5 stunning NASA images show supermoon, eclipses and ‘Moon dressed like Saturn’ far away from Earth

The various motions of celestial bodies and the cosmos, including the planets, their rotations on different planes and at different periods — result in a range of phenomena. Notable astronomical phenomena such as nebula, solar and lunar eclipses, all give rise to a wide array of images. When viewed from the top, these occurrences can prove to be stunning and mesmerizing to look at. 

Space agencies such as NASA have been sharing images of these astronomical events time and again. 

Here are the top five images captured by NASA:
 

NASA had captioned this image as ‘The Moon dressed like Saturn’. While the photo may showcase the moon a bit bigger than its usual size, in reality it is not.

The Moon is in a slight crescent phase, with much of its surface illuminated by reflected Earthlight, known as Da Vinci glow. The bright crescent is directly illuminated by the Sun from below, indicating that the Sun must be below the horizon, suggesting the image was taken before sunrise.

This intriguing photograph was captured on December 24, 2019, just two days before the Moon moved in front of the Sun, causing a solar eclipse. In the foreground, the lights of small Guatemalan towns are visible against the backdrop of the massive Pacaya volcano, stated NASA.

The image shows a Supermoon, which rose against the backdrop of the Temple of Poseidon in Greece. This supermoon was the first in a series of four supermoons for the year 2024. The third supermoon is expected in September.

Supermoons appear a bit larger and brighter than typical full moons because they reach their full phase when they are slightly closer to Earth—closer than 90 percent of all full moons. The supermoon in the image was also considered a blue moon under the definition that it is the third of four full moons occurring in a single season.

Blue moons are not actually blue in colour. The second full moon in a single month is often referred to as a blue moon.

We have often heard about solar and lunar eclipses, where the sun and moon often get hidden because of certain astronomical phenomena. This image by NASA captures an unusual moment where the moon eclipsed Saturn.

A recent Saturnian eclipse, more formally known as an occultation, was visible across a broad region of Earth—from Peru and across the Atlantic Ocean to Italy—just a few days ago. The color image shown is a digital composite of the clearest photographs taken during the event, with adjustments made for color balance and brightness to highlight both the relatively dim Saturn and the much brighter Moon, stated NASA.

The exposure was captured from Breda, Catalonia, Spain, just before the occultation began. Eclipses of Saturn by Moon is expected to occur monthly for the rest of the year. However, each occurrence will only be visible to those with clear skies and the right location on Earth.

This image by NASA shows a ‘star factory’ named Messier 17, which lies some 5,500 light-years away in the nebula-rich constellation Sagittarius.

At that distance, this 1.5 degree wide field-of-view would span about 150 light-years. In the sharp color composite image faint details of the region's gas and dust clouds are highlighted with narrowband image data against a backdrop of central Milky Way stars.

According to NASA, the stellar winds and energetic radiation from hot, massive stars already formed from M17's stock of cosmic gas and dust have slowly carved away at the remaining interstellar material. This produced the nebula's cavernous appearance and the undulating shapes, that can be seen in the image. A popular stop on telescopic tours of the cosmos, M17 is also known as the Omega or the Swan Nebula.

On August 11, 2024, a Rocket Lab Electron rocket had been launched from a rotating planet, carrying a small satellite on a mission called ‘A Sky Full of SARs’ (Synthetic Aperture Radar satellites).

The rocket departed for low Earth orbit from the Mahia Peninsula on New Zealand's North Island. NASA's image captures the fiery trace of the Electron's graceful launch trajectory toward the east, set against a southern sea and skyscape.

The photo, created from 50 consecutive frames taken over 2.5 hours, was captured with the camera fixed on a tripod. The lens was directly at the South Celestial Pole, the extension of Earth's rotational axis into space, said NASA. Although there is no bright star at this location in the southern hemisphere's night sky, the South Celestial Pole is identifiable as the center of the trail of arcs that fill the skyward view.