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Utku Özen |on Unsplash

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Spiral galaxy NGC 3169 looks to be unraveling like a ball of cosmic yarn. It lies some 70 million light-years away, south of bright star Regulus toward the faint constellation Sextans. Wound up spiral arms are pulled out into sweeping tidal tails as NGC 3169 (left) and neighboring NGC 3166 interact gravitationally. Eventually the galaxies will merge into one, a common fate even for bright galaxies in the local universe. Drawn out stellar arcs and plumes are clear indications of the ongoing gravitational interactions across the deep and colorful galaxy group photo. The telescopic frame spans about 20 arc minutes or about 400,000 light-years at the group's estimated distance, and includes smaller, bluish NGC 3165 to the right. NGC 3169 is also known to shine across the spectrum from radio to X-rays, harboring an active galactic nucleus that is the site of a supermassive black hole.

Photo by Simone Curzi

Scuol-Motta Naluns, View from Motta Naluns on the environment.

Agnes Monkelbaan, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.

Buzz Andersen on Unsplash

"I was visiting the Big Island of Hawaii with some friends and family, and my brother convinced the group to take a lava tour by boat. I always kind of balk a little bit at overtly touristy stuff like that, but I think everyone was a pretty shocked when we got our first look at the Kalapana Lava Flow after about a half hour boat trip down the coast. It’s such an awesome, phantasmagorical sight and, since they actually get surprisingly close to the spots where the rivers of lava meet the ocean and throw up sulfurous steam clouds, also a pretty visceral sensory experience".

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Across the center of this spiral galaxy is a bar. And at the center of this bar is smaller spiral. And at the center of that spiral is a supermassive black hole. This all happens in the big, beautiful, barred spiral galaxy cataloged as NGC 1300, a galaxy that lies some 70 million light-years away toward the constellation of the river Eridanus. This Hubble Space Telescope composite view of the gorgeous island universe is one of the most detailed Hubble images ever made of a complete galaxy. NGC 1300 spans over 100,000 light-years and the Hubble image reveals striking details of the galaxy's dominant central bar and majestic spiral arms. How the giant bar formed, how it remains, and how it affects star formation remains an active topic of research. Jigsaw Universe: Astronomy Puzzle of the Day

Lemon halves.

Dietmar Rabich, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.

David Moum on Unsplash

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Like salsa verde on your favorite burrito, a green aurora slathers up the sky in this 2017 June 25 snapshot from the International Space Station. About 400 kilometers (250 miles) above Earth, the orbiting station is itself within the upper realm of the auroral displays. Aurorae have the signature colors of excited molecules and atoms at the low densities found at extreme altitudes. Emission from atomic oxygen dominates this view. The tantalizing glow is green at lower altitudes, but rarer reddish bands extend above the space station's horizon. The orbital scene was captured while passing over a point south and east of Australia, with stars above the horizon at the right belonging to the constellation Canis Major, Orion's big dog. Sirius, alpha star of Canis Major, is the brightest star near the Earth's limb.