Saturn now officially has 285 moons! This animation, from Tony Dunn at Orbitsimulator.com, shows some of the previously known moons in white and newly discovered moons in red, as they orbit Saturn. On March 16, 2026, the Minor Planet Center announced 11 more moons for Saturn and 4 more moons for Jupiter. Image via Tony Dunn. Used with permission.
On March 16, 2026, the Minor Planet Center announced an additional 11 moons for Saturn, bringing its total to a whopping 285. Plus, Jupiter’s moon count has finally cracked 100, with the addition of four newly discovered moons. Jupiter’s grand total now stands at 101.
The newly discovered moons are all quite small, at least as far as moons are concerned. That’s why they haven’t been discovered until now. These faint, distant space rocks are around 2 miles wide (3 km) with magnitudes of +25 to +27. The lower the number, the brighter it is. And truly bright objects even have negative numbers, like the sun (-26) and Venus (-4). So these moons are extraordinarily faint. They also orbit far from their planet, making them harder to track down.
In fact, the moons of Saturn are so spread out, they span the width of about five full Earth moons as seen from our location here on Earth. So, as you look toward the ringed planet, imagine its entourage of satellites extending for vast distances on either side of it.
As telescopes and observation methods improve, astronomers keep finding more family members at Jupiter and Saturn. In fact, it was just last March that the Minor Planet Center announced a staggering 128 additional moons for Saturn.
This illustration shows how much of the sky our moon takes up in comparison to Saturn’s 285 moons. Saturn’s moons cover approximately 5 times the amount of sky as our moon does from our viewpoint on Earth. Image via Tony Dunn/ Orbitsimulator.com. Used with permission.
Observations of the moons
These moons are only “new” in that they are new to us. They were too small and dim for astronomers to spot previously. Astronomers made the discoveries by combining past observations with new observations. They were looking for objects that moved. And there will probably be a number of new discoveries to come!
The Vera C. Rubin Observatory went online in June of 2025. Since then, it’s been issuing alerts to astronomers of the changes it spots in the sky. These changes are often the dimming or brightening stars and small objects on the move. Rubin sees the tiny changes the objects make from night to night. On February 24 alone, Rubin issued 800,000 alerts.
Names for the new moons
Only the largest of Jupiter’s and Saturn’s moon have proper names, such as Ganymede and Titan. The majority of these two planets’ many moons are quite small and dim. For example, out of Saturn’s 285 moons, only 64 have proper names. The organization that would be in charge of naming these moons is the International Astronomical Union’s Committee for Planetary System Nomenclature. And its rule is that:
… a Jovian or Saturnian satellite with an absolute magnitude fainter than 16.5 should only be named if it is of special scientific interest.
The new discoveries have magnitudes of 25 to 27. So these small, irregular moons are known by designations instead of names.
Jupiter’s 4 new moons are:
S/2011 J 4
S/2011 J 5
S/2018 J 5
S/2024 J 1
And Saturn’s 11 new moons are:
S/2020 S 45
S/2020 S 46
S/2020 S 47
S/2020 S 48
S/2023 S 51
S/2023 S 52
S/2023 S 53
S/2023 S 54
S/2023 S 55
S/2023 S 56
S/2023 S 57
For now, Saturn holds a substantial lead on Jupiter for most moons in our solar system.
Only the largest and brightest moons of Jupiter and Saturn get proper names. For example, Jupiter’s largest moon, Ganymede, has a proper name. The Cassini spacecraft captured this image of the pair on December 3, 2000. Image via NASA.
Bottom line: The Minor Planet Center announced 11 more moons for Saturn and 4 more moons for Jupiter on March 16, 2026. Their new grand totals? Saturn has 285 and Jupiter has 101.
Saturn now officially has 285 moons! This animation, from Tony Dunn at Orbitsimulator.com, shows some of the previously known moons in white and newly discovered moons in red, as they orbit Saturn. On March 16, 2026, the Minor Planet Center announced 11 more moons for Saturn and 4 more moons for Jupiter. Image via Tony Dunn. Used with permission.
On March 16, 2026, the Minor Planet Center announced an additional 11 moons for Saturn, bringing its total to a whopping 285. Plus, Jupiter’s moon count has finally cracked 100, with the addition of four newly discovered moons. Jupiter’s grand total now stands at 101.
The newly discovered moons are all quite small, at least as far as moons are concerned. That’s why they haven’t been discovered until now. These faint, distant space rocks are around 2 miles wide (3 km) with magnitudes of +25 to +27. The lower the number, the brighter it is. And truly bright objects even have negative numbers, like the sun (-26) and Venus (-4). So these moons are extraordinarily faint. They also orbit far from their planet, making them harder to track down.
In fact, the moons of Saturn are so spread out, they span the width of about five full Earth moons as seen from our location here on Earth. So, as you look toward the ringed planet, imagine its entourage of satellites extending for vast distances on either side of it.
As telescopes and observation methods improve, astronomers keep finding more family members at Jupiter and Saturn. In fact, it was just last March that the Minor Planet Center announced a staggering 128 additional moons for Saturn.
This illustration shows how much of the sky our moon takes up in comparison to Saturn’s 285 moons. Saturn’s moons cover approximately 5 times the amount of sky as our moon does from our viewpoint on Earth. Image via Tony Dunn/ Orbitsimulator.com. Used with permission.
Observations of the moons
These moons are only “new” in that they are new to us. They were too small and dim for astronomers to spot previously. Astronomers made the discoveries by combining past observations with new observations. They were looking for objects that moved. And there will probably be a number of new discoveries to come!
The Vera C. Rubin Observatory went online in June of 2025. Since then, it’s been issuing alerts to astronomers of the changes it spots in the sky. These changes are often the dimming or brightening stars and small objects on the move. Rubin sees the tiny changes the objects make from night to night. On February 24 alone, Rubin issued 800,000 alerts.
Names for the new moons
Only the largest of Jupiter’s and Saturn’s moon have proper names, such as Ganymede and Titan. The majority of these two planets’ many moons are quite small and dim. For example, out of Saturn’s 285 moons, only 64 have proper names. The organization that would be in charge of naming these moons is the International Astronomical Union’s Committee for Planetary System Nomenclature. And its rule is that:
… a Jovian or Saturnian satellite with an absolute magnitude fainter than 16.5 should only be named if it is of special scientific interest.
The new discoveries have magnitudes of 25 to 27. So these small, irregular moons are known by designations instead of names.
Jupiter’s 4 new moons are:
S/2011 J 4
S/2011 J 5
S/2018 J 5
S/2024 J 1
And Saturn’s 11 new moons are:
S/2020 S 45
S/2020 S 46
S/2020 S 47
S/2020 S 48
S/2023 S 51
S/2023 S 52
S/2023 S 53
S/2023 S 54
S/2023 S 55
S/2023 S 56
S/2023 S 57
For now, Saturn holds a substantial lead on Jupiter for most moons in our solar system.
Only the largest and brightest moons of Jupiter and Saturn get proper names. For example, Jupiter’s largest moon, Ganymede, has a proper name. The Cassini spacecraft captured this image of the pair on December 3, 2000. Image via NASA.
Bottom line: The Minor Planet Center announced 11 more moons for Saturn and 4 more moons for Jupiter on March 16, 2026. Their new grand totals? Saturn has 285 and Jupiter has 101.
The video above is from the South Pole during polar sunset in March 2022. That’s when the sun goes from having been up for 6 months to being down for the next 6 months. So, during the equinox, the sun scrapes along the horizon during the entire day. But did you know that the equinox sun looks exactly the same at both poles at the same time? Video via South Pole Telescope.
An EarthSky reader sent us a question a while back – at the September equinox 2023 to be exact – to ask how an equinox looks at the North and South Poles. Would it, due to refraction, be above the horizon at both poles at the same time, and all day long? This turned into a delightful exchange of emails (we do love chatting with our readers!) where we mused on the topic of polar equinox. Our reader, Rod Cavanaugh, had it all figured out! He wanted to make sure his ideas were correct … and so they were.
Equinox sun at the North Pole
At the poles, the year can be divided into one night and one day, or rather, half a year of darkness and half a year of daylight. The transition between these two states of sun-presence on the sky occurs during the equinoxes. At the North Pole, the sun is below the horizon for the entire winter. During the March equinox, it pops above the horizon – polar sunrise – to then sit in the sky for the entire summer, higher and higher each day until we hit the summer solstice. So, during equinox day, it follows the horizon all day long.
Polar sunrise for South Pole in September, sunset in March
At the South Pole, it is the opposite: the sun has been above the horizon for half a year, and then, during the March equinox, the day transitions via polar sunset, into eternal (or, rather, half a year of) darkness.
So, half the sun is below the horizon and half is above it, at both poles. Or at least that is how it would look like without the Earth’s atmosphere.
Concordia station in Antarctica is not located on the South Pole, but near it. So they experience sunrise in August, not September, and have 4 months of darkness, not 6. Here, researchers celebrate the sunrise at Concordia research station on August 11, 2020. Read more about this image, which is via ESA.
The sun is above the horizon at both poles at the same time
But, here comes the surprise! Due to refraction, a sun on the horizon does not appear to be half below it and half above it, even though it geometrically would be. The atmosphere refracts the light that hits your eye, such that the sun appears to be about 1/2 a degree above the horizon at both places. Our reader, Rod Cavanaugh, wrote:
If the atmosphere’s refraction raises the sun about 1/2 a degree and the sun’s angular diameter is about 1/2 a degree, then at sunset the actual/geometric sun should be completely set at the time the apparent/refracted sun first touches the horizon.
But from the poles, the center of the sun should be exactly on the horizon at the equinox, so there should be a gap of 1/4 a degree between the apparent sun and the horizon, meaning the sun is completely above the horizon at both poles on the equinox.
When the sun is just below the horizon, refraction lifts it to appear just on top of it. The amount of refraction near the horizon is around 1/2 a degree, which also happens to be the sun’s apparent diameter. Image via Sciencia58/ Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Not only on the horizon, but above it
Rod asked if this seemingly counterintuitive situation is correct. And indeed, it is! A sun that sits 1/2 a degree (30 arcminutes) below the horizon is refracted 33 arcminutes. But the equinox sun is a bit higher (not below the horizon yet, but half above and half below). This means that there will be a gap between horizon and sun. The gap won’t be exactly 0.25 degrees, but the top will be refracted between 25 and 29 (we can assume 27) arcminutes, and the bottom part (0.25 degrees below horizon), about 31 arcminutes.
So, Rod’s thought experiment is correct. There will be a gap of about a quarter of a degree (about 15 arcminutes), so the sun will appear a bit above the horizon at both locations. Also, the sun will appear oval because the upper limb (edge) is refracted less than the lower.
Bottom line: We know the equinox sun rises due east and sets due west. But what happens at Earth’s poles? Turns out the North Pole sun is above the horizon all day long. And it looks exactly the same at the South Pole!
The video above is from the South Pole during polar sunset in March 2022. That’s when the sun goes from having been up for 6 months to being down for the next 6 months. So, during the equinox, the sun scrapes along the horizon during the entire day. But did you know that the equinox sun looks exactly the same at both poles at the same time? Video via South Pole Telescope.
An EarthSky reader sent us a question a while back – at the September equinox 2023 to be exact – to ask how an equinox looks at the North and South Poles. Would it, due to refraction, be above the horizon at both poles at the same time, and all day long? This turned into a delightful exchange of emails (we do love chatting with our readers!) where we mused on the topic of polar equinox. Our reader, Rod Cavanaugh, had it all figured out! He wanted to make sure his ideas were correct … and so they were.
Equinox sun at the North Pole
At the poles, the year can be divided into one night and one day, or rather, half a year of darkness and half a year of daylight. The transition between these two states of sun-presence on the sky occurs during the equinoxes. At the North Pole, the sun is below the horizon for the entire winter. During the March equinox, it pops above the horizon – polar sunrise – to then sit in the sky for the entire summer, higher and higher each day until we hit the summer solstice. So, during equinox day, it follows the horizon all day long.
Polar sunrise for South Pole in September, sunset in March
At the South Pole, it is the opposite: the sun has been above the horizon for half a year, and then, during the March equinox, the day transitions via polar sunset, into eternal (or, rather, half a year of) darkness.
So, half the sun is below the horizon and half is above it, at both poles. Or at least that is how it would look like without the Earth’s atmosphere.
Concordia station in Antarctica is not located on the South Pole, but near it. So they experience sunrise in August, not September, and have 4 months of darkness, not 6. Here, researchers celebrate the sunrise at Concordia research station on August 11, 2020. Read more about this image, which is via ESA.
The sun is above the horizon at both poles at the same time
But, here comes the surprise! Due to refraction, a sun on the horizon does not appear to be half below it and half above it, even though it geometrically would be. The atmosphere refracts the light that hits your eye, such that the sun appears to be about 1/2 a degree above the horizon at both places. Our reader, Rod Cavanaugh, wrote:
If the atmosphere’s refraction raises the sun about 1/2 a degree and the sun’s angular diameter is about 1/2 a degree, then at sunset the actual/geometric sun should be completely set at the time the apparent/refracted sun first touches the horizon.
But from the poles, the center of the sun should be exactly on the horizon at the equinox, so there should be a gap of 1/4 a degree between the apparent sun and the horizon, meaning the sun is completely above the horizon at both poles on the equinox.
When the sun is just below the horizon, refraction lifts it to appear just on top of it. The amount of refraction near the horizon is around 1/2 a degree, which also happens to be the sun’s apparent diameter. Image via Sciencia58/ Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Not only on the horizon, but above it
Rod asked if this seemingly counterintuitive situation is correct. And indeed, it is! A sun that sits 1/2 a degree (30 arcminutes) below the horizon is refracted 33 arcminutes. But the equinox sun is a bit higher (not below the horizon yet, but half above and half below). This means that there will be a gap between horizon and sun. The gap won’t be exactly 0.25 degrees, but the top will be refracted between 25 and 29 (we can assume 27) arcminutes, and the bottom part (0.25 degrees below horizon), about 31 arcminutes.
So, Rod’s thought experiment is correct. There will be a gap of about a quarter of a degree (about 15 arcminutes), so the sun will appear a bit above the horizon at both locations. Also, the sun will appear oval because the upper limb (edge) is refracted less than the lower.
Bottom line: We know the equinox sun rises due east and sets due west. But what happens at Earth’s poles? Turns out the North Pole sun is above the horizon all day long. And it looks exactly the same at the South Pole!
The March equinox will come on March 20, 2026. At the equinoxes, the ecliptic and the celestial equator intersect. See the intersection point on this imaginary sphere, representing the dome of Earth’s sky? The celestial equator is directly above Earth’s equator. The ecliptic is the sun’s apparent path across our sky. And the celestial equator intersects your horizon at points due east and due west. That’s why – at every equinox, no matter where you are on the globe except the North and South Poles – the sun, on the celestial equator, rises due east and sets due west. Read more about the equinox sun below. Image via NASA.
It’s not true that day and night are precisely equal on the day of an equinox. But here’s an equinox fact that is true. The sun rises due east and sets due west at the equinox. It might seem counterintuitive. But it’s true no matter where you live on Earth (except at the North and South Poles). Here’s how to visualize it.
To understand the nearly due-east and due-west rising and setting of an equinox sun, you have to think of the reality of Earth in space. First think about why the sun’s path across our sky shifts from season to season. That’s because our world is tilted on its axis with respect to its orbit around the sun.
Now think about what an equinox is. It’s an event that happens on the imaginary dome of Earth’s sky. And it marks that special moment when the sun crosses the celestial equator going from one hemisphere to the other. Of course, it also represents a point in Earth’s orbit.
Our seasons result from the Earth’s rotational axis tilting 23.5 degrees out of the perpendicular to the ecliptic, or Earth’s orbital plane. Image via National Weather Service/ weather.gov.
The equinox sun crosses the celestial equator
The celestial equator is a great circle dividing the imaginary celestial sphere into its northern and southern hemispheres. Additionally, the celestial equator wraps the sky directly above Earth’s equator.
All these components are imaginary, yet what happens at every equinox is very real. In fact, it’s as real as the sun’s passage across the sky each day and as real as the change of seasons.
It’s the same all over the globe
So no matter where you are on Earth (except for the North and South Poles), you have a due east and due west point on your horizon. That point marks the intersection of your horizon with the celestial equator, the imaginary great circle above the true equator of Earth.
And that’s why the sun rises close to due east and sets close to due west, for all of us, at the equinox. The equinox sun is on the celestial equator. Which means, no matter where you are on Earth, the celestial equator intersects your horizon at due east and due west.
This fact makes the day of an equinox a good day for finding east and west from your yard or favorite site for watching the sky. Just go outside around sunset or sunrise and notice the location of the sun on the horizon with respect to familiar landmarks.
If you do this, you’ll be able to use those landmarks to find those cardinal directions in the weeks and months ahead. Plus, you’ll know those directions long after Earth has moved on in its orbit around the sun.
The history of the seasons
Our ancestors may not have understood the equinoxes and solstices as events that occur during Earth’s yearly orbit around the sun. But if they were observant – and some were very observant indeed – they surely marked the day of the equinox as being midway between the sun’s lowest path across the sky in winter and highest path across the sky in summer.
Now we can say with reasonably high accuracy that the sun rises due east and sets due west on the day of the equinox. And this is the same for everyone around the globe.
If you are seeking more precision for the sunrise/sunset direction in your part of the world, check out the altitude/azimuth for the sun via timeanddate.com.
View at EarthSky Community Photos. | How fast is daytime growing around the equinox? Rupesh Sangoi in Mumbai, India, captured separate images of the sunrise, showing the sun’s movement along the horizon, between the June and December solstices and on the equinoxes. Rupesh wrote: “Did this for over a year, at sunrise.” Glorious composite, Rupesh! Thank you.
Bottom line: The 2026 March equinox occurs at 14:46 UTC (9:46 p.m. CDT) on March 20, 2026. Read more about the March equinox.
The March equinox will come on March 20, 2026. At the equinoxes, the ecliptic and the celestial equator intersect. See the intersection point on this imaginary sphere, representing the dome of Earth’s sky? The celestial equator is directly above Earth’s equator. The ecliptic is the sun’s apparent path across our sky. And the celestial equator intersects your horizon at points due east and due west. That’s why – at every equinox, no matter where you are on the globe except the North and South Poles – the sun, on the celestial equator, rises due east and sets due west. Read more about the equinox sun below. Image via NASA.
It’s not true that day and night are precisely equal on the day of an equinox. But here’s an equinox fact that is true. The sun rises due east and sets due west at the equinox. It might seem counterintuitive. But it’s true no matter where you live on Earth (except at the North and South Poles). Here’s how to visualize it.
To understand the nearly due-east and due-west rising and setting of an equinox sun, you have to think of the reality of Earth in space. First think about why the sun’s path across our sky shifts from season to season. That’s because our world is tilted on its axis with respect to its orbit around the sun.
Now think about what an equinox is. It’s an event that happens on the imaginary dome of Earth’s sky. And it marks that special moment when the sun crosses the celestial equator going from one hemisphere to the other. Of course, it also represents a point in Earth’s orbit.
Our seasons result from the Earth’s rotational axis tilting 23.5 degrees out of the perpendicular to the ecliptic, or Earth’s orbital plane. Image via National Weather Service/ weather.gov.
The equinox sun crosses the celestial equator
The celestial equator is a great circle dividing the imaginary celestial sphere into its northern and southern hemispheres. Additionally, the celestial equator wraps the sky directly above Earth’s equator.
All these components are imaginary, yet what happens at every equinox is very real. In fact, it’s as real as the sun’s passage across the sky each day and as real as the change of seasons.
It’s the same all over the globe
So no matter where you are on Earth (except for the North and South Poles), you have a due east and due west point on your horizon. That point marks the intersection of your horizon with the celestial equator, the imaginary great circle above the true equator of Earth.
And that’s why the sun rises close to due east and sets close to due west, for all of us, at the equinox. The equinox sun is on the celestial equator. Which means, no matter where you are on Earth, the celestial equator intersects your horizon at due east and due west.
This fact makes the day of an equinox a good day for finding east and west from your yard or favorite site for watching the sky. Just go outside around sunset or sunrise and notice the location of the sun on the horizon with respect to familiar landmarks.
If you do this, you’ll be able to use those landmarks to find those cardinal directions in the weeks and months ahead. Plus, you’ll know those directions long after Earth has moved on in its orbit around the sun.
The history of the seasons
Our ancestors may not have understood the equinoxes and solstices as events that occur during Earth’s yearly orbit around the sun. But if they were observant – and some were very observant indeed – they surely marked the day of the equinox as being midway between the sun’s lowest path across the sky in winter and highest path across the sky in summer.
Now we can say with reasonably high accuracy that the sun rises due east and sets due west on the day of the equinox. And this is the same for everyone around the globe.
If you are seeking more precision for the sunrise/sunset direction in your part of the world, check out the altitude/azimuth for the sun via timeanddate.com.
View at EarthSky Community Photos. | How fast is daytime growing around the equinox? Rupesh Sangoi in Mumbai, India, captured separate images of the sunrise, showing the sun’s movement along the horizon, between the June and December solstices and on the equinoxes. Rupesh wrote: “Did this for over a year, at sunrise.” Glorious composite, Rupesh! Thank you.
Bottom line: The 2026 March equinox occurs at 14:46 UTC (9:46 p.m. CDT) on March 20, 2026. Read more about the March equinox.
View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Ross Stone in California captured the Death Valley superbloom on March 16, 2026. Ross wrote: ” field of desert gold wildflowers in full bloom near Badwater in Death Valley National Park.” Thank you, Ross!
Death Valley National Park – the hottest and driest place in North America – is having a superbloom.
The park normally sees about 2 inches (5 cm) of rain in a year. But it had more than a year’s worth of rain (2.5 inches, or 6 cm) between November 2025 and January 2026.
The extra rain woke up dormant seeds. It’s given us the first superbloom in Death Valley since 2016.
As of mid-March, the superbloom is past peak, but there are still flowers to be seen! The National Park Service (NPS) announced current bloom locations (March 16, 2026):
Badwater Rd (between CA190 and Sidewinder Canyon): Desert Gold, Phacelia, Mojave Star. Some flowers remain, most are setting seed
Panamint Valley: occasional Desert Gold patches; brittlebush by Father Crowley Vista
In early March, the NPS said:
We are having the best bloom year since 2016 and many sprouts have not yet flowered. The showy yellow desert gold is one of the most prominent flowers, but there are a large variety of other species blooming as well. Low-elevation flowers are blooming throughout the park and will likely persist until mid-late March, depending on the weather. Higher elevations will have blooms April-June.
The Death Valley superbloom is happening now. It’s the best display of spring wildflowers since 2016. Image via National Park Service.
The Death Valley superbloom is underway! ? Colorful flowers are blanketing parts of the hottest place in North America. Park officials say it’s the best superbloom since 2016.
Superblooms don’t happen on a schedule, but they occur about once a decade. The past superblooms have been in 2016, 2005 and 1998. The extra abundance of flowers can also attract more pollinators, so keep an eye out for more bees, butterflies, birds and more.
This rare and short-lived phenomenon is important to the desert ecosystem. The NPS said:
In Death Valley National park, most of the showy desert wildflowers are annuals, also referred to as ephemerals because they are short-lived. Oddly enough, this limited lifespan ensures survival here. Rather than struggle to stay alive during the desert’s most extreme conditions, annual wildflowers lie dormant as seeds. When enough rain finally does fall, the seeds quickly sprout, grow, bloom and go back to seed again before the dryness and heat returns. By blooming en masse during good years, wildflowers can attract large numbers of pollinators such as butterflies, moths, bees and hummingbirds that might not otherwise visit Death Valley.
View larger. | Death Valley wildflowers. Posted by the National Park Service in March 2026.View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Ross Stone captured a rare sight of water in the basin at Death Valley National Park on March 15, 2026. Ross wrote: “Even though the temperatures are quickly rising in Death Valley, there is still a good amount of water in Lake Manly … Which makes it a fabulous place to people watch and take some excellent landscape photographs.” Thank you, Ross!
Are you planning to visit the park this spring?
Here’s what you need to know if you’re planning to visit the park this spring. First, be patient! There will be many others visiting also, but it’s a huge park with space for everyone. Traffic might be slow, but you will eventually get to that picture-perfect site.
To keep up-to-date on what’s blooming and where, visit the NPS website.
And, of course, don’t pick the wildflowers! Capture them only with your camera. And if you get a great photo, submit it to us!
2026 Death Valley superbloom
NATURE's WAY… Fighting Death With Color Energy! ??Death Valley Sees Its Most Spectacular Super Bloom In A Decade…
1/x“Wildflowers, South Death Valley” — A flower-covered landscape.Is this a so-called “super bloom” year…more: gdanmitchell.com/2026/03/07/w…#deathvalley #wildflowers #superbloom #photo #photoOfTheDay #lensCulture #landscapePhotography #photographyLovers #naturePhotography #fineArtPhotography
Bottom line: A Death Valley superbloom erupted this spring. This rare event only happens about every decade. Read more about what flowers are blooming and where in Death Valley National Park.
View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Ross Stone in California captured the Death Valley superbloom on March 16, 2026. Ross wrote: ” field of desert gold wildflowers in full bloom near Badwater in Death Valley National Park.” Thank you, Ross!
Death Valley National Park – the hottest and driest place in North America – is having a superbloom.
The park normally sees about 2 inches (5 cm) of rain in a year. But it had more than a year’s worth of rain (2.5 inches, or 6 cm) between November 2025 and January 2026.
The extra rain woke up dormant seeds. It’s given us the first superbloom in Death Valley since 2016.
As of mid-March, the superbloom is past peak, but there are still flowers to be seen! The National Park Service (NPS) announced current bloom locations (March 16, 2026):
Badwater Rd (between CA190 and Sidewinder Canyon): Desert Gold, Phacelia, Mojave Star. Some flowers remain, most are setting seed
Panamint Valley: occasional Desert Gold patches; brittlebush by Father Crowley Vista
In early March, the NPS said:
We are having the best bloom year since 2016 and many sprouts have not yet flowered. The showy yellow desert gold is one of the most prominent flowers, but there are a large variety of other species blooming as well. Low-elevation flowers are blooming throughout the park and will likely persist until mid-late March, depending on the weather. Higher elevations will have blooms April-June.
The Death Valley superbloom is happening now. It’s the best display of spring wildflowers since 2016. Image via National Park Service.
The Death Valley superbloom is underway! ? Colorful flowers are blanketing parts of the hottest place in North America. Park officials say it’s the best superbloom since 2016.
Superblooms don’t happen on a schedule, but they occur about once a decade. The past superblooms have been in 2016, 2005 and 1998. The extra abundance of flowers can also attract more pollinators, so keep an eye out for more bees, butterflies, birds and more.
This rare and short-lived phenomenon is important to the desert ecosystem. The NPS said:
In Death Valley National park, most of the showy desert wildflowers are annuals, also referred to as ephemerals because they are short-lived. Oddly enough, this limited lifespan ensures survival here. Rather than struggle to stay alive during the desert’s most extreme conditions, annual wildflowers lie dormant as seeds. When enough rain finally does fall, the seeds quickly sprout, grow, bloom and go back to seed again before the dryness and heat returns. By blooming en masse during good years, wildflowers can attract large numbers of pollinators such as butterflies, moths, bees and hummingbirds that might not otherwise visit Death Valley.
View larger. | Death Valley wildflowers. Posted by the National Park Service in March 2026.View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Ross Stone captured a rare sight of water in the basin at Death Valley National Park on March 15, 2026. Ross wrote: “Even though the temperatures are quickly rising in Death Valley, there is still a good amount of water in Lake Manly … Which makes it a fabulous place to people watch and take some excellent landscape photographs.” Thank you, Ross!
Are you planning to visit the park this spring?
Here’s what you need to know if you’re planning to visit the park this spring. First, be patient! There will be many others visiting also, but it’s a huge park with space for everyone. Traffic might be slow, but you will eventually get to that picture-perfect site.
To keep up-to-date on what’s blooming and where, visit the NPS website.
And, of course, don’t pick the wildflowers! Capture them only with your camera. And if you get a great photo, submit it to us!
2026 Death Valley superbloom
NATURE's WAY… Fighting Death With Color Energy! ??Death Valley Sees Its Most Spectacular Super Bloom In A Decade…
1/x“Wildflowers, South Death Valley” — A flower-covered landscape.Is this a so-called “super bloom” year…more: gdanmitchell.com/2026/03/07/w…#deathvalley #wildflowers #superbloom #photo #photoOfTheDay #lensCulture #landscapePhotography #photographyLovers #naturePhotography #fineArtPhotography
Bottom line: A Death Valley superbloom erupted this spring. This rare event only happens about every decade. Read more about what flowers are blooming and where in Death Valley National Park.
Pyxis the Compass is considered a constellation of the Southern Hemisphere skies. But northerners at southerly latitudes can see it, too, on March evenings.
March is a good month to view the constellation Pyxis the Compass. That’s assuming you’re far enough south on Earth’s globe. Pyxis is one of the 14 constellations that the French astronomer Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille created in the 1700s. It represents a ship’s compass. Conveniently, this ship’s compass lies on our sky’s dome next to the three constellations, Puppis, Vela and Carina, elements that made up the former constellation of Argo Navis. That was the great starry Ship that once sailed the southern skies.
By the way, don’t confuse Pyxis the Compass with Circinus. That’s a different constellation that represents a drawing compass.
Pyxis lies southeast of Canis Major the Greater Dog, with its very bright star Sirius. From Sirius, look toward the east to the quiet part of the sky where Pyxis resides. See the photo below.
The Alpha and Beta stars of Pyxis lie in the southern part of the constellation. More specifically, Alpha Pyxidis is magnitude 3.68 and lies 845 light-years away. Likewise, just over 2 degrees to the south is Beta Pyxidis at magnitude 3.97 and lying 388 light-years away.
In addition, both Alpha and Beta have faint star clusters lying a half degree to the northwest. Alpha’s star cluster is NGC 2658 at magnitude 9.2. And Beta’s star cluster is NGC 2635 at magnitude 11.2. So with this in mind, you’ll want binoculars or a telescope to track them down. In particular, NGC 2635 is a real challenge.
However, there are two other deep-sky targets in Pyxis that are somewhat brighter. First, there’s NGC 2627. It’s a magnitude 8.4 star cluster lying 3 1/2 degrees northwest of Alpha, or just 1/2 degree southwest of Zeta Pyxidis, a magnitude 4.86 star. Then, the second one lies in the southeast corner of the constellation. It’s NGC 2818, a planetary nebula shining at magnitude 11.6. Which we can see in the glorious Hubble photo, below.
The stars of Pyxis are difficult to see from a location with light pollution. For instance, Pyxis the Compass’s brightest star is a faint magnitude 3.68. Image via International Astronomical Union/ Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0).The Hubble Space Telescope took this shot of the planetary nebula NGC 2818 in Pyxis in 2009. Image via NASA.
Bottom line: Pyxis the Compass is a constellation lying in southern skies. But Northern Hemisphere viewers can get a glimpse of in March. Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille created the constellation in the 1700s.
Pyxis the Compass is considered a constellation of the Southern Hemisphere skies. But northerners at southerly latitudes can see it, too, on March evenings.
March is a good month to view the constellation Pyxis the Compass. That’s assuming you’re far enough south on Earth’s globe. Pyxis is one of the 14 constellations that the French astronomer Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille created in the 1700s. It represents a ship’s compass. Conveniently, this ship’s compass lies on our sky’s dome next to the three constellations, Puppis, Vela and Carina, elements that made up the former constellation of Argo Navis. That was the great starry Ship that once sailed the southern skies.
By the way, don’t confuse Pyxis the Compass with Circinus. That’s a different constellation that represents a drawing compass.
Pyxis lies southeast of Canis Major the Greater Dog, with its very bright star Sirius. From Sirius, look toward the east to the quiet part of the sky where Pyxis resides. See the photo below.
The Alpha and Beta stars of Pyxis lie in the southern part of the constellation. More specifically, Alpha Pyxidis is magnitude 3.68 and lies 845 light-years away. Likewise, just over 2 degrees to the south is Beta Pyxidis at magnitude 3.97 and lying 388 light-years away.
In addition, both Alpha and Beta have faint star clusters lying a half degree to the northwest. Alpha’s star cluster is NGC 2658 at magnitude 9.2. And Beta’s star cluster is NGC 2635 at magnitude 11.2. So with this in mind, you’ll want binoculars or a telescope to track them down. In particular, NGC 2635 is a real challenge.
However, there are two other deep-sky targets in Pyxis that are somewhat brighter. First, there’s NGC 2627. It’s a magnitude 8.4 star cluster lying 3 1/2 degrees northwest of Alpha, or just 1/2 degree southwest of Zeta Pyxidis, a magnitude 4.86 star. Then, the second one lies in the southeast corner of the constellation. It’s NGC 2818, a planetary nebula shining at magnitude 11.6. Which we can see in the glorious Hubble photo, below.
The stars of Pyxis are difficult to see from a location with light pollution. For instance, Pyxis the Compass’s brightest star is a faint magnitude 3.68. Image via International Astronomical Union/ Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0).The Hubble Space Telescope took this shot of the planetary nebula NGC 2818 in Pyxis in 2009. Image via NASA.
Bottom line: Pyxis the Compass is a constellation lying in southern skies. But Northern Hemisphere viewers can get a glimpse of in March. Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille created the constellation in the 1700s.
The March equinox will come on March 20, 2026, at 14:46 UTC (9:46 a.m. CDT). It’s the Northern Hemisphere’s autumn equinox and Southern Hemisphere’s spring equinox. You sometimes hear it said that, at the equinoxes, everyone receives equal daylight and darkness. But there’s really more daylight than darkness at the equinox, eight more minutes or so at mid-temperate latitudes. Two factors explain why we have more than 12 hours of daylight on this day of supposedly equal day and night. They are:
Illustrations like this one make it seem as if day and night should be equal at the equinox. In fact, they aren’t exactly equal. Image via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0).
The sun is a disk, not a point
Watch any sunset, and you know the sun appears in Earth’s sky as a disk.
It’s not point-like, as stars are. And yet – by definition – most almanacs regard sunrise as when the leading edge of the sun first touches the eastern horizon. They define sunset as when the sun’s trailing edge finally touches the western horizon.
This provides an extra 2 1/2 to 3 minutes of daylight at mid-temperate latitudes.
Atmospheric refraction raises the sun about 1/2 degree upward in our sky at both sunrise and sunset. This advances the time of actual sunrise, while delaying the time of actual sunset. The result is several minutes of extra daylight, not just at an equinox, but every day. Image via Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 3.0).
Atmospheric refraction
The Earth’s atmosphere acts like a lens or prism. It uplifts the sun about 0.5 degrees from its true geometrical position whenever the sun nears the horizon. Coincidentally, the sun’s angular diameter spans about 0.5 degrees, as well.
In other words, when you see the sun on the horizon, it’s actually just below the horizon geometrically.
What does atmospheric refraction mean for the length of daylight? It advances the sunrise and delays the sunset, adding nearly another six minutes of daylight at mid-temperate latitudes. Hence, more daylight than night at the equinox.
Astronomical almanacs usually don’t give sunrise or sunset times to the second. That’s because atmospheric refraction varies somewhat, depending on air temperature, humidity and barometric pressure. Lower temperature, higher humidity and higher barometric pressure all increase atmospheric refraction.
On the day of the equinox, the center of the sun would set about 12 hours after rising. That’s given a level horizon, as at sea, and no atmospheric refraction.
So, no, day and night are not exactly equal at the equinox.
And here’s a new word for you, equilux. The word is used to describe the day on which day and night are equal. The equilux happens a few to several days after the autumn equinox, and a few to several days before the spring equinox.
Much as earliest sunrises and latest sunsets vary with latitude, so the exact date of an equilux varies with latitude. That’s in contrast to the equinox itself, which is a whole-Earth event, happening at the same instant worldwide. At and near the equator, there is no equilux whatsoever. That’s because the daylight period is over 12 hours long every day of the year.
Bottom line: There’s slightly more day than night on the day of an equinox. That’s because the sun is a disk, not a point of light, and because Earth’s atmosphere refracts (bends) sunlight.
The March equinox will come on March 20, 2026, at 14:46 UTC (9:46 a.m. CDT). It’s the Northern Hemisphere’s autumn equinox and Southern Hemisphere’s spring equinox. You sometimes hear it said that, at the equinoxes, everyone receives equal daylight and darkness. But there’s really more daylight than darkness at the equinox, eight more minutes or so at mid-temperate latitudes. Two factors explain why we have more than 12 hours of daylight on this day of supposedly equal day and night. They are:
Illustrations like this one make it seem as if day and night should be equal at the equinox. In fact, they aren’t exactly equal. Image via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0).
The sun is a disk, not a point
Watch any sunset, and you know the sun appears in Earth’s sky as a disk.
It’s not point-like, as stars are. And yet – by definition – most almanacs regard sunrise as when the leading edge of the sun first touches the eastern horizon. They define sunset as when the sun’s trailing edge finally touches the western horizon.
This provides an extra 2 1/2 to 3 minutes of daylight at mid-temperate latitudes.
Atmospheric refraction raises the sun about 1/2 degree upward in our sky at both sunrise and sunset. This advances the time of actual sunrise, while delaying the time of actual sunset. The result is several minutes of extra daylight, not just at an equinox, but every day. Image via Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 3.0).
Atmospheric refraction
The Earth’s atmosphere acts like a lens or prism. It uplifts the sun about 0.5 degrees from its true geometrical position whenever the sun nears the horizon. Coincidentally, the sun’s angular diameter spans about 0.5 degrees, as well.
In other words, when you see the sun on the horizon, it’s actually just below the horizon geometrically.
What does atmospheric refraction mean for the length of daylight? It advances the sunrise and delays the sunset, adding nearly another six minutes of daylight at mid-temperate latitudes. Hence, more daylight than night at the equinox.
Astronomical almanacs usually don’t give sunrise or sunset times to the second. That’s because atmospheric refraction varies somewhat, depending on air temperature, humidity and barometric pressure. Lower temperature, higher humidity and higher barometric pressure all increase atmospheric refraction.
On the day of the equinox, the center of the sun would set about 12 hours after rising. That’s given a level horizon, as at sea, and no atmospheric refraction.
So, no, day and night are not exactly equal at the equinox.
And here’s a new word for you, equilux. The word is used to describe the day on which day and night are equal. The equilux happens a few to several days after the autumn equinox, and a few to several days before the spring equinox.
Much as earliest sunrises and latest sunsets vary with latitude, so the exact date of an equilux varies with latitude. That’s in contrast to the equinox itself, which is a whole-Earth event, happening at the same instant worldwide. At and near the equator, there is no equilux whatsoever. That’s because the daylight period is over 12 hours long every day of the year.
Bottom line: There’s slightly more day than night on the day of an equinox. That’s because the sun is a disk, not a point of light, and because Earth’s atmosphere refracts (bends) sunlight.
A comet breaks apart in this series of images from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. The comet was C/2025 K1 (ATLAS) (not to be confused with the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS). These images document 3 consecutive days: November 8, 9 and 10, 2025. It’s the first time Hubble witnessed a comet so early in the process of breaking up. Image via NASA/ ESA/ Dennis Bodewits (AU). Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI).
Hubble has captured a rare view of a comet breaking apart. It captured these images about a month after the comet made its closest pass by the sun.
The discovery was a happy accident. The scientist’s original target was a different comet. But this is the first time Hubble has caught a fragmenting comet so close to when it actually fell apart.
The breakup offers scientists a glimpse of pristine material, helping them study the early solar system’s building blocks.
In a happy twist of fate, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope just witnessed a comet in the act of breaking apart. The chance of that happening while Hubble watched is extraordinarily minuscule. The comet K1, whose full name is C/2025 K1 (ATLAS) – not to be confused with interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS – was not the original target of the Hubble study.
Co-investigator John Noonan, a research professor in the Department of Physics at Auburn University in Alabama, said:
Sometimes the best science happens by accident. This comet got observed because our original comet was not viewable due to some new technical constraints after we won our proposal. We had to find a new target … and right when we observed it, it happened to break apart, which is the slimmest of slim chances.
Noonan didn’t know K1 was fragmenting until he viewed the images the day after Hubble took them. Noonan said:
While I was taking an initial look at the data, I saw that there were four comets in those images when we only proposed to look at one. So we knew this was something really, really special.
This is an experiment the researchers always wanted to do with Hubble. They had proposed many Hubble observations to catch a comet breaking up. Unfortunately, these are very difficult to schedule, and they were never successful. Principal investigator Dennis Bodewits, also a professor in Auburn University’s Department of Physics, said:
The irony is now we’re just studying a regular comet and it crumbles in front of our eyes.
Comets are leftovers of the era of solar system formation, so they’re made of ‘old stuff’: the primordial materials that made our solar system. But they are not pristine. They’ve been heated; they’ve been irradiated by the sun and by cosmic rays. So, when looking at a comet’s composition, the question we always have is, ‘Is this a primitive property or is this due to evolution?’ By cracking open a comet, you can see the ancient material that has not been processed.
This diagram shows the path Comet C/2025 K1 (ATLAS), or K1, took as it swung past the sun and began its journey out of the solar system. NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope captured the inset image of the fragmenting comet just a month after K1’s closest approach to the sun. Illustration via NASA/ ESA/ Ralf Crawford (STScI).
A closer look at a solar system breakup
Hubble caught K1 fragmenting into at least four pieces. Each had a distinct coma, which is the fuzzy envelope of gas and dust that surrounds a comet’s icy nucleus. Hubble cleanly resolved the fragments. But to ground-based telescopes at the time, they only appeared as barely distinguishable, bright blobs.
Hubble took its images just a month after K1’s closest approach to the sun, called perihelion. The comet’s perihelion was inside Mercury’s orbit, about one-third the distance of the Earth from the sun. During perihelion, a comet experiences its most intense heating and maximum stress. Just past perihelion is when some long-period comets like K1 tend to fall apart.
Before it fragmented, K1 was likely a bit larger than an average comet, probably around 5 miles (8 km) across. The team estimates the comet began to disintegrate eight days before Hubble viewed it. Hubble took three 20-second images, one on each day from November 8 through 10, 2025. As it watched the comet, one of K1’s smaller pieces also broke up.
Because Hubble’s sharp vision can distinguish extremely fine details, the team could trace the history of the fragments back to when they were one piece. That allowed them to reconstruct the timeline. But in doing so, they uncovered a mystery: Why was there a delay between when the comet broke up and when bright outbursts were seen from the ground? When the comet fragmented and exposed fresh ice, why didn’t it brighten almost instantaneously?
Exploring the mysteries of comet K1 ATLAS
The team has some theories. Most of a comet’s brightness is sunlight reflected off of dust grains. But when a comet cracks open, it reveals pure ice. Maybe a layer of dry dust needs to form over the pure ice and then blow off. Or maybe heat needs to get below the surface, build up pressure, and then eject an expanding shell of dust. Noonan said:
Never before has Hubble caught a fragmenting comet this close to when it actually fell apart. Most of the time, it’s a few weeks to a month later. And in this case, we were able to see it just days after. This is telling us something very important about the physics of what’s happening at the comet’s surface. We may be seeing the timescale it takes to form a substantial dust layer that can then be ejected by the gas.
The research team is looking forward to finishing the analysis of the gases to come from the comet. Already, ground-based analysis shows that K1 is chemically very strange. It is significantly depleted in carbon compared with other comets. Spectroscopic analysis from Hubble’s STIS (Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph) and COS (Cosmic Origins Spectrograph) instruments is likely to reveal much more about the composition of K1 and the very origins of our solar system.
The comet K1 is now a collection of fragments about 250 million miles from Earth. Located in the constellation Pisces, it is heading out of the solar system, not likely to ever return.
Bottom line: Hubble captures a rare moment as a comet breaks apart after passing close to our sun. The images revealing ancient material from the early solar system.
A comet breaks apart in this series of images from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. The comet was C/2025 K1 (ATLAS) (not to be confused with the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS). These images document 3 consecutive days: November 8, 9 and 10, 2025. It’s the first time Hubble witnessed a comet so early in the process of breaking up. Image via NASA/ ESA/ Dennis Bodewits (AU). Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI).
Hubble has captured a rare view of a comet breaking apart. It captured these images about a month after the comet made its closest pass by the sun.
The discovery was a happy accident. The scientist’s original target was a different comet. But this is the first time Hubble has caught a fragmenting comet so close to when it actually fell apart.
The breakup offers scientists a glimpse of pristine material, helping them study the early solar system’s building blocks.
In a happy twist of fate, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope just witnessed a comet in the act of breaking apart. The chance of that happening while Hubble watched is extraordinarily minuscule. The comet K1, whose full name is C/2025 K1 (ATLAS) – not to be confused with interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS – was not the original target of the Hubble study.
Co-investigator John Noonan, a research professor in the Department of Physics at Auburn University in Alabama, said:
Sometimes the best science happens by accident. This comet got observed because our original comet was not viewable due to some new technical constraints after we won our proposal. We had to find a new target … and right when we observed it, it happened to break apart, which is the slimmest of slim chances.
Noonan didn’t know K1 was fragmenting until he viewed the images the day after Hubble took them. Noonan said:
While I was taking an initial look at the data, I saw that there were four comets in those images when we only proposed to look at one. So we knew this was something really, really special.
This is an experiment the researchers always wanted to do with Hubble. They had proposed many Hubble observations to catch a comet breaking up. Unfortunately, these are very difficult to schedule, and they were never successful. Principal investigator Dennis Bodewits, also a professor in Auburn University’s Department of Physics, said:
The irony is now we’re just studying a regular comet and it crumbles in front of our eyes.
Comets are leftovers of the era of solar system formation, so they’re made of ‘old stuff’: the primordial materials that made our solar system. But they are not pristine. They’ve been heated; they’ve been irradiated by the sun and by cosmic rays. So, when looking at a comet’s composition, the question we always have is, ‘Is this a primitive property or is this due to evolution?’ By cracking open a comet, you can see the ancient material that has not been processed.
This diagram shows the path Comet C/2025 K1 (ATLAS), or K1, took as it swung past the sun and began its journey out of the solar system. NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope captured the inset image of the fragmenting comet just a month after K1’s closest approach to the sun. Illustration via NASA/ ESA/ Ralf Crawford (STScI).
A closer look at a solar system breakup
Hubble caught K1 fragmenting into at least four pieces. Each had a distinct coma, which is the fuzzy envelope of gas and dust that surrounds a comet’s icy nucleus. Hubble cleanly resolved the fragments. But to ground-based telescopes at the time, they only appeared as barely distinguishable, bright blobs.
Hubble took its images just a month after K1’s closest approach to the sun, called perihelion. The comet’s perihelion was inside Mercury’s orbit, about one-third the distance of the Earth from the sun. During perihelion, a comet experiences its most intense heating and maximum stress. Just past perihelion is when some long-period comets like K1 tend to fall apart.
Before it fragmented, K1 was likely a bit larger than an average comet, probably around 5 miles (8 km) across. The team estimates the comet began to disintegrate eight days before Hubble viewed it. Hubble took three 20-second images, one on each day from November 8 through 10, 2025. As it watched the comet, one of K1’s smaller pieces also broke up.
Because Hubble’s sharp vision can distinguish extremely fine details, the team could trace the history of the fragments back to when they were one piece. That allowed them to reconstruct the timeline. But in doing so, they uncovered a mystery: Why was there a delay between when the comet broke up and when bright outbursts were seen from the ground? When the comet fragmented and exposed fresh ice, why didn’t it brighten almost instantaneously?
Exploring the mysteries of comet K1 ATLAS
The team has some theories. Most of a comet’s brightness is sunlight reflected off of dust grains. But when a comet cracks open, it reveals pure ice. Maybe a layer of dry dust needs to form over the pure ice and then blow off. Or maybe heat needs to get below the surface, build up pressure, and then eject an expanding shell of dust. Noonan said:
Never before has Hubble caught a fragmenting comet this close to when it actually fell apart. Most of the time, it’s a few weeks to a month later. And in this case, we were able to see it just days after. This is telling us something very important about the physics of what’s happening at the comet’s surface. We may be seeing the timescale it takes to form a substantial dust layer that can then be ejected by the gas.
The research team is looking forward to finishing the analysis of the gases to come from the comet. Already, ground-based analysis shows that K1 is chemically very strange. It is significantly depleted in carbon compared with other comets. Spectroscopic analysis from Hubble’s STIS (Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph) and COS (Cosmic Origins Spectrograph) instruments is likely to reveal much more about the composition of K1 and the very origins of our solar system.
The comet K1 is now a collection of fragments about 250 million miles from Earth. Located in the constellation Pisces, it is heading out of the solar system, not likely to ever return.
Bottom line: Hubble captures a rare moment as a comet breaks apart after passing close to our sun. The images revealing ancient material from the early solar system.
