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APOD: 2026 September 7 – The Pelican Nebula in Gas, Dust, and Stars

2026-09-07 04:05

APOD

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

A busy starfield is dominated by red and blue glowing gas and dark filamentary dust. The nebula appears to some to have the shape of a pelican.

The Pelican Nebula in Gas, Dust, and Stars

Explanation: The Pelican Nebula is slowly being transformed. IC 5070 (an official designation) is divided from the larger North America Nebula by a molecular cloud filled with dark dust. The deep featured picture from Utah, USA incorporates 25 hours of exposure and brings out great details of this filamentary dust. The Pelican Nebula receives much study because it is a particularly active mix of star formation and evolving gas clouds. The light from young energetic stars is slowly transforming the cold gas to hot gas, with the advancing boundary between the two, known as an ionization front, visible in bright orange on the upper right. Particularly dense tentacles of cold gas remain. Millions of years from now, the Pelican Nebula, bounded by dark nebula LDN 935, might no longer be known as the Pelican, as the balance and placement of stars and gas will surely leave something that appears completely different.

APOD’s main site is moving: From apod.nasa.gov to science.nasa.gov/apod
Tomorrow’s picture: geometric Saturn

Date:	September 7, 2026
Credit & Copyright:	Mark Killion
Authors & editors:	Robert Nemiroff, Jerry Bonnell, Cecilia Chirenti, Keighley Rockcliffe
A service of:	ASD at NASA / GSFC, NASA Science Activation & Michigan Tech. U.

Yesterday’s Image

APOD: 2026 September 6 – Pluto in Enhanced Color

Tomorrow’s Image

A Bright Spot at Mount Michael

2026-09-07 04:01

A small ice- and snow-covered island with an active volcanic crater at its center is surrounded by drifting pieces of sea ice. A thermal signal and small plume appear in the crater, and ash darkens the snow on the volcano’s northern slopes.

Mount Michael on Saunders Island, seen in this image acquired with the OLI (Operational Land Imager) on Landsat 8 on August 24, 2026, hosts a frequently active lava lake in its summit crater.

NASA Earth Observatory/Michala Garrison

Winter near the Antarctic Circle brings months of frozen darkness, when sea ice chokes ocean waters and many of its denizens hunker down to ride out the harsh conditions. But as winter began to release its icy grip, an uncommonly clear satellite image revealed that part of this remote realm was still very much awake, at least volcanically speaking.

Mount Michael, the stratovolcano at the center of Saunders Island, rises above the ice-filled South Atlantic Ocean in this image, acquired with the OLI (Operational Land Imager) on the NASA-USGS Landsat 8 satellite on August 24, 2026. The natural-color image is overlaid with an infrared signal (OLI bands 7-6-5), shown in red, revealing heat from the persistent lava lake in its summit crater. A puff of a volcanic plume hovering over the peak, along with darkened snow on its northern slopes, also suggests ongoing activity.

Saunders Island is one of the South Sandwich Islands, a string of small volcanic peaks about 350 kilometers (220 miles) long that formed from the South American plate subducting beneath the tiny South Sandwich plate. Regular eruptions, including at Mount Michael, have occurred on these islands in recent centuries.

Because of the volcanoes’ remoteness, scientists rely on satellite data to understand their activity. An analysis of thermal anomalies in Landsat, Sentinel, and ASTER (Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer) observations spanning 30 years led researchers to conclude that Mount Michael hosts a persistent lava lake in its summit crater. Only a handful of other volcanoes on Earth, including Kīlauea, Nyamulagira, and Erta Ale, are known to have similar, frequently active features.

Thermal observations from the MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) and VIIRS (Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite) instruments have also enabled long-term monitoring of Mount Michael. Data provided through MIROVA, a near-real-time volcanic hot spot detection system, indicate that low-intensity activity has been ongoing at the volcano for the past several years. Other observations from NASA’s Aura satellite show that emissions of sulfur dioxide and other gases are common at Mount Michael.

A series of V-shaped wave clouds appears over an ocean filled with pieces of sea ice.

Wave clouds form downwind of Saunders Island in this image acquired with the OLI (Operational Land Imager) on Landsat 9 on September 1, 2026.

NASA Earth Observatory/Michala Garrison

The cloud-free window over Mount Michael would close in short order. One week later, when Landsat 9 passed over the island, a more active atmosphere had returned. But the weather patterns interacted with the island to put on a spectacle of their own. The 843-meter-high (2,766-foot-high) peak jutting from the ocean disturbed passing winds to produce a series of wave clouds resembling the wake of a ship, a familiar phenomenon in this region. False-color imagery captured by NASA’s Aqua satellite indicates that a volcanic track caused by degassing sulfur dioxide was likely present as well.

NASA Earth Observatory images by Michala Garrison, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey. Story by Lindsey Doermann.

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August 24, 2026

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September 1, 2026

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References & Resources

Global Volcanism Program (2026) Saunders. Accessed September 4, 2026.
Gray, D.M., et al. (2019) Evidence for a lava lake on Mt. Michael volcano, Saunders Island (South Sandwich Islands) from Landsat, Sentinel-2 and ASTER satellite imagery. Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research, 379, 60-71.
MIROVA (2026) Michael. Accessed September 4, 2026.
NASA Earth Observatory (2020, June 23) Volcanic Emissions Can Change Clouds. Accessed September 4, 2026.
NASA Earth Observatory (2020, February 28) Sandwiched Wave Clouds. Accessed September 4, 2026.
NASA Earth Observatory (2019, July 19) Lava Lake Discovered on Mount Michael. Accessed September 4, 2026.
NASA Earthdata (2020, July 28) Sensing Remote Volcanoes. Accessed September 4, 2026.

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APOD: 2026 September 5 – Chasing the Moon’s Shadow

2026-09-05 04:05

APOD

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

A solar eclipse as viewed by a pilot from an aircraft cockpit.

Chasing the Moon’s Shadow

Explanation: Chasing the shadow of a New Moon, NASA’s WB-57F high altitude research aircraft took to the skies off the coast of Iceland on August 12 to observe a total solar eclipse. At 50,000 feet the aircraft was piloted along the precisely determined path of totality to maximize its time in the Moon’s shadow. A suite of high-resolution cameras on board was able to record eclipse data from above the clouds, dust, and atmospheric water vapor that interfere with observations made closer to the ground. This view from the cockpit, taken from an inflight video, captures the solar corona emerging at the beginning of totality. The sky appears dark in the shadow of the Moon. Venus is shining left of center in the video frame, while Jupiter and Mercury are just visible to the right of the eclipsed Sun. But the sky is bright along the distant horizon below, beyond the reach of the Moon’s shadow.

APOD’s main NASA site is moving: From apod.nasa.gov to science.nasa.gov/apod
Tomorrow’s picture: enhancing Pluto

Date	September 5, 2026
Credit:	NASA
Authors & editors:	Jerry Bonnell, Cecilia Chirenti, Robert Nemiroff, Keighley Rockcliffe
A service of:	ASD at NASA / GSFC, NASA Science Activation & Michigan Tech. U.

Yesterday’s Image

APOD: 2026 September 4 – Na Uhane Mahoe Huki Pu i ke Ola

Tomorrow’s Image

NASA Ames Fire Department Aircraft Firefighting Training

2026-09-04 19:51

The fire department at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley will perform training on the Moffett Federal Airfield beginning Tuesday, Sept. 8 through Friday, Sept. 11. The training will involve the use of a propane-fueled aircraft fire simulator and be conducted from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. PDT.

Because the aircraft simulator is fueled by propane, very little smoke should be produced during the controlled training fires. However, flames may be visible to drivers on U.S. Highway 101. The training is intended to prepare Ames’ first responders to respond to a variety of realistic aircraft firefighting scenarios.

For more information about NASA’s Ames Research Center, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/ames

-end-

Jeanne Neal
Ames Research Center, Silicon Valley
650-604-4789
Jeanne.c.neal@nasa.gov

To receive local NASA Ames news, email local-reporters-request@lists.arc.nasa.gov with “subscribe” in the subject line. To unsubscribe, email the same address with “unsubscribe” in the subject line.

NASA Hosts Virtual Artemis Webinar for Blind, Low-Vision Community

2026-09-04 16:48

Two technicians at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans stand around one of the four RS-25 engines for the agency’s SLS (Space Launch System) rocket on Sept. 8, 2023. The RS-25 engine looks like a bell-shaped nozzle attached to a network of pipes. The engine is being lifted by the horizontal engine installer so it appears to be lying on its side. The RS-25 engine is about the size of a large pickup truck. The technicians are wearing hard hats and safety harnesses.

Credit: NASA/Michael Democker

NASA will host a virtual webinar at 2 p.m. EDT on Friday, Oct. 2, titled “The RS-25 Engine and the Future of Artemis Missions: An Accessible Webinar for the Blind and Low-Vision Community.” This webinar is open to the public, however it is tailored specifically for a blind and low-vision audience.

The webinar will last about two hours and include an audio-described video of an RS-25 engine test, a Q&A session with an Artemis engineer, and a panel about accessibility in space and science. The event will be hosted on the Zoom platform.

Participants in the session include:

Dr. Kimberly Arcand, visualization scientist, NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory
Josh Greiner, test director, NASA’s Stennis Space Center in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi
Dr. Craig Moore, materials engineer, NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama
Dr. Robert Shelton, lead simulation engineer, NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston
Christine Malec, freelance writer and consultant

Those interested in attending the webinar must RSVP using this form by Friday, Sept. 25. Any questions can be directed to thalia.k.patrinos@nasa.gov. The details of the webinar will be emailed to registrants in the days leading up to the event.

NASA’s Artemis program will send astronauts on increasingly difficult missions to explore the Moon and establish a Moon Base on the lunar surface. For additional information on the Artemis missions, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/artemis