It's Friday again, thank the gods.
Last night was a partial lunar eclipse — we'll have some photos from Earth later — but first of all, let's see a lunar eclipse from Luna.
#BlueGhost got her first diamond ring! Captured at our landing site in the Moon’s Mare Crisium around 3:30 am CDT, the photo shows the sun about to emerge from totality behind Earth. Hope to have more shots to share soon! #BGM1 pic.twitter.com/zVZIkRhmxt
— Firefly Aerospace (@Firefly_Space) March 14, 2025
As I'm sure most all of you already know, a lunar eclipse is when the Moon enters the Earth's shadow in its orbit. Just as in a total solar eclipse on Earth, the "diamond ring" happens because the sun can peek out between mountains on the very edge of the Earth. But I think this might be the first picture ever of the Earth during a lunar eclipse.
NGC 98 is a fascinating spiral galaxy located in the constellation Phoenix, approximately 200 million light-years away. Its distinct features include a well-defined spiral structure with prominent star-forming regions, suggesting active stellar birth. The galaxy’s asymmetric… pic.twitter.com/nDrpuTpkAz
— Ethan Wu (@ThisIsEthanWu) March 14, 2025
There was some discussion about why spiral galaxies spiral in the comments last week. It's actually a really interesting phenomenon. It's tempting to think it's stars "running down the drin" but that's not it. All of those stars are basically in their own orbits around the central mass — which is usually a supermassive black hole but it's not sucking everything in the galaxy into itself any more than the sun is sucking all the planets into itself.
Instead, what happens is those individual stars form "density waves" which are essentially like traffic jams: the stars moving at slightly different speeds end up jammed together and leaving spaces between the jams. (Think of heavy traffic on an interstate —it tends to "clump".) Then those denser parts also encourage new star formation, and new stars tend to be brighter — so the density waves are brighter as well as more dense.
Today, March 14, is Pi Day (∏ Day) in the United States. (Metric ∏ Day is 22 July; 22/7 is a better approximation). This is a nice visualization of what ∏ really is. ∏ and Euler's number e show up all over in mathematics.
#PI #Math
— Erika (@ExploreCosmos_) April 17, 2023
We all know that π is typically rounded to 3.14, as figures with many numbers beyond the decimal point usually are. Those post-decimal numbers continue infinitely. 1/https://t.co/fzCSlT5vH5 pic.twitter.com/gPFxgBkxnE
Another galaxy, M94, the "Croc's Eye," is about the same age as the Milky Way but it doesn't have the same showy spiral structure. This makes it kind of a puzzle, but it has lots of star formation in the middle. It may be that it's more mature than the Milky Way and the outer parts have already used up their gas, or it may just have had a different distribution of mass all along. It would be interesting to ponder whether the dark matter distribution is different.
AstroBin's Image of the Day: "M94: Croc's Eye Galaxy" by xlonghttps://t.co/rHih02ZEAq#astrophotography pic.twitter.com/LlXPXDby7f
— AstroBin.com (@AstroBin_com) March 14, 2025
As promised, here are some pictures of the lunar eclipse from Earth.
This one is rather artistic.
Lunar eclipse over Webstern, @photonpalette pic.twitter.com/RIjxaaWy9c
— Julio Maiz (@maiz_julio) March 14, 2025
As always, John Krause has some of the nicest pictures. This one shows the progress of the eclipse in a more natural sequence.
Sequence of this morning’s lunar eclipse pic.twitter.com/2G4ontVYB2
— John Kraus (@johnkrausphotos) March 14, 2025
A different view from Krause.
Lunar eclipse over Florida
— John Kraus (@johnkrausphotos) March 14, 2025
🌕🌖🌗🌘🌴🌒🌓🌓🌔 pic.twitter.com/W6JaGUCiGW
A lunar eclipse and aurora!
IMAGINE SEEING A LUNAR ECLIPSE AND THE AURORA??? https://t.co/1yNJldHrSr
— Jasmine 🌌🔭 (@astro_jaz) March 14, 2025
Also for our VIPs: Exploding Sky Candy — and Seeing Stars
Supernovas — strictly, core collapse supernovae, distinct from type 1A supernovae —are very energetic (!) events that happen near the end of the life of stars that are more than about eight times the mass of the Sun. They're very flashy, but you don't want to be too close.
A recent study suggests that nearby supernova explosions may have contributed to at least two of Earth's mass extinction events: the Late Ordovician (~ 445 million years ago) and the Late Devonian (~ 372 million years ago).
— Erika (@ExploreCosmos_) March 14, 2025
Supernovae, the explosive deaths of massive stars,… pic.twitter.com/I8WSmdOYVG
And last, a love letter from Julio to @Ana_anna9.
Porretas : Marihuana (♥️ANA mi Amor ♥️) la más bonita @Ana__anna9 https://t.co/8por0y8Cn4 NGC2244 Rosette nebula in Monlceros (Azul) nebula images pic.twitter.com/bNfow0MUuR
— Julio Maiz (@maiz_julio) March 14, 2025
So that's the week. There wasn't actually lots of space news or space history this week, but I'm sure there will be more next week. As always, I love comments, and let me encourage you to post this on X or your other favorite social media.
I'm feeling Latin this week.
Stellae destinatio nostra
— mandy (@deimosdefender) March 14, 2025
