Diego Ortega

Distribution map of common cranes https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/Verbreitungskarte_Kranich.png

According to this map (link in Alt text), the region is both a wintering area and part of the migration route. They might not have started moving north yet

Una catena es una cadena lineal de cráteres de impacto en la superficie de cuerpos celestes como la Luna, a menudo formados por fragmentos de un asteroide o cometa desintegrado por fuerzas de marea • #FotoCiencia #ConceptoCiencia 🌖

☄️C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan–ATLAS) Above Kitt Peak

☄️C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan–ATLAS) is captured here from near the 0.9-meter SARA Kitt Peak🔭 at U.S. National Science Foundation Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO), Program of NSF NOIRLab.

PNO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/R. Sparks
noirlab.edu/public/image...

Drawing of a metallic blue stick insect with absolutely tiny red wings. The insect's legs have small yellow spikes.i

Achrioptera manga

On flight day 13 (November 28, 2022) of the Artemis 1 mission, the Orion spacecraft reached its maximum distance from Earth. At over 430,000 kilometers from Earth, its distant retrograde orbit also puts Orion nearly 70,000 kilometers from the Moon. In the same field of view in this video frame from flight day 13, planet and large natural satellite even appear about the same apparent size from the spacecraft's perspective. On flight day 26 (December 11, 2022), the uncrewed spacecraft splashed down on its home world concluding the historic Artemis I mission. The Artemis II mission, carrying 4 astronauts around the moon and back again, will launch no earlier than February 8.

🔭 Artemis I: Flight Day 13

Image Credit: NASA, Artemis I

apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap26013...

A rolling, dry, quiet landscape under a butterscotch sky.

Jezero Crater, Mars, earlier today.

A watercolour painting of a female great spotted woodpecker on a tree, with shadows and light

Just finished my first painting of 2026, I’ce titled it ‘Woodpecker & Shadows’ - painted in watercolours.

#watercolours #birdart #woodpecker 🪶

Artemis II SLS vehicle on the pad at Kennedy Space Center, with ocean view behind. and three lightning towers visible.

#ArtemisII update: because of weather conditions, NASA now plans to fuel the Artemis II Moon rocket on 2 February. The earliest possible launch date is 8 February. A launch date will be set after the results of the wet dress rehearsal have been reviewed 👉 go.nasa.gov/4rrJ9Xc
@exploration.esa.int

In a yellowing Cretaceous ginkgo tree, a chestnut, black and white Sinornithosaurus perches on a branch beneath a black, iridescent Microraptor. It has a small mammal in its jaws, which the Sinornithosaurus covets. Another Microraptor, all four wings spread, approaches to land. Ginkgo leaves fall around them, and X-shaped Microraptor silhouettes glide in the skies behind.

More new #paleoart and discussion at #Patreon: the colour schemes of Sinornithosaurus and Microraptor. What do we know, and what do their colours tell us? www.patreon.com/posts/sinorn...

#sciart #dinosaurs #paleontology #fossils

It's a quiet winter morning in Cretaceous China. Mist clings to the bank of a frozen lake, but shadows from adjacent trees hint at their impending dispulsion from the coming sun. From the crunchy, leaf-strewn shore comes a turkey-sized, black and white, bird-like dinosaur, Caudipteryx. It steps onto the ice: one foot, then the other. All is OK. But then... whoa. WHOA. What's happening to the first foot? It's sliding away! And foot two? Also sliding! What fresh hell is this? _Solid, slippy water_? Caudipteryx leans forward, arms spread, tail raised, showing its striped tail fan. It stands there, legs akimbo, as frozen as the water beneath it. This is going to get worse before it gets better.

New #paleoart at #Patreon for #FossilFriday: Caudipteryx encounters a frozen lake, is unsure, prob. makes wee bokking noises as its feet slide apart hilariously.

Lots of discussion about the colour data of this animal in my Patreon post. www.patreon.com/posts/149439...
#sciart #fossil #dinosaurs

TIME’s new cover: Artemis II is poised for the first lunar mission since 1972

We’re proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with our international partners in Artemis. Our European Service Module is at the heart of NASA’s Orion spacecraft. Together, we're extending humankind’s presence in space and demonstrating that multilateral and inclusive cooperation is vital for our future.

Group of rooks (Corvus frugilegus) on top of posts

Sheep grazing

Great cormorants (Phalacrocorax carbo) drying their feathers ashore

Mute swan (Cygnus olor) swimming in the Moselle river

🐑Other photos from a walk earlier today along the Moselle river
#birds #birdphotography #naturephotography

Flock of common cranes (Grus grus) in flight

Flock of common cranes (Grus grus) in flight

Flock of common cranes (Grus grus) in flight

🪶Hundreds of cranes flying today over Thionville, France
#birds #birdphotography

Thanks!😊

Incomplete lineart of Carboniferous creatures from Puertollano, Spain

#paleoart #FossilFriday Getting back to do some paleoart, here is the current progress. Lots of plants and fish! 🌴🐟
Lineart may be finished this weekend, but it will take more to complete

Welcome😊 I started reading the blog around 2012-13, although later I discovered that I had been following your work for longer. As a kid I loved the DK dinosaur encyclopedia😁

🎂Tetrapod Zoology cumple 20 años. Este blog habla de zoología y paleontología, pero también de otros temas como criptozoología y evolución especulativa. Además, con los años se ha formado una gran comunidad en Internet en torno a él
Congrats Darren!

A colored pencil drawing of a Sulphur-crested Cockatoo

Sulphur-crested Cockatoo 🪶 #BirdArt #SciArt

I started working on this drawing half a year ago as a part of the #BirdWhisperer challenge, but I got very busy around that time and only finished it recently. It is far too late for the official posting date, but I am glad I completed this one!

Booster for Ariane 6 flight VA267 heading to the launch pad.

Every job has its responsibilities, some bigger than others.

Picture this: you're driving a custom built 36-wheeled truck with 142 tonnes of solid rocket fuel, aka explosive rocket propellant, as cargo.

How would you feel? 😰

In the image, we see the 27-km LHC eight surface points from an aerial perspective. Point 8, home of the LHCb experiment, is located close to the French town of Ferney-Voltaire.

Heating homes with the world’s largest particle accelerator

Now operational, a new heat exchange system is reusing hot water from part of the Large Hadron Collider’s cooling system to heat homes and businesses in the local area.

Read more: home.cern/news/news/ce...

This image shows dunes near the north pole of Mars. The north pole is surrounded by a vast "sea" of basaltic sand dunes, and the dunes imaged here are similar to barchan dunes that are commonly found in desert regions on Earth. Barchan dunes are generally crescent-shaped with a steep slip face bordered by horns oriented in the downwind direction. Barchan dunes form by winds blowing mainly in one direction and thus are good indicators of the dominant wind direction when the dunes formed. In this case, the strongest winds blew approximately south to north. The dunes and surrounding surface appear bright because they are covered with seasonal frost left over from the northern hemisphere winter. Sunlight is now falling on the north polar region, and carbon dioxide frost that accumulated during winter is sublimating (going directly from solid to gas) and the surface beneath the frost is being revealed. Composed primarily of basaltic sand, the dunes will appear dark during the northern hemisphere summer. The dark spots are areas where some of this frost has begun to sublime away, and/or where wind has exposed the underlying dark sand.

Not enough SAND yesterday?

Then enjoy this, from 2008: Mars' shifting sand dunes. They are made of... basaltic sand.

#geology #science ⚒️🧪

#BirdOfTheDay #EyeContact
Roseate Spoonbill certainly spotted me.

Apparently the AI bros are now calling real artists’ work “Pencilslop”.
Whatever.
Have some slop:

Illustrations of sword-tailed newts

More illustrations on the beautiful intra-specific color variation in the sword-tailed newt Cynops ensicauda #art #sciart

Artwork of a rocky/icy landscape. In the sky is a half-illuminated dwarf planet called Quaoar, slightly ellipsoidal in shape.

Latest #spaceart done in #Blender. A depiction of the dwarf planet and trans-Neptunian object Quaoar, as seen from the surface of its moon Weywot. Quaoar is ellipsoidal in shape and has two narrow rings around it, although they may not be visible at this resolution.

#scicomm #sciart

Thanks!😄

Grey heron between branches

Pterodroma zinorum, an extinct petrel

Flock of starlings at sunset

Juvenile gull

#addBirder Hi, I would like to join the birds feed. I often post photos of birds and some bird art too

Sincronía cósmica: los cometas Lemmon y Swan se acercaron al unísono a la Tierra Fotografiando lo efímero: posibles técnicas e instrumentación a utilizarLos cometas C/2025 R2 (Swan) y C/2025 A6 (Lemmon), los más brillantes del 2025, alcanzaron sus perigeos (punto de la órbita más ...

☄️ Este otoño los cometas Lemmon y Swan se acercaron a la Tierra casi al unísono, un espectáculo irrepetible en siglos.

Desde el Observatorio del Teide lo captamos con imágenes y timelapses espectaculares 🔭📸

Te ofrecemos en nuestro blog un recorrido visual y técnico👇
www.iac.es/es/blog/vial...

🔧🔭 El telescopio MONS se pone al día en el Observatorio del Teide.

El histórico reflector de 50 cm (1972, Univ. de Mons), dedicado durante años a la docencia, será sustituido por un telescopio con óptica más avanzada y nueva instrumentación.

Ya se ha reformado la cúpula y la instalación eléctrica.

🥶 If you don't mind the (extremely) cold, we're hiring!
@esa.int is looking for its next biomedical research doctor at Concordia station, Antarctica 🇦🇶
⏰ Apply by this Saturday 31 January 👇
ideas.esa.int/servlet/hype...

📸: ESA/IPEV/PNRA/S. Gaier