So, this morning, I wanted to stay close to home.
Today I was feeling Raumzeit.
I remember stepping out on our balcony and looking at the Moon shortly after Neil Armstrong stepped off the lunar lander leg and seeing it as a place for the first time.
Magnificent Desolation pic.twitter.com/fHn4yZsINh
— Andrew McCarthy (@AJamesMcCarthy) May 25, 2025
I'd seen a million photos and a hundred illustrations, and movies like Destination Moon, but this was somehow real for the first time.
#Moon schaute die Milchstraße gegenüber an und war dabei schaurig schön!😄 pic.twitter.com/uoTA4RW6ex
— Anjuschka Prenzel (@lakazel) June 5, 2025
After images like this, I was prepared for it to be mountainous, rocky — not a lot like it turned out.
Moon seen in Jaw-dropping detail! pic.twitter.com/OLkvuJJo3P
— All day Astronomy (@forallcurious) June 6, 2025
And seen from above, with high contrast, it still is, just like mountains on Earth often look steeper than they are when you're walking up them.
I’m so excited to share this moon photo with you I think it’s my favorite one ever. Still going through and making sure it’s artifact-free (going to release in print) and then will post it, probably tomorrow morning.
— Andrew McCarthy (@AJamesMcCarthy) June 3, 2025
Its nearly 300 megapixels 😎 pic.twitter.com/wMNrCffnGd
It still wouldn't look as colorful to the naked eye as it does in these long exposures, but I think these make it more like a place to me. It has varied — and interesting — geology.
The photo of the moon I took last night took over 500GB of data to produce. This was necessary to achieve the level of detail and depth of color I wanted.
— Andrew McCarthy (@AJamesMcCarthy) June 3, 2025
I don't just want to shoot the moon, I want to shoot the best possible photo of the moon, and turn it into artwork. pic.twitter.com/hsSGTrNY7F
Related: Sky Candy: The Seen and Unseen
Keep this one for the "moon landing was fake" people. Ready for your close-up?
Apollo 12 Landing site from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter showing the Lunar module (top) and Surveyor crater with the Surveyor III spacecraft on the rim.
— Mike Constantine (@Moonpans) May 19, 2025
The crews foot tracks are also visible when they entered Surveyor crater on EVA-2 and to remove a piece of the Surveyor… pic.twitter.com/ZKh8ueqxxO
And Mars
An Unusual Hole on Mars
— Ethan Wu (@ThisIsEthanWu) April 13, 2025
This strange 100-meter-wide pit on Mars might be more than a hole—it could be an entrance to underground caves, shielded from the Red Planet’s harsh surface. Possibly formed by a meteor impact, it’s a prime target for future exploration.
Image Credit:… pic.twitter.com/GAJXlkJLBX
I'm not sure why this looks so blue. Grok tells me: "The blue hue in this HiRISE image is not the natural, naked-eye color of the Martian surface. Instead, it’s a result of false-color imaging, a technique often used by NASA to highlight specific geological or compositional features that might not be as noticeable in true color." So it's kind of a Picasso.
The Martian, revisited.
— Ethan Wu (@ThisIsEthanWu) May 19, 2025
HiRISE imagery captures the fictional Ares 3 site from The Martian—dusty craters, windblown dunes, and science fiction made almost real.
Watney’s habitat would barely register on this landscape.
📍Acidalia Planitia, Mars#Mars #HiRISE #TheMartian #NASA pic.twitter.com/w8aWMX7P98
Ancient Venus?
Venus is such a puzzle. It seems so much like Earth — and yet it isn't.
What Venus Might Have Looked Like 2 Billion Years Ago
— Black Hole (@konstructivizm) June 6, 2025
Image Credit: Daein Ballard
It is believed Venus had surface water and sustained habitable surface conditions for around 3 billion years.
Some models suggest Venus may have been in this condition until as recently as 700 to… pic.twitter.com/jH2IjJWMKg
Nebula fans, this one's for you:
The Rosette Nebula, a stellar nursery 5K light-years from Earth pic.twitter.com/DB8JMwPXSO
— Space 8K (@uhd2020) June 4, 2025
So is this one:
Mosaic of Orion by Rogelio Berrnal Andreo (Deep Sky Color's) pic.twitter.com/WT2OjCcr3B
— Julio Maiz (@maiz_julio) May 22, 2025
Hard for me to turn down a picture of the Seven Sisters.
M45 Pleiades Star Cluster (BuGs) https://t.co/rm2ItZ2Ykz pic.twitter.com/whpAbsNJYk
— Julio Maiz (@maiz_julio) April 19, 2025
So that finishes it up for this week. It's been an exciting and somewhat puzzling week on Earth, and I've had a couple of major non-science posts that took a lot of time. As always, find more space stuff on my Substack, The Stars Our Destination. Come back next week for more Sky Candy, and comment to let me know you're liking it.
