Rainer Maria Rilke, From Where Silence Reigns: Selected Prose; "An Experience,"

2023 February 25

Crescent Moon Occultation Image Credit & Copyright: Fefo Bouvier

Explanation: On February 22, a young Moon shared the western sky at sunset with bright planets Venus and Jupiter along the ecliptic plane. The beautiful celestial conjunction was visible around planet Earth. But from some locations Jupiter hid for a while, occulted by the crescent lunar disk. The Solar System’s ruling gas giant was captured here just before it disappeared behind the the Moon’s dark edge, seen over the Río de la Plata at Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay. In the serene river and skyscape Venus is not so shy, shining brightly closer to the horizon through the fading twilight. Next week Venus and Jupiter will appear even closer in your evening sky.

∞ Source: apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230225.html

Saturn. American Tract Society Almanac. 1860.

Internet Archive

Vibrant Virgo Cluster Galaxy NGC 4654 by NASA Hubble

Galactic center of Milky Way © cosmic_background

Cosmic Delights and Distant Discoveries Unfold in ‘Astronomy Photographer of the Year 15’

Wide-Field Spiral

The California Nebula, NGC 1499 // Alex Weinstein

The bright star to the right is Menkib (ξ Persei), whose name comes from the Arabic phrase mankib al Thurayya meaning "shoulder of the Pleiades".

The original Voyager 1 "Blue Movie" which records its approach during a period of over 60 Jupiter days (January 6 - February 3, 1979)

Saturn has a mysterious hexagon at its north pole that has refused to give up its secrets, probably because neither Voyager 1 nor Cassini was able to plunge that deep and survive. Harvard scientists Rakesh Yadav and Jeremy Bloxham might have finally started to figure out what causes this peculiar feature. They believe that vortexes occur at the planet’s north pole because of atmospheric flows deep within the gas giant, and that these vortexes pinch an intense horizontal jet near the equator—which is what warps the storm into a hexagon. It still looks unnatural though.....!!!

Perihelion to Aphelion

Credits: Richard Jaworski