Flying over the Philippine Sea, an astronaut looked toward the horizon from the International Space Station and shot this photograph of three-dimensional clouds, the thin blue envelope of the atmosphere, and the blackness of space. The late afternoon sunlight brightens a broad swath of the sea surface on the right side of the image. In the distance, a wide layer of clouds mostly obscures the northern Philippine islands (top right). Looking toward the sun to capture an image is a special technique used by astronauts to accentuate the three dimensions of landscapes and cloudscapes through the use of shadows. Two large thunderclouds rise next to one another (lower right). These clouds have long tails, also known as anvils, that stretch nearly 100 kilometers to the south. Anvils form when thunderstorm clouds rise high into the atmosphere and reach a “capping layer” thousands of meters (tens of thousands of feet) above sea level. Capping layers stop the upward growth of a cloud, deflecting air currents horizontally to form anvils. Astronaut photograph ISS048-E-10018 was acquired on June 25, 2016, with a Nikon D4 digital camera using a 116 millimeter lens, and is provided by the ISS Crew Earth Observations Facility and the Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit, Johnson Space Center. The image was taken by a member of the Expedition 48 crew. The image has been cropped and enhanced to improve contrast, and lens artifacts have been removed. Image Credit: NASA Caption: M. Justin ...

Cloudscape Over the Philippine Sea - From NASA Marshall Space Flight Center - https://flic.kr/p/PhaGct

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The brush-tailed phascogale is a carnivorous tree-climbing marsupial from Australia. It is able to erect the long black hairs on the end portion of its tail this 'bottle-brush' tail is used to draw a predator's attention away from its body. #animals Source: IdyllicSafeguard

Scientists Discover a New Twist in Why Falling Cats Land on Their Feet For more than a century, scientists have been trying to figure out how a falling cat lands on its feet with such astonishing regularity.

Scientists Discover a New Twist in Why Falling Cats Land on Their Feet

www.sciencealert.com/scientists-d...

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behold the Goliath frog. These frogs are the biggest on earth weighing up to 7.2 pounds (3.25 kilograms) and growing up to 13 inches (33 centimeters) long! Bigger male Goliath frogs build their own ponds for their tadpoles to thrive in by moving sand and stones. #animals Source: AJC_10_29

Rosette /Skull Nebula. 11/03/2026 45x180s in SHO.

Esprit 100ED, ASI2600MM, 3nm filter in Ha, Sii and Oiii.

#astronomy #astrophotography

The International Space Station has tracked Hurricane Matthew all week, providing images and video from low Earth orbit as the storm hit the Caribbean Sea and made its way towards Florida. In this photograph taken by Expedition 49 Flight Engineer Kate Rubins on Oct. 4, 2016, at 21:05 GMT, the hurricane's clouds extend across the frame and the space station's solar arrays are visible at the upper-right corner of the image. As the hurricane strengthens and approaches the Florida coast, NASA and NOAA satellites continue to provide forecasters and scientists valuable data on the development and changes in the storm. For more information about Hurricane Matthew, click here. NASA Media Usage Guidelines

Space Station Flyover of Hurricane Matthew - From NASA Marshall Space Flight Center - https://flic.kr/p/MMZDtA

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Grant's golden mole is a "sand swimmer". Instead of building permanent tunnels it uses its paddle paws to burrow through sand that collapses behind it leaving a conspicuous trail. Eyeless it uses its massive middle ear to detect the tiny vibrations made by insects to find them.

An adorable raccoon.

The Rosette Nebula (SH2-275) is an emission nebula ~5200 ly from Earth in the constellation Monoceros.This narrow band multi-spectral image shows the dominate areas of ionized Sulfur(reds), Hydrogen(yellows) and Oxygen (blues) within the nebula. -Updated 03/10/26 Equipment: Telescope: SVBony SV503 80ed Camera: ZWO ASI533 mc pro Mount: ZWO AM5 FIlters: ASKAR Colormagic Ha/Oiii and Sii/Oiii duo band Skies Bortle 3

The Rosette Nebula (SH2-275) is an emission nebula ~5200 ly from Earth in the constellation Monoceros.This narrow band multi-spectral image shows the dominate areas of ionized Sulfur(reds), Hydrogen(yellows) and Oxygen (blues) within the nebula.

updated 03/10/2026

#astronomy #astrophotography

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Of the 20 species of armadillo the giant armadillo is the largest at up to 50 kg (110lbs) and 1.5 metres (4.9 ft) from nose to tail tip and the most rare. Its giant front claws are used to ruin termite mounds. After it has fed it digs a large burrow beneath the remains of the mound and rests.

INTERNATIONAL ROSETTA MISSION COMET 67P/CHURYUMOV-GERASIMENKO ESA/Rosetta/MPS/OSIRIS/IAA/INTA/j. Roger

ROSETTA (7) - From Jacint Roger (landru79.bsky.social) - https://flic.kr/p/2iKibxN

Caribbean reef squid keeping an eye on us 👽🔮👁️🦑 #caribbeanreefsquid #reefsquid #cephalopodsofcoralcity #squid #coralcitycamera

Eroded ejecta deposits associated with the 18 km wide Dulovo Crater. This crater is located near the southern rim of the 1500 km wide Isidis impact basin. The impact site is near the Martian dichotomy boundary, which separates the ancient terrain of Mars' southern hemisphere from the much younger lowlands of the northern hemisphere. The northern lowlands are thought to have once hosted an ocean, evidence of which might be recorded in Dulovo's ejecta. The crater's ejecta is a type called fluidized ejecta, which contains flow-like structures. This type of ejecta is thought to have formed in rocks rich in low-melting point materials, such as dry ice or water ice. Erosional remnats of the fluidized ejecta are visible has high-standing lobes of material running through image center. The more rugged rock, which is likely older rock buried and preserved by the ejecta sheet, appear to contain clay minerals. This image was created using the CRISM imaging spectrometer. Each pixel of a CRISM image contains a 500 point spectrum, from which a color can be reconstructed. This reconstructed color was overlaid on a higher-resolution image taken with the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Context Camera (CTX), which simultaneously took a photo while CRISM was collecting data. This image was taken on January 2, 2007. It uses CRISM observation FRT00003B63 and CTX observation P03_002044_1836_XI_03N275W. Image Credit: NASA / JPL / JHUAPL / MSSS / Justin Cowart

Dulovo Crater - Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter - From Aster Cowart (terrasabaea.bsky.social) - https://flic.kr/p/2kfsBAq

@nakedpastor.bsky.social
😊😊😊🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️

In 1996, a mother cat named Scarlett rescued all 5 of her kittens from a building burning in NYC. She walked through flames 5 times to rescue each one...

Image posted by astronomybot

Rosette Nebula context image
Image date: 23 April 2025, 16:00


The Rosette Nebula is a vast star-forming region, 100 light-years across, that lies at one end of a giant molecular cloud the constellation Monoceros. The nebula is estimated to contain around 10,000 solar masses. The nebula is locat...

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Discovered in 1983 by Li Weidong the Ili Pika is a teddy bear-like mammal found in China's Tianshan Mountains. Critically endangered with just a few hundred left it's threatened by habitat loss and climate change. #animals Source: XoGossipgoat94

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Vampire bats strike their victims from the ground. They land near their prey and approach it on all fours. The bats have few teeth because of their liquid diet but those they have are razor sharp. #animals Source: Dilim_Kek

Found a cute Muusoctopus tippy-tapping on by. @schmidtocean.bsky.social dive 736 part 2 #chilemargin2024 #MarineLife

Our meerkats received a new enrichment item for the first time: bubbles! Watch our playful family curiously interact in their new dayroom.

Opportunity MARS NASA / JPL-Caltech / Cornell / j. Roger

Opportunity (52) - From Jacint Roger (landru79.bsky.social) - https://flic.kr/p/2iKWy49

From India for #BirdsSeenIn2026

Rare Blue Whale with Albinism Spotted in National Park in 'Unprecedented Milestone' A rare blue whale with albinism was spotted off the coast of Mexico. The National Commission for Natural Protected Areas confirmed the discovery via a press release shared by the Mexican government on...

🐋 #whale

A sighting of an #albino #bluewhale has been reported near #LoretoBay in #Mexico

Rare Blue Whale with Albinism Spotted in National Park in Unprecedented Milestone share.google/x9N7PaV5x75t...

There's nothing quite like the love of a good dog.

If you put some thought into getting one, do all the research you need to and take a risk. It'll enrich your life 100%

A close-up of a peach-colored flower, surrounded by green foliage, with gentle light highlighting its soft and layered petals.

#photography #unedited

Many Issues Are Present With U.S. Lunar Landers, OIG Report Finds Having announced its audit back in July 2024, NASA's Office of Inspector General (OIG) recently released its report into the SpaceX and Blue Origin Human Landing Systems (HLS), contracted to land astr...

The Office of Inspector General at NASA has found several issues with Artemis' lunar landers, including their schedules, systems development speed, and astronaut usable systems

For @proximareport.bsky.social -> proximareport.com/articles/iss...

4 frame CLR filter mosaic of Enceladus taken from a distance of approimately 40,000 km. This image captures the transition between the heavily tectonized surface of the leading hemisphere and a strip of relatively older terrain near the central meridian. The region of active geysers near the south pole is visible at the bottom edge of the image. Image Credit: NASA / JPL / Cassini-ISS / Justin Cowart

Enceladus - Rev 131 Flyby - 2010-05-18 - From Aster Cowart (terrasabaea.bsky.social) - https://flic.kr/p/27ta96D

Lunching with the little one 🥬

Have you met baby Tumbili yet? This fuzzy little guy isn’t a month old yet but is already exploring the guenon monkey habitat, attached to Mom!

Come meet Tumbili soon 🐵

📸: Keeper Alyssa

www.rolfolsenastrophotography.com Link to full resolution image: goo.gl/5UNVFz Link to medium size image: goo.gl/tktTM9 This enormous galaxy cluster is located 2.2 billion light years away in the constellation Virgo. Deeply reddened by the cosmological redshift, it's member galaxies shine to us with a faint orange glow across the abyss of space and time. All the fuzzy light sources in this image are distant galaxies, and only a modest sprinkling of sharp foreground stars, located in our own Milky Way, reveal our cosmic vantage point. The cluster is so massive that its gravity acts as a lens and distorts the light from galaxies behind it. While several other galaxy clusters contain examples of brighter gravitational arcs than Abell 1689, this cluster features the largest known number of gravitational arcs and is an important target for the study of dark matter. The arcs are very small and faint but a few of the brightest distorted images of distant background galaxies are present in this exposure. Abell 1689 also contains the largest population of globular clusters ever found. A deep high resolution view from the Hubble space Telescope, covering just a tiny part of the cluster, reveals that it is home to an estimated 160,000 such globulars. A staggering number compared to the approximately 150 in our own Milky Way galaxy. Image details: Date: 24th, 26th February, 18th, 24th April 2017 Exposure: LRGB: 540 100 90 90 mins, total 13 hours 40 mins @ -25C Telescope: Homebuil...

The Massive Galaxy Cluster Abell 1689 - From Rolf Wahl Olsen - https://flic.kr/p/VQgR1z

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The black-footed cat may be Africa's smallest feline but it's also one of the world's most adept mammalian hunters successfully catching its prey 60% of the time (compared to a leopard's 38% and a lion's 25%). A single cat can capture 12 - 13 meals a night and upwards of 3000 rodents a year.