CIRCLE WITH A DOT

#PPOD: The Expedition 74 crew on the International Space Station turned into meteor chasers as Earth passed through a cloud of dust and small debris left behind by comet Thatcher in 1861. ESA astronaut Sophie Adenot set up a camera to automatically capture thousands of images in hopes of catching a shooting star from the Lyrid meteor shower, an elusive event that often lasts only a fraction of a second. Credit: NASA/ESA – S. Adenot #space #space

#PPOD: After NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover drilled a sample from this rock on April 25, 2026, it withdrew its robotic arm and pulled the entire rock off the surface with it. Engineers spent several days repositioning the arm and vibrating the drill to try to loosen the rock. When it finally detached on May 1, the rock broke into pieces. This close-up image of the rock was produced by Curiosity’s Mast Camera, or Mastcam, on May 6. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS #planetaryscience #space #science

#PPOD: This image features two distinct families: a collection of ALMA antennas and a trio of vicuñas, a camelid related to llamas and alpacas. Unlike in almost every other way, the subjects of this image are linked by their extremely hostile home environment, high in the Chilean Andes. The Chajnantor plateau, site of the Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array (ALMA) shown here, is 5000 meters above sea level, making it one of the driest places on Earth. Credit: S. Otarola/ESO #science

#PPOD: The Moeraki Boulders look almost too perfect to be natural — but these giant stone spheres along New Zealand’s Koekohe Beach were formed over millions of years. Scientists believe the boulders began as sediment on the ancient seafloor around 60 million years ago, gradually growing into massive calcite concretions before coastal erosion revealed them along the shoreline. Some are nearly 7 feet across and split open, revealing striking, crystal-filled cracks. Credit: Karsten Sperling #earth