Ancient Skies

Exploring the mysteries of space ✨

[Ancient Skies @AncientSkiess]

@elonmusk Golden hour lighting through the exhaust plume made the climb-out look unreal. Hard to beat 5+ million pounds of thrust lighting up the Cape's sky like that.

[Ancient Skies @AncientSkiess]

Every single atom in your right hand probably came from a different star, forged in stellar interiors and scattered across the galaxy long before Earth formed. 🌌

[Ancient Skies @AncientSkiess]

@astrooalert Astronomers usually call this the Rho Ophiuchi complex. At roughly 460 light-years away, it’s actually one of the closest star-forming regions to our solar system.

[Ancient Skies @AncientSkiess]

@BillyM2k What melts my mind is that the fingertip on the leftmost pillar alone is larger than our entire solar system.

[Ancient Skies @AncientSkiess]

@NASA @Astro_Jessica @Soph_astro @Space_Station Sometimes people forget that routine station maintenance outside the hull is essentially high-stakes orbital plumbing in 300-pound pressurized suits. Excited to watch tomorrow morning.

[Ancient Skies @AncientSkiess]

@NASARoman @NASASolarSystem I always love when NASA does something like this to make other people feel included. ❤️❤️

[Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope @NASARoman]

Be part of the bigger picture! 🌌

With more than a million individual pixels per pointing of Roman’s Wide Field Imager, there’s a spot for everyone in Roman’s first images, set to be released in the next few months.

Grab your certificate and pixel number now: https://t.co/JAHI6BFnJc

[Ancient Skies @AncientSkiess]

@earthcurated Earth is so beautiful

[Ancient Skies @AncientSkiess]

Pluto hasn't even completed a single "Pluto year" since it was discovered in 1930. It takes 248 Earth years to make just one trip around the Sun. ⏳

[Ancient Skies @AncientSkiess]

Starlight takes thousands of years to reach us, meaning most stars we see at night might already be dead. We are looking at cosmic ghosts frozen in time. ✨

[Ancient Skies @AncientSkiess]

If you placed Saturn in a giant cosmic ocean, it would float. With a density lower than water, this gas giant is the only planet in our solar system that could take a bath. 🌊

[Ancient Skies @AncientSkiess]

A year on Venus is shorter than its day. It takes 225 Earth days to orbit the Sun, but 243 days just to complete one single rotation on its axis. 🪐

[Ancient Skies @AncientSkiess]

Everyone thinks galaxies need stars to exist, but they don't. Cloud 9 proves that "failed" galaxies made entirely of dark matter and unlit gas aren't rare anomalies, they're a normal, predictable blueprint of our universe.

[Ancient Skies @AncientSkiess]

By analyzing 72 young stars, JWST revealed that planet formation is a relentless race against time because stellar winds and radiation constantly blow away the gas and dust required to build worlds.

[Ancient Skies @AncientSkiess]

Planets this close to their stars are supposed to be dead rocks stripped bare by solar radiation.

Yet, HD 176071 b defies the "Neptunian Desert" rule and maintains a shifting, living atmosphere with moving clouds. 🌌🔥

[Ancient Skies @AncientSkiess]

@WhiteHouse @NASA Woo! 🙌

[Ancient Skies @AncientSkiess]

@NASA @NASAJohnson Congrats Artemis II crew ❤️🚀

[Ancient Skies @AncientSkiess]

Space is full of light, but scientists just found a massive cosmic ghost: a galaxy with a million suns worth of gas that is completely, totally invisible. Meet "Cloud 9," humanity's best candidate yet for a true "starless" galaxy.

[Ancient Skies @AncientSkiess]

NASA's iconic Swift space telescope is officially out of time, and a private rescue mission has failed, meaning this massive observatory is now on an uncontrolled collision course back to Earth.

[Ancient Skies @AncientSkiess]

Only 30 people in history have ever received the U.S. Congressional Space Medal of Honor, until today. Legends like Neil Armstrong have it, and now the four Artemis II astronauts who journeyed around the moon bear the nation's highest space distinction.