Day 25 of the 2025 Space Telescope Advent Calendar: Dusty Pillars. This is the James Webb Space Telescope’s mid-infrared view of the Pillars of Creation, trunks of interstellar gas and dust in the Eagle Nebula about 7,000 light-years away. Merry Christmas, everyone! Gift link: theatln.tc/pS0boJ4g

Day 24 of the 2025 Space Telescope Advent Calendar: A Gravitational Lens. Galaxies in this JWST image appear to be stretched into arcs, their images distorted by gravitational lensing in galaxy cluster Abell S1063, which bends the passing light of distant galaxies. Gift link: theatln.tc/pS0boJ4g

Day 23 of the 2025 Space Telescope Advent Calendar: Distance and Perspective. This Hubble image shows galaxies that seem to be close—but are very far apart. The larger galaxy at bottom right, NGC 1356, is 300 million light-years closer to us than LEDA 95415, at left. Gift link: theatln.tc/pS0boJ4g

Day 22 of the 2025 Space Telescope Advent Calendar: The Heart of a Tarantula. This JWST image features the Tarantula Nebula's star-forming region about 161,000 light-years away. A cavity has been hollowed out by radiation blasting from a cluster of massive young stars. Gift link: theatln.tc/pS0boJ4g

I was fortunate enough to be able to catch a wonderful light show last night at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, MA. Called "SOLSTICE: Reflections on Winter Light," it was a thoughtful (and chilly) stroll through an otherworldly place filled with light and sound.

Happy Winter Solstice! Beer can, pinhole camera photos of the Summer to Winter Solstice (2024) and the Winter to Summer Solstice (2025). You never know quite what you're going to get with these photos, set the beer can pointing towards the sun at hopefully the correct angle and wait 6 months!

Day 21 of the 2025 Space Telescope Advent Calendar: Warped Space. This Hubble view shows galaxy cluster Abell 209, about 2.8 billion light-years away. The mass of the galaxies warps and magnifies images of background galaxies in a process called gravitational lensing. Gift link: theatln.tc/pS0boJ4g

Day 20 of the 2025 Space Telescope Advent Calendar: The Cosmic Cliffs. The JWST peered inside a region at the edge of a gigantic, gaseous cavity in the star cluster NGC 3324. The cluster, about 9,100 light-years away, is thought to be only about 12 million years old. Gift link: theatln.tc/pS0boJ4g

Day 19 of the 2025 Space Telescope Advent Calendar: The Sombrero Galaxy. First discovered in 1781 by the French astronomer Pierre Méchain, the Sombrero Galaxy lies about 30 million light-years away, and is well known for its distinctive ring of dust, seen here edge-on. Gift link: theatln.tc/pS0boJ4g

Photos of the Week: London Fog, Scooter Blankets, Giant Snowman - 28 images from the past seven days, including flooding in Washington State, flamingos in Venice, winter cherry blossoms in China, New Year’s preparations in New York City, and much more. Gift link: www.theatlantic.com/photography/...

Day 18 of the 2025 Space Telescope Advent Calendar: A Spider Among the Stars. About 5,000 light-years away, the Red Spider Nebula is the result of the spectacular final act of a dying star—casting off its outer layers, and blasting them with radiation. Gift link: theatln.tc/pS0boJ4g

A Visit from Krampus - Yuletide parades across Europe for the demonlike creature who playfully frightens onlookers, looking for naughty children to punish—or to drag back to his lair in a sack. Gift link: theatln.tc/KGhcksdh

Day 17 of the 2025 Space Telescope Advent Calendar: Distant Starbursts. Last year, the JWST observed I Zwicky 18, a dwarf irregular galaxy 59 million light-years away. At its heart are star-forming regions surrounded by gas clouds that are sculpted by stellar winds. Gift link: theatln.tc/pS0boJ4g

Day 16 of the 2025 Space Telescope Advent Calendar: The Bullseye. About 50 million years ago, scientists believe LEDA 1313424, (the Bullseye Galaxy), was pierced by the smaller blue galaxy seen just below it, creating enormous rings in its wake like ripples in a pond. Gift link: theatln.tc/pS0boJ4g

Day 15 of the 2025 Space Telescope Advent Calendar: A Turbulent Lagoon. Back in 2018, to celebrate its 28th anniversary, scientists pointed the Hubble Space Telescope at the Lagoon Nebula, a roiling cloud of gas and dust about 4,000 light-years away. Gift link: theatln.tc/pS0boJ4g

Day 14 of the 2025 Space Telescope Advent Calendar: Ripples of a Galactic Merger. The Hubble Space Telescope recently gathered this image of lenticular galaxy NGC 4753, about 60 million light-years away, believed to be the result of an earlier merging of two galaxies. Gift link: theatln.tc/pS0boJ4g

Day 13 of the 2025 Space Telescope Advent Calendar: A Sea of Galaxies. The James Web Space Telescope pointed its Near-Infrared Camera toward the galaxy cluster MACS J1149.5+2223, capturing an image of hundreds of galaxies at varying distances, sizes, shapes, & colors. Gift link: theatln.tc/pS0boJ4g

Day 12 of the 2025 Space Telescope Advent Calendar: A Barred Spiral. This galaxy, NGC 5335, is categorized as a flocculent spiral galaxy, displaying a striking bar-like structure across its center, backdropped by dozens of other more-distant galaxies. Gift link: theatln.tc/pS0boJ4g

Hopeful Images of 2025 - Every year, after rounding up often-difficult “news photos of the year,” I've put together an essay of uplifting images from the past 12 months—to seek out & recognize some of the abundant joy and kindness present in the world around us. Gift link: theatln.tc/mFS3XIb9

Day 11 of the 2025 Space Telescope Advent Calendar: Looking for Signs of a Black Hole. Spiral galaxy M83 lies 15 million light-years away from Earth. Recent images from JWST found highly ionized neon gas—suggesting the presence of a supermassive black hole at its heart. Gift link theatln.tc/pS0boJ4g

Day 10 of the 2025 Space Telescope Advent Calendar: A Cosmic Tornado. The JWST captured this image of Herbig-Haro 49/50, about 630 light-years from Earth. The object visible at the "tip" of the tornado is a more-distant spiral galaxy unrelated to the closer object. Gift link: theatln.tc/pS0boJ4g

2025 in Photos: Wrapping Up the Year - Looking back at some of the most memorable events toward the end of 2025, including Gen Z protests in Nepal, Hurricane Melissa in the Caribbean, and much more. Gift link: theatln.tc/I7NA1VMG

Day 9 of the 2025 Space Telescope Advent Calendar: A Cosmic Cat's Paw. Emission nebula NGC 6334, otherwise known as the Cat's Paw Nebula, lies about 4,000 light-years away. The JWST recently took a close look at one of its 'toe beans,' a bright star-forming region. Gift link: theatln.tc/pS0boJ4g

Posting this again because a lot of people said they found it helpful! Guide to ALT text: www.perkins.org/resource/how...

2025 in Photos: A Look at the Middle Months - Looking back at some of the most memorable events of mid-2025, including war in Gaza and Ukraine, a wildfire in the Grand Canyon, and much more. Gift link: theatln.tc/9vVbtigV

Day 8 of the 2025 Space Telescope Advent Calendar: Sculpted by Stellar Winds. NGC 346 is a young star cluster about 200,000 light-years away, carving out a space inside the surrounding nebula of gas and dust. Gift link: www.theatlantic.com/photography/...

What skill did you master that you will never, ever use again? In the 90s, my college had a planetarium, and I took a course & learned how to operate the device, compose a lesson, and I put together shows about parallax and constellations changing over time. (Set to instrumental songs by the Cure)

2025 in Photos: How the First Months Unfolded - A look at some of the most memorable events of early 2025, including California's Palisades Fire, the inauguration of President Trump, and much more. Gift link: www.theatlantic.com/photography/...

Day 7 of the 2025 Space Telescope Advent Calendar: A Warped View Through an Einstein Ring. You are seeing two galaxies here, one in front of the other. The more distant galaxy seems warped due to gravitational lensing occurring around the closer galaxy. Gift link: www.theatlantic.com/photography/...

Day 6 of the 2025 Space Telescope Advent Calendar: The Shell of a Dying Star. About 1,500 light-years from Earth, a dying star at the heart of planetary nebula NGC 1514 is performing a spectacular final act, shedding huge amounts of gas and dust. . Gift link: www.theatlantic.com/photography/...

Day 5 of the 2025 Space Telescope Advent Calendar: Colorful Stars of All Ages. Some 100 million light-years away, spiral galaxy NGC 6000 is home to countless stars, from cooler, older stars at center to the hotter, younger, and bluer stars at the edges. Gift link: www.theatlantic.com/photography/...

Top 25 News Photos of 2025 - Powerful images from the past 12 months. Gift link: www.theatlantic.com/photography/...

Day 4 of the 2025 Space Telescope Advent Calendar: Hot Stars in the Lobster Nebula. NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope recently imaged this region where the radiation & winds from a group of super-hot infant stars are blasting clouds of surrounding dust. Gift link: www.theatlantic.com/photography/...

Day 3 of the 2025 Space Telescope Advent Calendar: A Galactic Cluster. More than 100 galaxies can be seen in Galaxy Cluster Abell 209, about 2.8 billion light-years away. Though they look close, these galaxies are separated by millions of light-years. Gift link: www.theatlantic.com/photography/...

Winners of the 2025 International Landscape Photographer of the Year - A collection of winners and selected images from the competition’s “Top 101” group, chosen from more than 3,600 entries by professional and amateur photographers around the world. Gift link: www.theatlantic.com/photography/...

Day 2 of the 2025 Space Telescope Advent Calendar: a Stellar Nursery. Reflection nebula GN 04.32.8 is part of the stellar nursery called the Taurus Molecular Cloud, roughly 480 light-years from Earth. Gift link: www.theatlantic.com/photography/...

Day 1 of the 2025 Space Telescope Advent Calendar: A Cosmic Butterfly. In August, the James Webb Space Telescope provided this new view of IRAS 04302+2247, a planet-forming disk about 525 light-years away. Gift link: www.theatlantic.com/photography/...

With a translation: This image shows the same star field as Comet C/2025 A6 (Lemmon) without cleaning. In just 15 minutes of acquisition, we counted 1,659 satellite trails (about 400 individual ones). Words cannot describe the pollution of near space.

Thanksgiving 2025

A Photo Appreciation of America’s National Wildlife Refuges - Since 1903, the United States has established more than 580 National Wildlife Refuges, designating a diverse array of lands and waters as protected areas for plants and wildlife. Gift link: www.theatlantic.com/photography/...

Photos of the Week: Christmas Market, Mountain Frost, Penguin Outing - The 2025 Miss Universe competition in Thailand, lingering damage from Hurricane Melissa in Cuba, a volcanic eruption in Indonesia, ice sculptures in Edinburgh, and much more. Gift link: www.theatlantic.com/photography/...

Photos: When the Polar Bears Move In - The photographer Vadim Makhorov, while recently cruising on the Chukchi Sea, noticed a group of polar bears that were taking shelter inside an abandoned research station on Russia’s remote Kolyuchin Island. Gift link: www.theatlantic.com/photography/...

Photos: India’s Polluted Skies - Millions across northern India have spent recent weeks under a toxic blanket of smog. The air is choked with particulates from the seasonal burning of stubble on nearby farms, along with industrial & vehicular emissions. Gift link: www.theatlantic.com/photography/...

This is an insanely cool (actual) photo taken by photographer Andrew McCarthy of a skydiver buddy seen in silhouette against the distant sun. Full story, videos, and more here: www.instagram.com/p/DRBAaqLkvy...

Photos of the Week: Dachshund Day, Flying Fish, Wānaka Tree - Holiday light shows across Europe, smog-filled skies in India, fall colors in Turkey, an appearance by Father Christmas in Germany, and much more. Gift link: www.theatlantic.com/photography/...

Photos: The Northern Lights Put on a Show - A powerful geomagnetic storm brought spectacular light displays to the night skies across the Northern Hemisphere, with sightings as far south as Florida and Oklahoma. Gift link: www.theatlantic.com/photography/...

I only wish it were coming out sooner - would make a gratifying Christmas gift!

Photos of the Week: Dinosaur Sweater, Miniature Park, Hippo Calf - 28 images from the past seven days, including the aftermath of a typhoon in the Philippines, Day of the Dead celebrations in Mexico, a mayoral election in New York City, and much more. Gift link: www.theatlantic.com/photography/...

Seeing the World Up Close - Shortlisted images from the 2025 Close-Up Photographer of the Year, celebrating “close-up, macro, and micro photography.” Gift link: www.theatlantic.com/photography/...

INVENTOR: ive got a great new toy idea for you, it's called... the Radio Flyer TOY EXEC: oh wow, so it's like a plane that flies via... radio? INVENTOR: it's not a plane TOY EXEC: oh...Kay, so it's INVENTOR: its a little red wagon TOY EXEC: with ... a radio on it? INVENTOR: theres no radio