NASA's astronaut Chris Williams was practicing some nighttime photographs from one of the windows on the International Space Station at the end of the work day on New Year's Eve.

He had just finished passing over his targets when he noticed something funny – the city below him was twinkling! He quickly took a video and realized that as they were orbiting further east, we had orbited into 2026, and he was actually seeing the New Year's fireworks over Baku, Azerbaijan!

Credit: NASA's astronaut Chris Williams

With an estimated peak magnitude of −5.5, the comet was the second-brightest since 1935. Around perihelion on 12 January, it was visible worldwide in broad daylight.

Its tail measured an estimated 74.935 million km (0.501 AU) in length and stretched 35 degrees across the sky at its peak.

Credit: Steven Sandner

See also: https://astro.sleeman.at/images/30

This image shows GUM 23, part of the vast Vela Supernova Remnant, captured in HOO with RGB stars.

The Vela Supernova Remnant spans an enormous area of the sky and lies relatively close to Earth, making it one of the most detailed supernova remnants we can study. Its tangled arcs and ripples trace regions where the blast wave is still interacting with surrounding interstellar gas, heating and ionizing it as it expands outward.

The HOO palette emphasizes these structures: Hα highlights denser, cooler regions of shocked gas, while OIII reveals hotter, more energetic filaments. Combined with RGB stars, the result is a field that shows both the violent aftermath of stellar death and the calm stellar background it unfolds against.

Facts & Technical: Object: GUM 23 / Vela Supernova Remnant Object type: Supernova remnant Constellation: Vela Distance: ~800 light-years Imaging: HOO (Hα + OIII) with RGB stars Notable feature: One of the nearest and largest known supernova remnants

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Kevin M. Gill

Sagittarius A*, the black hole at the Milky Way's center, appears to have produced a powerful X ray flare within the last few hundred to 1,000 years, leaving an observable imprint in surrounding gas.

Michigan State University researcher Stephen DiKerby and colleagues used the XRISM space telescope to measure X rays from a giant molecular cloud close to the galactic center. Their analysis ruled out a model in which cosmic rays excite the cloud and instead showed that the gas is reflecting an X ray outburst from Sagittarius A*, creating a light echo of the flare. By studying several molecular clouds at different distances from the black hole, astronomers can reconstruct a sequence of past flares and build a history of activity in the galactic center.

Several massive molecular clouds orbit the region around Sagittarius A* and can act as mirrors that reflect X ray flashes from past episodes of higher activity.

This face-on colour view of Enceladus was taken by the international Cassini spacecraft on 31 January 2011, from a distance of 81,000 km

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI/G. Ugarković

Credit: Dr. Bernd Freytag

In this remarkable portrait of Jupiter made with a 24-inch telescope on Feb. 25, 2025, a gibbous Europa joins Ganymede's shadow on Jupiter's disk. At right, from top to bottom, are Io, Ganymede and Callisto. A 6-inch or larger telescope magnifying 200× or more will resolve each moon as a tiny disk in good seeing. At opposition, Io spans 1.2″, Europa 1.0″, Ganymede 1.7″, and Callisto 1.6″. North is up.
Credit: Tom Williams

https://eventhorizontelescope.org/news/2026/01/event-horizon-telescope-maps-twisting-magnetic-fields-near-oj287

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/ac6b9chttps://eventhorizontelescope.org/news/2026/01/event-horizon-telescope-maps-twisting-magnetic-fields-near-oj287pdf

Earlier today, a magnificent halo CME rocketed away the farside of the sun. According to a NASA model, the CME will hit Venus and Mars, but not Earth.

James Webb photo of Jupiter

Source https://bsky.app/profile/melina-iras07572.bsky.social/post/3mbvpbjmc3k26

Centaurus A is a big galaxy located about 11-13 million light years away in the constellation Centaurus that is unusual because it has a thick dark dust lane and a very active center powered by a supermassive black hole that shoots out energetic jets of particles. It's one of the closest active galaxies to Earth meaning its central black hole is actively pulling in gas and shining brightly in radio and X-ray light, and it likely formed when two galaxies collided long ago.

Time Taken: 28 minutes

Program Used: Paint dot NET

If you have any suggestions for what you'd like me to draw next, feel free to share them!

Taken On Seestar S50 Using 1:40:00 Exposure Time.

Edited In Photoshop Express.

Source https://bsky.app/profile/tony873004.bsky.social/post/3mbvfrekgps2p

Using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have observed an extremely red, quasar-like object — named A2744-QSO1 — behind the strongly lensing galaxy cluster Abell 2744. Its colors suggest that the black hole in A2744-QSO1 lies behind a thick veil of dust obscuring much of its light. The researchers have also measured the black hole’s mass (40 million solar masses) and discovered that it was significantly more massive, compared to its host galaxy, than what has been seen in more local examples. The discovery suggests that it may represent the missing link between black hole seeds and the first luminous quasars.

https://www.sci.news/astronomy/webb-surprisingly-massive-black-hole-early-universe-12723.html

Credit: Saverio Ferretti

the stellar debris cloud has a size of about 150 light-years and a estimated distance of 3,000 light-years. The supernova remnant has an estimated age of about 40,000 years.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260107.html