Grant Petersen

I captured #Saturn about 30 minutes before sunset. C9.25 - 2 x barlow - ZWO ASI224mc #Astrophotography

#OTD in 1965, the Ranger 9 spacecraft made a planned impact on the Moon. This video shows Ranger's final seconds before impact.

One of the closest close up footage of the Concorde while landing. That lad really enjoyed being so close there!

NASA’s Curiosity rover just captured something that looks like it belongs over Norway in winter. Iridescent clouds. On Mars. 250 million miles away. They’re called mother-of-pearl clouds. Too faint to see in daylight. Only visible when the clouds sit especially high and evening falls across the planet. They’re made of carbon dioxide ice, forming at altitudes of 37 to 50 miles above the surface , where the temperatures are brutal even by Martian standards. Scientists still can’t fully explain why they only appear in one location on the entire planet. Curiosity sits in Gale Crater. Perseverance, operating elsewhere, has never seen one. “Carbon dioxide was not expected to be condensing into ice here,” says atmospheric scientist Mark Lemmon. “Something is cooling it to the point that it could happen.” Mars keeps surprising us. Even when we’re looking right at it. Gandalv / @Microinteracti1

HOLY MOLY! It's been confirmed that Argentina's GDP grew by 4.4% in 2025, after decades of economic destruction caused by socialist policies. When Milei took over, nearly 20 million people lived in poverty; today, 5.5 million have been lifted out of it. Extreme poverty alleviation is even better. Over 2.2 million people have been lifted out of that category, from about 5.5 million when Milei took over, down to roughly 3.3 million now. It turns out that when the government stops giving people welfare, they figure things out and become more productive. It turns out that when you terminate rent control laws, you actually end up with more supply and lower rent prices. Who would've thought? The usual suspects will undermine this by bringing up the fact that Argentina got a bailout from the United States with the $20 billion currency swap. (1) That has nothing to do with their economic comeback, and (2) The United States is the uncontested hegemon of the Western Hemisphere; it's absolutely our responsibility to make sure our allies are supported. Argentina's currency needed a little help, and we came through for them. The reason the peso got dumped in the first place was that investors thought Milei's party was going to lose the midterms. The currency support program was temporary, and Argentina already paid it all back in full (they only used $2.5 billion). It also generated profit for the U.S. Treasury. It was excellent business by Scott Bessent and Luis Caputo. Congratulations to Argentina for choosing rugged individualism over the destruction of collectivism.

Until March, Saturn had 146 known moons, then astronomers discovered 128 new ones, bringing the ringed gas giant's total up to 274 moons—far beyond any other planet in our Solar System. This is the coreography of their dance. [🎞️ thebrainmaze]

A Cuban explains why the American influencer convoy isn't solidarity—it's a betrayal. Suanny Barales reports.

I'm cuban, I'm actually living in Cuba, we have a single dream, we desire with our heart to get rid of the communist dictatorship. Stop defending these murderers, these gangsters, because that's what they are. They aren't normal people, they're evil, stop supporting the evil.

NGC6543 the Cat’s Eye Nebula A small but complex planetary nebula in Draco, showing multiple shells from different stages of the central star. RGB+Ha+OIII filters, with three exposure lengths, focused on preserving detail in the core. More info on my blog astrophoto.es

Rotational motion of the Great Red Spot captured on March 21st by @tw_astro and Myself over a 1h 41m period in near IR wavelengths. The spots anti-cyclonic rotation is easily visible. Also notable movement of the SEBn jetstream just above it (one of the fastest moving on the planet.) Its easy to forget from still images this is a planet in a state of constant change and motion - of which this is a small glimpse! 60cm Dobsonian with Uranus-M camera. IR642.

My rendition of Jupiter in true colour on March 21st, jointly captured by myself and Damian Peach. This is a single OSC stack - one that was far better than the rest of the dataset. Europa is seen at right with subtle surface features. 24" Dob, Uranus-C at 8750mm f/14.6.

M1, Crab Nebula, captured at Cotonou, Benin🔭Img w/ @zwoastro #Seestar S50 on March17 & March8, 2026 #Space #Astronomy

Black Hole zoetrope design on vinyls. See it @Swetilein1 🎥zoetropevinyls

A view of the recent SLS rollout, as captured from the 16th floor inside the Vehicle Assembly Building. An absolute privilege to be able to capture from this vantage point. Watch for humans for scale.

I finally managed to capture Jupiter's Great Red Spot! I could also see it by eye though a 15mm eyepiece! Captured on 21st March 2026 from my back garden in Hemyock. Skymax 127, 2x barlow, UVIR cut filter and Player One Neptune CII #Devon #astrophotography

Moonset timelapse

The Medusa Nebula 📸 Here is my latest picture of Abell 21, a large planetary nebula in the constellation Gemini. This is a tough target that requires much more overall exposure time than I collected, but I just couldn't help myself 😊 This version is in the HOO palette, using only 2 filters (H-Alpha and OIII) to create. This is one of many test images captured with one of the most affordable monochrome astronomy cameras on the market (585MM Pro) It's an excellent choice for anyone looking to dive into mono imaging! Image Details: 23 x 5-minutes OIII 30 x 5-minutes H-Alpha Camera: bit.ly/4bL60X1 Telescope: bit.ly/3YxGbTA Mount: bit.ly/437Q7E8

Tonight's view of Jupiter under very good seeing but poor transparency (high clouds). Oval BA is centrally placed with many fine details visible across both polar regions. 24" Dob, Uranus-M/C at 8750mm f/14.6. ~30 mins of data. 2026-03-20 19:43:54 UT

In 1870, a German chemist named Erich von Wolf was analysing the iron content of various vegetables. He made a decimal point error. He recorded spinach as containing 35mg of iron per 100g. The correct figure was 3.5mg. The misplaced decimal sat in the nutritional literature for decades, entirely unchallenged, because nobody particularly felt like re-testing spinach. In 1929, the Popeye comic strip launched. The creators cited the iron content of spinach as the scientific basis for their character's powers. By this point, the decimal point error was already sixty years old and fully embedded in received nutritional wisdom. The error was identified and corrected in 1937. The correction was not issued with anything approaching the cultural reach of the original claim. Popeye continued punching things. The actual iron content of spinach, 3.5mg per 100g, roughly where it was always supposed to be, is further complicated by the fact that spinach is among the highest-oxalate vegetables known. Oxalates bind to iron and calcium in the gut and remove them before absorption. The iron in spinach absorbs at around 1–2%, compared to 15–35% for haem iron from red meat. You would need to eat roughly a kilogram of spinach to absorb the iron equivalent of a 100g beef steak. There is also the kidney stone question. Spinach contains around 970mg of oxalates per 100g: one of the densest plant sources. Chronic high spinach consumption, particularly raw in daily smoothies, is a documented pathway to calcium oxalate kidney stones. The smoothie industry has not issued a correction. Popeye is still a sailor.

This island has been destroyed by decades of communist dictatorship & these privileged dirtbag leftists on their regime-approved (and regime-caused) poverty tour show up and chant “free free Palestine.” Amazing stuff.

Today, I attended a pro–Islamic Republic gathering outside the Prime Minister’s office in my capacity as a journalist. During the event, I was attacked from behind by one of the regime’s supporters, resulting in a serious injury to my left rib. The individual who assaulted me managed to pass through the police cordon before carrying out the attack. Another individual, identified as Mohammadreza Zohrevand, also threatened to kill me and my family. Fortunately, both the attacker and the individual who issued the death threats were arrested by the police. Many of these individuals are present in the United Kingdom under the status of asylum seekers, yet they openly support the Islamic Republic. Their presence poses a serious threat to the safety and security of all citizens in this country. I have repeatedly put my life at risk to demonstrate this reality. I sincerely hope that concrete and decisive action will now be taken.