California, USA. To the right of the full Moon is the giant orange star Botein. Similar coronae that form around the Sun are typically harder to see because of the Sun's great brightness.

of different colours has different wavelengths, each colour diffracts differently. Lunar Coronae are one of the few colour diffraction effects that can be easily seen with the unaided eye. The featured image of a lunar corona was captured around last week's full Super Moon from near Knight's Ferry,

What are those colourful rings around the Moon? A corona. Rings like this will sometimes appear when the Moon is seen through thin clouds. The effect is created by the diffraction of light around individual, similarly-sized water droplets in an intervening but mostly-transparent cloud. Since light

(false-colour) pink. Jupiter's largest moon Ganymede appears on the upper left. Juno continues on a looping 33-day orbit around Jupiter, while Earth-orbiting Hubble is aging and now relies on a single stabilizing gyroscope.

heights and latitudes discrepant brightnesses. In the near UV, Jupiter's poles appear relatively dark, as does its Great Red Spot and an (optically) smaller white oval to the right. The String of Pearl storms farther to the right, however, are brightest in near ultraviolet, and so here appear

colours of Jupiter being monitored go beyond the normal human visual range to include both ultraviolet and (not pictured) infrared light. Featured from 2017, Jupiter appears different in near-ultraviolet light, partly because the amount of sunlight reflected back is distinct, giving differing cloud

Jupiter looks a bit different in ultraviolet light. To better interpret Jupiter's cloud motions and to help NASA's robotic Juno spacecraft understand the planetary context of the small fields that it sees, the Hubble Space Telescope was being directed to regularly image the entire Jovian giant. The

(moon-th).

Pictured here, Wednesday's supermoon is compared to April's micro moon – when a full Moon occurs near the furthest part of the Moon's orbit – so that it appears slightly smaller and dimmer than usual. Given many definitions, at least one supermoon occurs each year, with another one coming next month

Although the precise conditions that define a supermoon vary, last Wednesday's supermoon was surely the closest, largest, and brightest full moon this year. One reason supermoons are popular is because they are so easy to see – just go outside at sunset and watch an impressive full moon rise!

What was so super about Wednesday's supermoon? Last week, a full moon occurred that appeared slightly larger and brighter than usual. The reason is that the Moon's fully illuminated phase occurred within a short time from perigee – when the Moon was its closest to the Earth in its elliptical orbit.

same location – Forest Gump Point in Utah, USA. The foreground was taken just after sunset in early 2021 September during the blue hour, while the background is a mosaic of four exposures captured a few hours later.

appears to be a continuation of the road on Earth. Filaments of dust darken the Milky Way, in contrast to billions of bright stars and several colourful glowing gas clouds including the Lagoon and Trifid nebulas. The featured picture is a composite of images taken with the same camera and from the

Does the road to our Galaxy's centre go through Monument Valley? It doesn't have to, but if your road does – take a picture. In this case, the road is US Route 163 and iconic buttes on the Navajo National Reservation populate the horizon. The band of Milky-Way Galaxy stretches down from the sky and

traditionally known to some as the Hunter's Moon.

perigee, and so are slightly larger and brighter than full moons on average, have become popularly known as supermoons. In fact, this full moon at perigee is the closest and brightest of the three supermoons of 2025. Rising as the Sun sets, this full moon follows this October's Harvest Moon and is