon glowing warm orange just above the rugged ridgeline of a rocky, tree-dotted mountain slope. The Moon's surface details are visible through its amber hue, and it is surrounded by a soft golden glow against a deep blue twilight sky.

Sky This Week, The Sky This Week

The Sky This Week from June 26 to July 3: A sweet June Strawberry Moon

Sky This Month

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Observing

June 2026: What’s in the sky this month? Venus and Jupiter have a spectacular conjunction, and the Moon occults Venus

Picture of the Day

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A faint blue-green cloud shaped like a squid stretches across the center of the frame, with two tapering lobes reaching left and right from a brighter, knotted middle. It floats against a much larger backdrop of deep red gas that fills the image in wispy, billowing curtains. Scattered white and pale-blue stars dot the scene.

The Squid Nebula (Ou4) is a faint cloud of oxygen about 2,300 light-years away in Cepheus, nested within the red hydrogen glow of the Flying Bat Nebula (Sharpless 2–129). Its prominent double lobes may be an outflow from a central triple star system, HR 8119. The imager took 43⅓ hours of exposure through a dual-band Hα/OIII filter with a 5-inch f/7 refractor, processed in an HOO palette.