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By NASA
ESA/Hubble & NASA, L. C. Ho, D. Thilker Today’s rather aquatic-themed NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features the spiral galaxy Messier 77, also known as the Squid Galaxy, which sits 45 million light-years away in the constellation Cetus (The Whale).
The designation Messier 77 comes from the galaxy’s place in the famous catalog compiled by the French astronomer Charles Messier. Another French astronomer, Pierre Méchain, discovered the galaxy in 1780. Both Messier and Méchain were comet hunters who cataloged nebulous objects that could be mistaken for comets.
Messier, Méchain, and other astronomers of their time mistook the Squid Galaxy for either a spiral nebula or a star cluster. This mischaracterization isn’t surprising. More than a century would pass between the discovery of the Squid Galaxy and the realization that the ‘spiral nebulae’ scattered across the sky were not part of our galaxy but were in fact separate galaxies millions of light-years away. The Squid Galaxy’s appearance through a small telescope — an intensely bright center surrounded by a fuzzy cloud — closely resembles one or more stars wreathed in a nebula.
The name ‘Squid Galaxy’ is recent, and stems from the extended, filamentary structure that curls around the galaxy’s disk like the tentacles of a squid. The Squid Galaxy is a great example of how advances in technology and scientific understanding can completely change our perception of an astronomical object — and even what we call it!
Hubble previously released an image of M77 in 2013. This new image incorporates recent observations made with different filters and updated image processing techniques which allow astronomers to see the galaxy in more detail.
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By NASA
6 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
JunoCam, the visible light imager aboard NASA’s Juno, captured this enhanced-color view of Ju-piter’s northern high latitudes from an altitude of about 36,000 miles (58,000 kilometers) above the giant planet’s cloud tops during the spacecraft’s 69th flyby on Jan. 28, 2025. Image data: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS Image processing: Jackie Branc (CC BY) New data from the agency’s Jovian orbiter sheds light on the fierce winds and cyclones of the gas giant’s northern reaches and volcanic action on its fiery moon.
NASA’s Juno mission has gathered new findings after peering below Jupiter’s cloud-covered atmosphere and the surface of its fiery moon, Io. Not only has the data helped develop a new model to better understand the fast-moving jet stream that encircles Jupiter’s cyclone-festooned north pole, it’s also revealed for the first time the subsurface temperature profile of Io, providing insights into the moon’s inner structure and volcanic activity.
Team members presented the findings during a news briefing in Vienna on Tuesday, April 29, at the European Geosciences Union General Assembly.
“Everything about Jupiter is extreme. The planet is home to gigantic polar cyclones bigger than Australia, fierce jet streams, the most volcanic body in our solar system, the most powerful aurora, and the harshest radiation belts,” said Scott Bolton, principal investigator of Juno at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. “As Juno’s orbit takes us to new regions of Jupiter’s complex system, we’re getting a closer look at the immensity of energy this gas giant wields.”
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Made with data from the JIRAM instrument aboard NASA’s Juno, this animation shows the south polar region of Jupiter’s moon Io during a Dec. 27, 2024, flyby. The bright spots are locations with higher temperatures caused by volcanic activity; the gray areas resulted when Io left the field of view.NASA/JPL/SwRI/ASI – JIRAM Team (A.M.) Lunar Radiator
While Juno’s microwave radiometer (MWR) was designed to peer beneath Jupiter’s cloud tops, the team has also trained the instrument on Io, combining its data with Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) data for deeper insights.
“The Juno science team loves to combine very different datasets from very different instruments and see what we can learn,” said Shannon Brown, a Juno scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “When we incorporated the MWR data with JIRAM’s infrared imagery, we were surprised by what we saw: evidence of still-warm magma that hasn’t yet solidified below Io’s cooled crust. At every latitude and longitude, there were cooling lava flows.”
The data suggests that about 10% of the moon’s surface has these remnants of slowly cooling lava just below the surface. The result may help provide insight into how the moon renews its surface so quickly as well as how as well as how heat moves from its deep interior to the surface.
“Io’s volcanos, lava fields, and subterranean lava flows act like a car radiator,” said Brown, “efficiently moving heat from the interior to the surface, cooling itself down in the vacuum of space.”
Looking at JIRAM data alone, the team also determined that the most energetic eruption in Io’s history (first identified by the infrared imager during Juno’s Dec. 27, 2024, Io flyby) was still spewing lava and ash as recently as March 2. Juno mission scientists believe it remains active today and expect more observations on May 6, when the solar-powered spacecraft flies by the fiery moon at a distance of about 55,300 miles (89,000 kilometers).
This composite image, derived from data collected in 2017 by the JIRAM instrument aboard NASA’s Juno, shows the central cyclone at Jupiter’s north pole and the eight cy-clones that encircle it. Data from the mission indicates these storms are enduring fea-tures.NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/ASI/INAF/JIRAM Colder Climes
On its 53rd orbit (Feb 18, 2023), Juno began radio occultation experiments to explore the gas giant’s atmospheric temperature structure. With this technique, a radio signal is transmitted from Earth to Juno and back, passing through Jupiter’s atmosphere on both legs of the journey. As the planet’s atmospheric layers bend the radio waves, scientists can precisely measure the effects of this refraction to derive detailed information about the temperature and density of the atmosphere.
So far, Juno has completed 26 radio occultation soundings. Among the most compelling discoveries: the first-ever temperature measurement of Jupiter’s north polar stratospheric cap reveals the region is about 11 degrees Celsius cooler than its surroundings and is encircled by winds exceeding 100 mph (161 kph).
Polar Cyclones
The team’s recent findings also focus on the cyclones that haunt Jupiter’s north. Years of data from the JunoCam visible light imager and JIRAM have allowed Juno scientists to observe the long-term movement of Jupiter’s massive northern polar cyclone and the eight cyclones that encircle it. Unlike hurricanes on Earth, which typically occur in isolation and at lower latitudes, Jupiter’s are confined to the polar region.
By tracking the cyclones’ movements across multiple orbits, the scientists observed that each storm gradually drifts toward the pole due to a process called “beta drift” (the interaction between the Coriolis force and the cyclone’s circular wind pattern). This is similar to how hurricanes on our planet migrate, but Earthly cyclones break up before reaching the pole due to the lack of warm, moist air needed to fuel them, as well as the weakening of the Coriolis force near the poles. What’s more, Jupiter’s cyclones cluster together while approaching the pole, and their motion slows as they begin interacting with neighboring cyclones.
“These competing forces result in the cyclones ‘bouncing’ off one another in a manner reminiscent of springs in a mechanical system,” said Yohai Kaspi, a Juno co-investigator from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. “This interaction not only stabilizes the entire configuration, but also causes the cyclones to oscillate around their central positions, as they slowly drift westward, clockwise, around the pole.”
The new atmospheric model helps explain the motion of cyclones not only on Jupiter, but potentially on other planets, including Earth.
“One of the great things about Juno is its orbit is ever-changing, which means we get a new vantage point each time as we perform a science flyby,” said Bolton. “In the extended mission, that means we’re continuing to go where no spacecraft has gone before, including spending more time in the strongest planetary radiation belts in the solar system. It’s a little scary, but we’ve built Juno like a tank and are learning more about this intense environment each time we go through it.”
More About Juno
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the Juno mission for the principal investigator, Scott Bolton, of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. Juno is part of NASA’s New Frontiers Program, which is managed at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Italian Space Agency funded the Jovian InfraRed Auroral Mapper. Lockheed Martin Space in Denver built and operates the spacecraft. Various other institutions around the U.S. provided several of the other scientific instruments on Juno.
More information about Juno is at: https://www.nasa.gov/juno
News Media Contacts
DC Agle
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-393-9011
agle@jpl.nasa.gov
Karen Fox / Molly Wasser
NASA Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / molly.l.wasser@nasa.gov
Deb Schmid
Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio
210-522-2254
dschmid@swri.org
2025-062
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Last Updated Apr 29, 2025 Related Terms
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By NASA
3 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
NASA’s Curiosity rover appears as a dark speck in this contrast-enhanced view captured on Feb. 28, 2025, by the HiRISE camera aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Trailing Curiosity are the rover’s tracks, which can linger on the Martian surface for months before being erased by the wind. NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona The image marks what may be the first time one of the agency’s Mars orbiters has captured the rover driving.
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has never been camera shy, having been seen in selfies and images taken from space. But on Feb. 28 — the 4,466th Martian day, or sol, of the mission — Curiosity was captured in what is believed to be the first orbital image of the rover mid-drive across the Red Planet.
Taken by the HiRISE (High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment) camera aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the image shows Curiosity as a dark speck at the front of a long trail of rover tracks. Likely to last for months before being erased by wind, the tracks span about 1,050 feet (320 meters). They represent roughly 11 drives starting on Feb. 2 as Curiosity trucked along at a top speed of 0.1 mph (0.16 kph) from Gediz Vallis channel on the journey to its next science stop: a region with potential boxwork formations, possibly made by groundwater billions of years ago.
How quickly the rover reaches the area depends on a number of factors, including how its software navigates the surface and how challenging the terrain is to climb. Engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which leads Curiosity’s mission, work with scientists to plan each day’s trek.
“By comparing the time HiRISE took the image to the rover’s commands for the day, we can see it was nearly done with a 69-foot drive,” said Doug Ellison, Curiosity’s planning team chief at JPL.
Designed to ensure the best spatial resolution, HiRISE takes an image with the majority of the scene in black and white and a strip of color down the middle. While the camera has captured Curiosity in color before, this time the rover happened to fall within the black-and-white part of the image.
In the new image, Curiosity’s tracks lead to the base of a steep slope. The rover has since ascended that slope since then, and it is expected to reach its new science location within a month or so.
More About Curiosity and MRO
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover was built at JPL, which is managed for the agency by Caltech in Pasadena, California. JPL manages both the Curiosity and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter missions on behalf of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington as part of the agency’s Mars Exploration Program portfolio. The University of Arizona, in Tucson, operates HiRISE, which was built by BAE Systems in Boulder, Colorado.
For more about the missions, visit:
science.nasa.gov/mission/msl-curiosity
science.nasa.gov/mission/mars-reconnaissance-orbiter
News Media Contacts
Andrew Good
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-393-2433
andrew.c.good@jpl.nasa.gov
Karen Fox / Molly Wasser
NASA Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / molly.l.wasser@nasa.gov
2025-059
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Last Updated Apr 24, 2025 Related Terms
Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Curiosity (Rover) Mars Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) Explore More
5 min read Eye on Infinity: NASA Celebrates Hubble’s 35th Year in Orbit
In celebration of the Hubble Space Telescope’s 35 years in Earth orbit, NASA is releasing…
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By NASA
Explore Hubble Hubble Home Overview About Hubble The History of Hubble Hubble Timeline Why Have a Telescope in Space? Hubble by the Numbers At the Museum FAQs Impact & Benefits Hubble’s Impact & Benefits Science Impacts Cultural Impact Technology Benefits Impact on Human Spaceflight Astro Community Impacts Science Hubble Science Science Themes Science Highlights Science Behind Discoveries Hubble’s Partners in Science Universe Uncovered Explore the Night Sky Observatory Hubble Observatory Hubble Design Mission Operations Missions to Hubble Hubble vs Webb Team Hubble Team Career Aspirations Hubble Astronauts News Hubble News Social Media Media Resources Multimedia Multimedia Images Videos Sonifications Podcasts e-Books Online Activities Lithographs Fact Sheets Posters Hubble on the NASA App Glossary More 35th Anniversary Online Activities 2 min read
Hubble Spots a Squid in the Whale
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features the spiral galaxy Messier 77, also known as the Squid Galaxy. ESA/Hubble & NASA, L. C. Ho, D. Thilker Today’s rather aquatic-themed NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features the spiral galaxy Messier 77, also known as the Squid Galaxy, which sits 45 million light-years away in the constellation Cetus (The Whale).
The designation Messier 77 comes from the galaxy’s place in the famous catalog compiled by the French astronomer Charles Messier. Another French astronomer, Pierre Méchain, discovered the galaxy in 1780. Both Messier and Méchain were comet hunters who cataloged nebulous objects that could be mistaken for comets.
Messier, Méchain, and other astronomers of their time mistook the Squid Galaxy for either a spiral nebula or a star cluster. This mischaracterization isn’t surprising. More than a century would pass between the discovery of the Squid Galaxy and the realization that the ‘spiral nebulae’ scattered across the sky were not part of our galaxy but were in fact separate galaxies millions of light-years away. The Squid Galaxy’s appearance through a small telescope — an intensely bright center surrounded by a fuzzy cloud — closely resembles one or more stars wreathed in a nebula.
The name ‘Squid Galaxy’ is recent, and stems from the extended, filamentary structure that curls around the galaxy’s disk like the tentacles of a squid. The Squid Galaxy is a great example of how advances in technology and scientific understanding can completely change our perception of an astronomical object — and even what we call it!
Hubble previously released an image of M77 in 2013. This new image incorporates recent observations made with different filters and updated image processing techniques which allow astronomers to see the galaxy in more detail.
Facebook logo @NASAHubble @NASAHubble Instagram logo @NASAHubble Media Contact:
Claire Andreoli (claire.andreoli@nasa.gov)
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
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Last Updated Apr 17, 2025 Editor Andrea Gianopoulos Location NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Related Terms
Hubble Space Telescope Astrophysics Astrophysics Pioneers Galaxies Goddard Space Flight Center Spiral Galaxies The Universe Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA
Hubble Space Telescope
Since its 1990 launch, the Hubble Space Telescope has changed our fundamental understanding of the universe.
Hubble’s Galaxies
Reshaping Our Cosmic View: Hubble Science Highlights
Science Behind the Discoveries
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