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MXPlank Astronomy News Snippets
YEAR - 2020
**** Extremely sorry for some of the missing dates in the year. We will try to keep it as continuous as possible****
Image Of The Day 2020-08-16 :
In the center of this serene stellar swirl is likely a harrowing black-hole beast. The surrounding swirl sweeps around billions of stars which are highlighted by the brightest and bluest
Image Of The Day 2020-08-15 :
Does the Moon ever block out Mars? Yes, the Moon occasionally moves in front of all of the Solar System's planets. Just this past Sunday, as visible from some locations in South America, a waning gibbous Moon eclipsed Mars
Image Of The Day 2020-08-14 :
Why is this nebula so complex? When a star like our Sun is dying, it will cast off its outer layers, usually into a simple overall shape. Sometimes this shape is a sphere, sometimes a double lobe, and sometimes a ring or a helix
Image Of The Day 2020-08-13 :
What planets are those behind that unusual rock spire? Saturn (lower left) and Jupiter. This month, after sunset, the bright planetary duo are quite prominent toward the southeast
Image Of The Day 2020-08-12 :
Keep your eye on the ion tail of Comet NEOWISE. A tale of this tail is the trail of the Earth
Image Of The Day 2020-08-11 :
Where is Jupiter's ammonia? Gaseous ammonia was expected to be seen in Jupiter's upper atmosphere by the orbiting Juno spacecraft -- but in many clouds is almost absent. Recent Juno data, however, gives some clues: some high-level clouds appear to be home to an unexpected type of electrical discharge dubbed shallow lightning
Image Of The Day 2020-08-10 :
Where are all these meteors coming from? In terms of direction on the sky, the pointed answer is the constellation of Perseus. That is why the meteor shower that peaks tomorrow night is known as the Perseids -- the meteors all appear to came from a radiant toward Perseus
Image Of The Day 2020-08-09 :
The hydrogen in your body, present in every molecule of water, came from the Big Bang. There are no other appreciable sources of hydrogen in the universe
Image Of The Day 2020-08-08 :
From Earth, Saturn never shows a crescent phase. But when viewed from a spacecraft the majestic giant planet can show just a sunlit slice
Image Of The Day 2020-08-07 :
st of Antares, dark markings sprawl through crowded star fields toward the center of our Milky Way Galaxy. Cataloged in the early 20th century by astronomer E
Image Of The Day 2020-08-06 :
The beautiful Trifid Nebula, also known as Messier 20, is easy to find with a small telescope in the nebula rich constellation Sagittarius. About 5,000 light-years away, the colorful study in cosmic contrasts shares this well-composed, nearly 1 degree wide field with open star cluster Messier 21 (right)
Image Of The Day 2020-08-05 :
Ancient sun daggers will not hurt you, but they may tell you the time. A sun dagger is a dagger-shaped gap in a shadow created by sunlight streaming through a crevice in a nearby rock
Image Of The Day 2020-08-04 :
Distorted galaxy NGC 2442 can be found in the southern constellation of the flying fish, (Piscis) Volans. Located about 50 million light-years away, the galaxy's two spiral arms extending from a pronounced central bar have a hook-like appearance in wide-field images
Image Of The Day 2020-08-03 :
Did the Earth part to show us this comet? Of course not, even if this image makes it seem that way. Pictured far in the background is Comet NEOWISE as it appeared about two weeks ago over northern Greece
Image Of The Day 2020-08-02 :
How different does sunset appear from Mars than from Earth? For comparison, two images of our common star were taken at sunset, one from Earth and one from Mars. These images were scaled to have same angular width and featured here side-by-side
Image Of The Day 2020-08-01 :
Like an illustration in a galactic Just So Story, the Elephant's Trunk Nebula winds through the emission nebula and young star cluster complex IC 1396, in the high and far off constellation of Cepheus. Also known as vdB 142, the cosmic elephant's trunk is over 20 light-years long
Image Of The Day 2020-07-31 :
On Thursday this snapshot from a small plane 5,000 feet above Florida's Space Coast caught a rocket's trail rising into the blue morning sky. It was July's third launch of a mission from planet Earth bound for Mars
Image Of The Day 2020-07-30 :
Mars looks pretty sharp in this backyard telescope image captured on July 23 from Hoegaarden, Belgium, planet Earth. The Red Planet's bright south polar cap is bathed in sunlight at the top of the inverted view, while the dark feature known as Syrtis Major extends toward the right (eastern) edge
Image Of The Day 2020-07-29 :
As Comet NEOWISE sweeps through northern summer skies, Jupiter and Saturn are shining brightly, near opposition. With Jupiter opposite the Sun on July 14 and Saturn on July 21, the giant planets are still near their closest to planet Earth in 2020
Image Of The Day 2020-07-28 :
Dark shapes with bright edges winging their way through dusty NGC 6188 are tens of light-years long. The emission nebula is found near the edge of an otherwise dark and large molecular cloud in the southern constellation Ara, about 4,000 light-years away
Image Of The Day 2020-07-27 :
Normally, Steamboat Point looks cool -- but not this cool. Every day, the iconic peak of the Bighorn Mountains is an interesting sight, in particular from US Highway 14 in Wyoming
Image Of The Day 2020-07-26 :
What would it look like to fly through the distant universe? To find out, a team of astronomers estimated the relative distances to over 5,000 galaxies in one of the most distant fields of galaxies ever imaged: the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (HUDF). Because it takes light a long time to cross the universe, most galaxies visible in the featured video are seen when the universe was only a fraction of its current age, were still forming, and have unusual shapes when compared to modern galaxies
Image Of The Day 2020-07-25 :
On July 23, this Long March 5 heavy-lift rocket rose into a blue morning sky from China's Hainan Island Wenchang Satellite Launch Center. The rocket carried an orbiter, lander, and rover to ask Heavenly Questions on the ambitious Tianwen-1 mission to Mars
Image Of The Day 2020-07-24 :
The multi-mirror, 17 meter-diameter MAGIC telescopes reflect this starry night sky from the Roque de los Muchachos European Northern Observatory on the Canary Island of La Palma. MAGIC stands for Major Atmospheric Gamma Imaging Cherenkov and the telescopes can see the brief flashes of optical light produced in particle air showers as high-energy gamma rays impact the Earth's upper atmosphere
Image Of The Day 2020-07-23 :
Comet dust falls through a twilight sky in this dream-like scene, but it's not part of a fairytale movie. Still, Castle Neuschwanstein, nestled in the Bavarian Alps, did inspire Disneyland's Sleeping Beauty Castle
Image Of The Day 2020-07-22 :
What is creating the structure in Comet NEOWISE's tails? Of the two tails evident, the blue ion tail on the left points directly away from the Sun and is pushed out by the flowing and charged solar wind. Structure in the ion tail comes from different rates of expelled blue-glowing ions from the comet's nucleus, as well as the always complex and continually changing structure of our Sun's wind
Image Of The Day 2020-07-21 :
Can stars, like caterpillars, transform themselves into butterflies? No, but in the case of the Butterfly Nebula -- it sure looks like it. Though its wingspan covers over 3 light-years and its estimated surface temperature exceeds 200,000 degrees, C, the dying central star of NGC 6302, the featured planetary nebula, has become exceptionally hot, shining brightly in visible and ultraviolet light but hidden from direct view by a dense torus of dust
Image Of The Day 2020-07-20 :
Would you brave wild animals to photograph this sky? One astrophotographer did -- and we all get to reap the rewards. First, thousands of stars were visible with many of the brightest impressively blue
Image Of The Day 2020-07-19 :
No one, presently, sees the Moon rotate like this. That's because the Earth's moon is tidally locked to the Earth, showing us only one side
Image Of The Day 2020-07-18 :
If you can see the stars of the Big Dipper, you can find comet NEOWISE in your evening sky tonight. After sunset look for the naked-eye comet below the bowl of the famous celestial kitchen utensil of the north and above your northwestern horizon
Image Of The Day 2020-07-17 :
After local midnight on July 14 comet NEOWISE was still above the horizon for Goldenrod, Alberta, Canada, just north of Calgary, planet Earth. In this snapshot it makes for an awesome night with dancing displays of the northern lights
Image Of The Day 2020-07-16 :
This Comet NEOWISE (C/2020 F3) now sweeps through our fair planet's northern skies. Its long tails stretch across this deep skyview from Suchy Vrch, Czech Republic
Image Of The Day 2020-07-15 :
Comet NEOWISE has been wowing photographers around much of the world during dawn and dusk, at the margins of day and night. For the most northern residents of planet Earth, however, the comet circles the North Star and never sets
Image Of The Day 2020-07-14 :
Have you ever seen a comet? Tonight -- and likely the next few nights -- should be a good chance. Go outside just at sunset and look to your northwest
Image Of The Day 2020-07-13 :
This sight was worth getting out of bed early. Comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) has been rising before dawn during the past week to the delight of northern sky enthusiasts awake that early
Image Of The Day 2020-07-12 :
Where do comet tails come from? There are no obvious places on the nuclei of comets from which the jets that create comet tails emanate. One of the best images of emerging jets is shown in the featured picture, taken in 2015 by ESA's robotic Rosetta spacecraft that orbited Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (Comet CG) from 2014 to 2016
Image Of The Day 2020-07-11 :
Comet NEOWISE (C/2020 F3) is now sweeping through northern skies. Its developing tails stretch some six degrees across this telescopic field of view, recorded from Brno, Czech Republic before daybreak on July 10
Image Of The Day 2020-07-10 :
Rounding the Sun on July 3rd and currently headed for the outer Solar System, Comet NEOWISE (C/2020 F3) has been growing brighter in the predawn skies of planet Earth. From low Earth orbit it also rises before the Sun, captured above the approaching glow along the eastern horizon in this snapshot from the International Space Station on July 5
Image Of The Day 2020-07-09 :
These silvery blue waves washing over a tree-lined horizon in the eastern French Alps are noctilucent clouds. From high in planet Earth's mesosphere, they reflect sunlight in this predawn skyscape taken on July 8
Image Of The Day 2020-07-08 :
What is that fuzzy streak extending from Mercury? Long exposures of our Solar System's innermost planet may reveal something unexpected: a tail. Mercury's thin atmosphere contains small amounts of sodium that glow when excited by light from the Sun
Image Of The Day 2020-07-07 :
A comet has suddenly become visible to the unaided eye. Comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) was discovered in late March and brightened as it reached its closest approach to the Sun, inside the orbit of Mercury, late last week
Image Of The Day 2020-07-06 :
Unspeakable beauty and unimaginable bedlam can be found together in the Orion Nebula Arguably the most famous of all astronomy nebulas, the Great Nebula in Orion is an immense interstellar molecular cloud only 1500 light-years away. In the featured deep image shown in assigned colors, the part of the nebula's center known as M43 is shown as taken by the Hubble Space Telescope
Image Of The Day 2020-07-05 :
Why would clouds form a hexagon on Saturn? Nobody is sure. Originally discovered during the Voyager flybys of Saturn in the 1980s, nobody has ever seen anything like it anywhere else in the Solar System
Image Of The Day 2020-07-04 :
A sensitive video camera on a summit of the Vosges mountains in France captured these surprising fireworks above a distant horizon on June 26. Generated over intense thunderstorms, this one about 260 kilometers away, the brief and mysterious flashes have come to be known as red sprites
Image Of The Day 2020-07-03 :
Stars are forming in Lynds Dark Nebula (LDN) 1251. About 1,000 light-years away and drifting above the plane of our Milky Way galaxy, the dusty molecular cloud is part of a complex of dark nebulae mapped toward the Cepheus flare region
Image Of The Day 2020-07-02 :
The Old Astronomer's Milky Way arcs through this peaceful northern sky. Against faint, diffuse starlight you can follow dark rifts of interstellar dust clouds stretching from the galaxy's core
Image Of The Day 2020-07-01 :
Has your world ever turned upside-down? It would happen every day if you stay fixed to the stars. Most time-lapse videos of the night sky show the stars and sky moving above a steady Earth
Image Of The Day 2020-06-30 :
What created this unusual planetary nebula? NGC 7027 is one of the smallest, brightest, and most unusually shaped planetary nebulas known. Given its expansion rate, NGC 7027 first started expanding, as visible from Earth, about 600 years ago
Image Of The Day 2020-06-29 :
When the lake calmed down, many wonders of the land and sky appeared twice. Perhaps the most dramatic from the dark sky was the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy, visible as a diagonal band
Image Of The Day 2020-06-28 :
What are those spots on Jupiter? Largest and furthest, just right of center, is the Great Red Spot -- a huge storm system that has been raging on Jupiter possibly since Giovanni Cassini's likely notation of it 355 years ago. It is not yet known why this Great Spot is red
Image Of The Day 2020-06-27 :
The dark shadow of the New Moon reached out and touched planet Earth on June 21. A high definition camera outside the International Space Station captured its passing in this snapshot from low Earth orbit near the border of Kazakhstan and China
Image Of The Day 2020-06-26 :
Want to watch a solar eclipse safely? Try looking down instead of up, though you might discover you have a plethora of images to choose from. For example, during the June 21st solar eclipse this confusing display appeared under a shady bamboo grove in Pune, India
Image Of The Day 2020-06-25 :
On June 21 an annular solar eclipse came soon after the solstice and our fair planet's northernmost sunset for 2020. At maximum eclipse, the New Moon in silhouette created a ring of fire visible along a narrow path at most 85 kilometers wide
Image Of The Day 2020-06-24 :
How could that city be upside-down? The city, Chicago, was actually perfectly right-side up. The long shadows it projected onto nearby Lake Michigan near sunset, however, when seen in reflection, made the buildings appear inverted
Image Of The Day 2020-06-23 :
What if you could see X-rays? The night sky would seem a strange and unfamiliar place. X-rays are about 1,000 times more energetic than visible light photons and are produced by violent explosions and high temperature astronomical environments
Image Of The Day 2020-06-22 :
What are those dark streaks in this composite image of yesterday's solar eclipse? They are reversed shadows of mountains at the edge of the Moon. The center image, captured from Xiamen, China, has the Moon's center directly in front of the Sun's center
Image Of The Day 2020-06-21 :
It may look like Earthrise, but it's actually Venus-set. Just after sunrise two days ago, both the Moon and Venus also rose
Image Of The Day 2020-06-20 :
Today's solstice brings summer to planet Earth's northern hemisphere. But the northern summer solstice arrived for ringed planet Saturn over three years ago on May 24, 2017
Image Of The Day 2020-06-19 :
Transfusing sunlight through a darkened sky, this beautiful display of noctilucent clouds was captured earlier this week, reflected in calm waters from Nykobing Mors, Denmark. From the edge of space, about 80 kilometers above Earth's surface, the icy clouds themselves still reflect sunlight, though the Sun is below the horizon as seen from the ground
Image Of The Day 2020-06-18 :
This telescopic close-up shows off the central regions of otherwise faint emission nebula IC 410, captured under backyard suburban skies with narrowband filters. It also features two remarkable inhabitants of the cosmic pond of gas and dust
Image Of The Day 2020-06-17 :
What role do magnetic fields play in interstellar physics? Analyses of observations by ESA's Planck satellite of emission by small magnetically-aligned dust grains reveal previously unknown magnetic field structures in our Milky Way Galaxy -- as shown by the curvy lines in the featured full-sky image. The dark red shows the plane of the Milky Way, where the concentration of dust is the highest
Image Of The Day 2020-06-16 :
Welcome to the quadranscentennial year of the Astronomy Picture of the Day. Perhaps a source of consistency for some, APOD is still here
Image Of The Day 2020-06-15 :
What's rising above the horizon behind those clouds? It's the Sun. Most sunrises don't look like this, though, because most sunrises don't include the Moon
Image Of The Day 2020-06-14 :
What are these humans doing? Dancing. Many humans on Earth exhibit periods of happiness, and one method of displaying happiness is dancing
Image Of The Day 2020-06-13 :
Clouds are white but the sky is dark in this snapshot of Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center. The dramatic daytime sky is partly due to the black and white photo captured with a digital camera at near-infrared wavelengths
Image Of The Day 2020-06-12 :
NGC 2359 is a helmet-shaped cosmic cloud with wing-like appendages popularly called Thor's Helmet. Heroically sized even for a Norse god, Thor's Helmet is about 30 light-years across
Image Of The Day 2020-06-11 :
Big, beautiful, barred spiral galaxy NGC 1300 lies some 70 million light-years away on the banks of the constellation Eridanus. This Hubble Space Telescope composite view of the gorgeous island universe is one of the largest Hubble images ever made of a complete galaxy
Image Of The Day 2020-06-10 :
Image Of The Day 2020-06-09 :
Do you recognize the constellation of Orion? It may be harder than usual in today's featured image because the camera has zoomed in on the center, and the exposure is long enough to enhance nebulas beyond what the unaided human eye can see. Still, once you become oriented, you can see Orion's three belt stars lined up vertically near the image center, and even locate the familiar Orion Nebula on the upper left
Image Of The Day 2020-06-08 :
Why is Venus surrounded by a bright ring? Sometimes called a ring of fire, this rare ring is caused by the Sun's light being visible all around an object. Usually seen around the Moon during an annular solar eclipse, the ring of fire is also visible when either Venus or Mercury cross the face of our Sun
Image Of The Day 2020-06-07 :
The Cat's Eye Nebula (NGC 6543) is one of the best known planetary nebulae in the sky. Its haunting symmetries are seen in the very central region of this stunning false-color picture, processed to reveal the enormous but extremely faint halo of gaseous material, over three light-years across, which surrounds the brighter, familiar planetary nebula
Image Of The Day 2020-06-06 :
Comet PanSTARRs, C/2017 T2, shared this stunning telescopic field of view with galaxies M81 and M82 on May 22/23. Of course, the galaxies were some 12 million light-years distant and the comet about 14 light-minutes away, seen in planet Earth's sky toward the Big Dipper
Image Of The Day 2020-06-05 :
Still bathed in sunlight the International Space Station (ISS) arced through this Manhattan evening sky on May 30. Moving left to right, its bright trail was captured in this composite image with a series of 5 second long exposures
Image Of The Day 2020-06-04 :
Sharp telescopic views of NGC 3628 show a puffy galactic disk divided by dark dust lanes. Of course, this deep portrait of the magnificent, edge-on spiral galaxy puts some astronomers in mind of its popular moniker, the Hamburger Galaxy
Image Of The Day 2020-06-03 :
very time Venus passes the Earth, it shows the same face. This remarkable fact has been known for only about 50 years, ever since radio telescopes have been able to peer beneath Venus' thick clouds and track its slowly rotating surface
Image Of The Day 2020-06-02 :
Humanity is under attack. The attack is not from large tentacle-flailing aliens, but from invaders so small they can barely be seen, and so strange they are not even clearly alive
Image Of The Day 2020-06-01 :
The center of the Lagoon Nebula is a whirlwind of spectacular star formation. Visible near the image center, at least two long funnel-shaped clouds, each roughly half a light-year long, have been formed by extreme stellar winds and intense energetic starlight
Image Of The Day 2020-05-31 :
It was bright and green and stretched across the sky. This striking aurora display was captured in 2016 just outside of Östersund, Sweden
Image Of The Day 2020-05-30 :
Follow a sunset on a clear day against a distant horizon and you might glimpse green just as the Sun disappears from view. The green flash is caused by refraction of light rays traveling to the eye over a long path through the atmosphere
Image Of The Day 2020-05-29 :
That's not a bright star and crescent Moon caught between branches of a eucalyptus tree. It's Venus in a crescent phase and Mercury
Image Of The Day 2020-05-28 :
Still bathed in sunlight, the International Space Station arced through the evening sky over lake Wulfsahl-Gusborn in northern Germany, just after sunset on March 25. The familiar constellation of Orion can be seen left of the trail of the orbital station's bright passage
Image Of The Day 2020-05-27 :
What are those dots between Saturn's rings? Our Earth and Moon. Just over three years ago, because the Sun was temporarily blocked by the body of Saturn, the robotic Cassini spacecraft was able to look toward the inner Solar System
Image Of The Day 2020-05-26 :
What’s higher than the Himalayas? Although the Himalayan Mountains are the tallest on planet Earth, they don't measure up to the Milky Way. Visible above the snow-capped mountains in the featured image is the arcing central band of our home galaxy
Image Of The Day 2020-05-25 :
Inside the head of this interstellar monster is a star that is slowly destroying it. The huge monster, actually an inanimate series of pillars of gas and dust, measures light years in length
Image Of The Day 2020-05-24 :
The largest canyon in the Solar System cuts a wide swath across the face of Mars. Named Valles Marineris, the grand valley extends over 3,000 kilometers long, spans as much as 600 kilometers across, and delves as much as 8 kilometers deep
Image Of The Day 2020-05-23 :
Stars shine and satellites glint in this clear, dark, night sky over Wannon Falls Reserve, South West Victoria, Australia. In fact the fuzzy, faint apparition above the tree tops is the only cloud visible, also known as the Large Magellanic Cloud, satellite galaxy of our own Milky Way
Image Of The Day 2020-05-22 :
With natal dust clouds in silhouette against glowing atomic gas, this colorful and chaotic vista lies within one of the largest star forming regions in the Milky Way galaxy, the Great Carina Nebula. The telescopic close-up frames a field of view about 80 light-years across, a little south and east of Eta Carinae, the nebula's most energetic and enigmatic star
Image Of The Day 2020-05-21 :
Just as the Moon goes through phases, Venus' visible sunlit hemisphere waxes and wanes. This composite of backyard telescopic images illustrates the steady changes for Venus during its current stint as our evening star, as the inner planet grows larger but narrows to a thin crescent
Image Of The Day 2020-05-20 :
It is not a coincidence that planets line up. That's because all of the planets orbit the Sun in (nearly) a single sheet called the plane of the ecliptic
Image Of The Day 2020-05-19 :
Would you like a NASA astronomy-exploration poster? You are just one page-print away. Any of the panels you see on the featured image can appear on your wall
Image Of The Day 2020-05-18 :
What would you see if you could fly into the Cosmic Reef? The nebular cloud NGC 2014 appear to some like an ocean reef that resides in the sky, specifically in the LMC, the largest satellite galaxy of our Milky Way Galaxy. A detailed image of this distant nebula was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope to help commemorate 30 years of investigating the cosmos
Image Of The Day 2020-05-17 :
What's happening over the water? Pictured here is one of the better images yet recorded of a waterspout, a type of tornado that occurs over water. Waterspouts are spinning columns of rising moist air that typically form over warm water
Image Of The Day 2020-05-16 :
A dark river seems to flow through this sky from the horizon toward colorful clouds near red giant star Antares. Murky looking, the dark river is a dusty nebula obscuring background starlight near the central Milky Way, although the dark dust nebula contains mostly hydrogen molecular gas
Image Of The Day 2020-05-15 :
These two galaxies are far far away, 12 million light-years distant toward the northern constellation of the Great Bear. On the left, with grand spiral arms and bright yellow core is spiral galaxy M81, some 100,000 light-years across
Image Of The Day 2020-05-14 :
The pre-dawn hours of May 3rd were moonless as grains of cosmic dust streaked through southern skies above Reunion Island. Swept up as planet Earth plowed through dusty debris streams left behind periodic Comet 1/P Halley, the annual meteor shower is known as the Eta Aquarids
Image Of The Day 2020-05-13 :
In infrared, Jupiter lights up the night. Recently, astronomers at the Gemini North Observatory in Hawaii, USA, created some of the best infrared photos of Jupiter ever taken from Earth’s surface, pictured
Image Of The Day 2020-05-12 :
Where are all of these meteors coming from? In terms of direction on the sky, the pointed answer is the constellation of Small Harp (Lyra). That is why the famous meteor shower that peaks every April is known as the Lyrids -- the meteors all appear to came from a radiant toward Lyra
Image Of The Day 2020-05-11 :
What's behind Betelgeuse? One of the brighter and more unusual stars in the sky, the red supergiant star Betelgeuse can be found in the direction of famous constellation Orion. Betelgeuse, however, is actually well in front of many of the constellation's other bright stars, and also in front of the greater Orion Molecular Cloud Complex
Image Of The Day 2020-05-10 :
What's happening to this spiral galaxy? Just a few hundred million years ago, NGC 2936, the upper of the two large galaxies shown, was likely a normal spiral galaxy -- spinning, creating stars -- and minding its own business. But then it got too close to the massive elliptical galaxy NGC 2937 below and took a dive
Image Of The Day 2020-05-09 :
Rising as the Sun set, the Moon was bright and full in planet Earth skies on May 7 and known to some as a Flower Moon. Near the horizon it does seem to take on rose pink hues of reddened sunlight in this reflective twilight scene
Image Of The Day 2020-05-08 :
Blowing in the solar wind the spectacular ion tail of Comet SWAN (C/2020 F8) extends far across this 10 degree wide telephoto field of view. Captured on May 2 its greenish coma was about 6 light-minutes from Earth
Image Of The Day 2020-05-07 :
An analemma is that figure-8 curve you get when you mark the position of the Sun at the same time each day for one year. But the trick to imaging an analemma of the Moon is to wait bit longer
Image Of The Day 2020-05-06 :
What is the cause of this unusual parabolic structure? This illuminated cavity, known as LDN 1471, was created by a newly forming star, seen as the bright source at the peak of the parabola. This protostar is experiencing a stellar outflow which is then interacting with the surrounding material in the Perseus Molecular Cloud, causing it to brighten
Image Of The Day 2020-05-05 :
You need to be in the south, looking south, to see such a sky. And only then if you're lucky
Image Of The Day 2020-05-04 :
What it would look like to approach planet Earth? Such an event was recorded visually in great detail by ESA's and JAXA's robotic BepiColombo spacecraft last month as it swung back past Earth on its journey in to the planet Mercury. Earth can be seen rotating on approach as it comes out from behind the spacecraft's high-gain antenna in this nearly 10-hour time-lapse video
Image Of The Day 2020-05-03 :
What are these Earthlings trying to tell us? The featured message was broadcast from Earth towards the globular star cluster M13 in 1974. During the dedication of the Arecibo Observatory - still one of the largest single radio telescopes in the world - a string of 1's and 0's representing the diagram was sent
Image Of The Day 2020-05-02 :
Since the early days of radio and television we have been freely broadcasting signals into space. For some time now, we have been listening too
Image Of The Day 2020-05-01 :
Big, bright, beautiful spiral, Messier 106 dominates this cosmic vista. The nearly two degree wide telescopic field of view looks toward the well-trained constellation Canes Venatici, near the handle of the Big Dipper
Image Of The Day 2020-04-30 :
The most distant object easily visible to the unaided eye is M31, the great Andromeda Galaxy some two and a half million light-years away. But without a telescope, even this immense spiral galaxy - spanning over 200,000 light years - appears as a faint, nebulous cloud in the constellation Andromeda
Image Of The Day 2020-04-29 :
Newly discovered Comet SWAN has already developed an impressive tail. The comet came in from the outer Solar System and has just passed inside the orbit of the Earth
Image Of The Day 2020-04-28 :
Do other stars have planetary systems like our own? Yes -- one such system is Kepler-90. Cataloged by the Kepler satellite that operated from Earth orbit between 2009 and 2018, eight planets were discovered, giving Kepler-90 the same number of known planets as our Solar System
Image Of The Day 2020-04-27 :
How will humanity first learn of extraterrestrial life? One possibility is to find it under the icy surface of Saturn's moon Enceladus. A reason to think that life may exist there are long features -- dubbed tiger stripes -- that are known to be spewing ice from the moon's icy interior into space
Image Of The Day 2020-04-26 :
How big is our universe? This very question, among others, was debated by two leading astronomers 100 years ago today in what has become known as astronomy's Great Debate. Many astronomers then believed that our Milky Way Galaxy was the entire universe
Image Of The Day 2020-04-25 :
These bright ridges of interstellar gas and dust are bathed in energetic starlight. With its sea of young stars, the massive star-forming region NGC 2014 has been dubbed the Cosmic Reef
Image Of The Day 2020-04-24 :
Watch this video. In only a minute or so you can explore the night skies around planet Earth through a compilation of stunning timelapse sequences
Image Of The Day 2020-04-23 :
rth's annual Lyrid Meteor Shower peaked before dawn yesterday, as our fair planet plowed through debris from the tail of long-period comet Thatcher. In crisp, clear and moonless predawn skies over Brown County, Indiana this streak of vaporizing comet dust briefly shared a telephoto field of view with stars and nebulae along the Milky Way
Image Of The Day 2020-04-22 :
No sudden, sharp boundary marks the passage of day into night in this gorgeous view of ocean and clouds over our fair planet Earth. Instead, the shadow line or terminator is diffuse and shows the gradual transition to darkness we experience as twilight
Image Of The Day 2020-04-21 :
Have you ever had stars in your eyes? It appears that the eye on the left does, and moreover it appears to be gazing at even more stars. The featured 27-frame mosaic was taken last July from Ojas de Salar in the Atacama Desert of Chile
Image Of The Day 2020-04-20 :
To some, it looks like a giant chicken running across the sky. To others, it looks like a gaseous nebula where star formation takes place
Image Of The Day 2020-04-19 :
What would it look like to approach Saturn in a spaceship? One doesn't have to just imagine -- the Cassini spacecraft did just this in 2004, recording thousands of images along the way, and hundreds of thousands more since entering orbit. Some of Cassini's early images have been digitally tweaked, cropped, and compiled into the featured inspiring video which is part of a larger developing IMAX movie project named In Saturn's Rings
Image Of The Day 2020-04-18 :
It was just another day on aerosol Earth. For August 23, 2018, the identification and distribution of aerosols in the Earth's atmosphere is shown in this dramatic, planet-wide digital visualization
Image Of The Day 2020-04-17 :
Stars can't turn these old wooden arms, but it does look like they might in this scene from a rotating planet. The well-composed night skyscape was recorded from Garafia, a municipality on the island of La Palma, Canary Islands, planet Earth
Image Of The Day 2020-04-16 :
Cruising through the inner solar system, Comet ATLAS (C/2019 Y4) has apparently fragmented. Multiple separate condensations within its diffuse coma are visible in this telescopic close-up from April 12, composed of frames tracking the comet's motion against trailing background stars
Image Of The Day 2020-04-15 :
It was an astronomical triple play. Setting on the left, just after sunset near the end of last month, was our Moon -- showing a bright crescent phase
Image Of The Day 2020-04-14 :
NGC 253 is one of the brightest spiral galaxies visible, but also one of the dustiest. Dubbed the Silver Coin for its appearance in smalltelescopes, it is more formally known as the Sculptor Galaxy for its location within the boundaries of the southern constellation Sculptor
Image Of The Day 2020-04-13 :
How did this big rock end up on this strange terrain? One of the more unusual places here on Earth occurs inside Death Valley, California, USA. There a dried lakebed named Racetrack Playa exists that is almost perfectly flat, with the odd exception of some very large stones, one of which is pictured here in April of 2019 beneath a dark, Milky-Way filled sky
Image Of The Day 2020-04-12 :
While drifting through the cosmos, a magnificent interstellar dust cloud became sculpted by stellar winds and radiation to assume a recognizable shape. Fittingly named the Horsehead Nebula, it is embedded in the vast and complex Orion Nebula (M42)
Image Of The Day 2020-04-11 :
Shared around world in early April skies Venus, our brilliant evening star, wandered across the face of the lovely Pleiades star cluster. This timelapse image follows the path of the inner planet during the beautiful conjunction showing its daily approach to the stars of the Seven Sisters
Image Of The Day 2020-04-10 :
From home this Full Moon looked bright. Around our fair planet it rose as the Sun set on April 7/8, the first Full Moon after the vernal equinox and the start of northern hemisphere spring
Image Of The Day 2020-04-09 :
This surreal timelapse, landscape, panorama spans predawn, blue hour, and sunrise skies. Close to the start of planet Earth's northern hemisphere spring, the flow of time was captured between 4:30 and 7:00 am from a location overlooking northern New Mexico's Rio Grande Valley
Image Of The Day 2020-04-08 :
Dark skies are disappearing from the world. With modernization comes artificial lighting that brightens the night
Image Of The Day 2020-04-07 :
What happens if you keep going north? The direction north on the Earth, the place on your horizon below the northern spin pole of the Earth -- around which other stars appear to slowly swirl, will remain the same. This spin-pole-of-the-north will never move from its fixed location on the sky -- night or day -- and its height will always match your latitude
Image Of The Day 2020-04-06 :
Many spiral galaxies have bars across their centers. Even our own Milky Way Galaxy is thought to have a modest central bar
Image Of The Day 2020-04-05 :
Wouldn't it be fun to color in the universe? If you think so, please accept this famous astronomical illustration as a preliminary substitute. You, your friends, your parents or children, can print it out or even color it digitally
Image Of The Day 2020-04-04 :
After wandering about as far from the Sun on the sky as Venus can get, the brilliant evening star is crossing paths with the sister stars of the Pleiades cluster. Look west after sunset and you can share the ongoing conjunction with skygazers around the world
Image Of The Day 2020-04-03 :
There's a traffic jam in Taurus lately. On April 1, this celestial frame from slightly hazy skies over Tapiobicske, Hungary recorded an impressive pile up toward the zodiacal constellation of the Bull and the Solar System's ecliptic plane
Image Of The Day 2020-04-02 :
Venus is currently the brilliant evening star. Shared around world, in tonight's sky Venus will begin to wander across the face of the lovely Pleiades star cluster
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Messier 2 is located in the constellation of Aquarius (The Water-Bearer), about 55 000 light-years away.
This image, taken with Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys shows a part the globular cluster NGC 6752. Behind the bright stars of the cluster a denser collection of faint stars is visible, a previously unknown dwarf spheroidal galaxy.
This illustration compares the atmospheres of two 'hot Jupiter'-class exoplanets orbiting very closely to different sunlike stars. The planets are too far away for the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope to resolve any details.
This is an image of one-half of the Hubble Space Telescope field of view in the Sagittarius Window Eclipsing Extrasolar Planet Search (SWEEPS).
This artist’s impression shows the exoplanet 55 Cancri e as close-up. Due to its proximity to its parent star, the temperatures on the surface of the planet are thought to reach about 2000 degrees Celsius.
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image of the cluster Westerlund 2 and its surroundings has been released to celebrate Hubble's 25th year in orbit and a quarter of a century of new discoveries
