Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2023 November 10

UHZ1: Distant Galaxy and Black Hole
Image Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO/+ükos Bogd+ín; Infrared:
NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI;
Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare & K. Arcand

Explanation: Dominated by dark matter, massive cluster of galaxies
Abell 2744 is known to some as Pandora's Cluster. It lies 3.5 billion
light-years away toward the constellation Sculptor. Using the galaxy
cluster's enormous mass as a gravitational lens to warp spacetime and
magnify even more distant objects directly behind it, astronomers have
found a background galaxy, UHZ1, at a remarkable redshift of Z=10.1.
That puts UHZ1 far beyond Abell 2744, at a distance of 13.2 billion
light-years, seen when our universe was about 3 percent of its current
age. UHZ1 is identified in the insets of this composited image
combining X-rays (purple hues) from the spacebased Chandra X-ray
Observatory and infrared light from the James Webb Space Telescope. The
X-ray emission from UHZ1 detected in the Chandra data is the telltale
signature of a growing supermassive black hole at the center of the
ultra high redshift galaxy. That makes UHZ1's growing black hole the
most distant black hole ever detected in X-rays, a result that now
hints at how and when the first supermassive black holes in the
universe formed.

Tomorrow's picture: light-weekend
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2023 November 11

The SAR and the Milky Way
Image Credit & Copyright: Julien Looten

Explanation: This broad, luminous red arc was a surprising visitor to
partly cloudy evening skies over northern France. Captured extending
toward the zenith in a west-to-east mosaic of images from November 5,
the faint atmospheric ribbon of light is an example of a Stable Auroral
Red (SAR) arc. The rare night sky phenomenon was also spotted at
unusually low latitudes around world, along with more dynamic auroral
displays during an intense geomagnetic storm. SAR arcs and their
relation to auroral emission have been explored by citizen science and
satellite investigations. From altitudes substantially above the normal
auroral glow, the deep red SAR emission is thought to be caused by
strong heating due to currents flowing in planet Earth's inner
magnetosphere. Beyond this SAR, the Milky Way arcs above the cloud
banks along the horizon, a regular visitor to night skies over northern
France.

Tomorrow's picture: snow day
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2023 November 12
A mostly full moon is seen over a snowy sloping hill. An airplane and
contrail are seen just about the Moon. Please see the explanation for
more detailed information.

Gibbous Moon beyond Swedish Mountain
Image Credit & Copyright: G++ran Strand

Explanation: This is a gibbous Moon. More Earthlings are familiar with
a full moon, when the entire face of Luna is lit by the Sun, and a
crescent moon, when only a sliver of the Moon's face is lit. When more
than half of the Moon is illuminated, though, but still short of full
illumination, the phase is called gibbous. Rarely seen in television
and movies, gibbous moons are quite common in the actual night sky. The
featured image was taken in J+ñmtland, Sweden near the end of 2018
October. That gibbous moon turned, in a few days, into a crescent moon,
and then a new moon, then back to a crescent, and a few days past that,
back to gibbous. Setting up to capture a picturesque gibbous moonscape,
the photographer was quite surprised to find an airplane, surely well
in the foreground, appearing to fly past it.

Almost Hyperspace: Random APOD Generator
Tomorrow's picture: galaxy mountain
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2023 November 13
The night sky over a snowy mountain is shown, with the dark sky
dominated by a large spiral galaxy -- the Andromeda galaxy. Please see
the explanation for more detailed information.

Andromeda over the Alps
Image Credit & Copyright: Dzmitry Kananovich

Explanation: Have you ever seen the Andromeda galaxy? Although M31
appears as a faint and fuzzy blob to the unaided eye, the light you see
will be over two million years old, making it likely the oldest light
you ever will see directly. The featured image captured Andromeda just
before it set behind the Swiss Alps early last year. As cool as it may
be to see this neighboring galaxy to our Milky Way with your own eyes,
long duration camera exposures can pick up many faint and breathtaking
details. The image is composite of foreground and background images
taken consecutively with the same camera and from the same location.
Recent data indicate that our Milky Way Galaxy will collide and
coalesce with Andromeda galaxy in a few billion years.

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Tomorrow's picture: planets rock
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2023 November 14
A seascape surrounds a large tree-covered hill. Surrounding the hill in
the night sky are three bright dots: the planets Jupiter, Venus, and a
crescent Moon. Please see the explanation for more detailed
information.

Three Planets Rock
Image Credit & Copyright: Giovanni Passalacqua; Text: Liz Coelho (Pikes
Peak)

Explanation: In the fading darkness before dawn, a tilted triangle
appeared to balance atop a rock formation off the southern tip of
Sicily. Making up the points of the triangle are three of the four
brightest objects visible in EarthCÇÖs sky: Jupiter, Venus and the Moon.
Though a thin waning crescent, most of the moonCÇÖs disk is visible due
to earthshine. Captured in this image on 2022 April 27, Venus (center)
and Jupiter (left) are roughly three degrees apart -- and were headed
toward a close conjunction. Conjunctions of Venus and Jupiter occur
about once a year and are visible either in the east before sunrise or
in the west after sunset. The featured image was taken about an hour
before the arrival of the brightest object in EarthCÇÖs sky CÇô the Sun.

Tomorrow's picture: open space
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2023 November 15
The Crab Nebula, M1, is shown as imaged by the James Webb Space
Telescope. The rollover image is the same Crab Nebula but this time
from the Hubble Space Telescope. The Webb image is in near infrared
light, while the Hubble image is in visible light. Please see the
explanation for more detailed information.

M1: The Incredible Expanding Crab
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; Jeff Hester (ASU), Allison Loll
(ASU), Tea Temim (Princeton University)

Explanation: Cataloged as M1, the Crab Nebula is the first on Charles
Messier's famous list
of things which are not comets. In fact, the Crab Nebula is now known
to be a supernova remnant, an expanding cloud of debris from the death
explosion of a massive star. The violent birth of the Crab was
witnessed by astronomers in the year 1054. Roughly 10 light-years
across, the nebula is still expanding at a rate of about 1,500
kilometers per second. You can see the expansion by comparing these
sharp images from the Hubble Space Telescope and James Webb Space
Telescope. The Crab's dynamic, fragmented filaments were captured in
visible light by Hubble in 2005 and Webb in infrared light in 2023.
This cosmic crustacean lies about 6,500 light-years away in the
constellation Taurus.

Tomorrow's picture: daytime Moon, morning star
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
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2023 November 16

Daytime Moon Meets Morning Star
Image Credit & Copyright: Katarzyna Kaczmarczyk

Explanation: Venus now appears as Earth's brilliant morning star,
shining above the southeastern horizon before dawn. For early morning
risers, the silvery celestial beacon rose predawn in a close pairing
with a waning crescent Moon on Thursday, November 9. But from some
northern locations, the Moon was seen to occult or pass in front of
Venus. From much of Europe, the lunar occultation could be viewed in
daylight skies. This time series composite follows the daytime approach
of Moon and morning star in blue skies from Warsaw, Poland. The
progression of eight sharp telescopic snapshots, made between 10:56am
and 10:58am local time, runs from left to right, when Venus winked out
behind the bright lunar limb.

Tomorrow's picture: Aurora over Greenland
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2023 November 17

Nightlights in Qeqertaq
Image Credit & Copyright: Dennis Lehtonen

Explanation: Light pollution is usually not a problem in Qeqertaq. In
western Greenland the remote coastal village boasted a population of
114 in 2020. Lights still shine in its dark skies though. During planet
Earth's recent intense geomagnetic storm
, on November 6 these beautiful curtains of aurora borealis fell over
the arctic realm. On the eve of the coming weeks of polar night at 70
degrees north latitude, the inspiring display of northern lights is
reflected in the waters of Disko Bay. In this view from the isolated
settlement a lone iceberg is illuminated by shore lights as it drifts
across the icy sea.

Weekend Watch: The Leonid Meteor Shower.
Tomorrow's picture: Artemis Anniversary
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2023 November 18

Planet Earth from Orion
Image Credit: NASA, Artemis I

Explanation: One year ago a Space Launch System rocket left planet
Earth on November 16, 2022 at 1:47am EST carrying the Orion spacecraft
on the Artemis I mission, the first integrated test of NASACÇÖs deep
space exploration systems. Over an hour after liftoff from Kennedy
Space Center's historic Launch Complex 39B, one of Orion's external
video cameras captured this view of its new perspective from space. In
the foreground are Orion's Orbital Maneuvering System engine and
auxillary engines, at the bottom of the European Service Module. Beyond
one of the module's 7-meter long extended solar array wings lies the
spacecraft's beautiful home world. Making close flybys of the lunar
surface and reaching a retrograde orbit 70,000 kilometers beyond the
Moon, the uncrewed Artemis I mission lasted over 25 days, testing
capabilities to enable human exploration of the Moon and Mars. Building
on the success of Artemis I, no earlier than November 2024 the Artemis
II mission with a crew of 4 will venture around the Moon and back
again.

Tomorrow's picture: Sun day
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2023 November 19
A silhouette of the International Space Station (ISS) is pictured in
front the top of the Sun, shown with great detail. An inset image shows
where on the ISS the Dragon capsule is docked. Please see the
explanation for more detailed information.

Space Station, Solar Prominences, Sun
Image Credit & Copyright: Mehmet Ergu+ên

Explanation: That's no sunspot. It's the International Space Station
(ISS) caught passing in front of the Sun. Sunspots, individually, have
a dark central umbra, a lighter surrounding penumbra, and no Dragon
capsules attached. By contrast, the ISS is a complex and multi-spired
mechanism, one of the largest and most complicated spacecraft ever
created by humanity. Also, sunspots circle the Sun, whereas the ISS
orbits the Earth. Transiting the Sun is not very unusual for the ISS,
which orbits the Earth about every 90 minutes, but getting one's
location, timing and equipment just right for a great image is rare.
The featured picture combined three images all taken in 2021 from the
same location and at nearly the same time. One image -- overexposed --
captured the faint prominences seen across the top of the Sun, a second
image -- underexposed -- captured the complex texture of the Sun's
chromosphere, while the third image -- the hardest to get -- captured
the space station as it shot across the Sun in a fraction of a second.
Close inspection of the space station's silhouette even reveals a
docked Dragon Crew capsule.

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Tomorrow's picture: dark horse
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2023 November 20
A dark nebula resembling the head of a horse is imaged before a
red-glowing background. Stars appear throughout the image. Please see
the explanation for more detailed information.

The Horsehead Nebula
Image Credit & Copyright: Mark Hanson & Martin Pugh, SSRO, PROMPT,
CTIO, NSF

Explanation: Sculpted by stellar winds and radiation, a magnificent
interstellar dust cloud by chance has assumed this recognizable shape.
Fittingly named the Horsehead Nebula, it is some 1,500 light-years
distant, embedded in the vast Orion cloud complex. About five
light-years "tall," the dark cloud is cataloged as Barnard 33 and is
visible only because its obscuring dust is silhouetted against the
glowing red emission nebula IC 434. Stars are forming within the dark
cloud. Contrasting blue reflection nebula NGC 2023, surrounding a hot,
young star, is at the lower left of the full image. The featured
gorgeous color image combines both narrowband and broadband images
recorded using several different telescopes.

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Tomorrow's picture: supernova wisp
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2023 November 21
A nebula consisting of blue and red wisps starts thin at the image
bottom but expands into a triangle at the image top. Please see the
explanation for more detailed information.

Fleming's Triangular Wisp
Image Credit & Copyright: Cristiano Gualco

Explanation: These chaotic and tangled filaments of shocked, glowing
gas are spread across planet Earth's sky toward the constellation of
Cygnus as part of the Veil Nebula. The Veil Nebula itself is a large
supernova remnant, an expanding cloud born of the death explosion of a
massive star. Light from the original supernova explosion likely
reached Earth over 5,000 years ago. The glowing filaments are really
more like long ripples in a sheet seen almost edge on, remarkably well
separated into the glow of ionized hydrogen atoms shown in red and
oxygen in blue hues. Also known as the Cygnus Loop and cataloged as NGC
6979, the Veil Nebula now spans about 6 times the diameter of the full
Moon. The length of the wisp corresponds to about 30 light years, given
its estimated distance of 2,400 light years. Often identified as
Pickering's Triangle for a director of Harvard College Observatory, it
is perhaps better named for its discoverer, astronomer Williamina
Fleming, as Fleming's Triangular Wisp.

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Tomorrow's picture: open space
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2023 November 22

IC 342: Hidden Galaxy in Camelopardalis
Image Credit & Copyright: Steve Cannistra

Explanation: Similar in size to large, bright spiral galaxies in our
neighborhood, IC 342 is a mere 10 million light-years distant in the
long-necked, northern constellation Camelopardalis. A sprawling island
universe, IC 342 would otherwise be a prominent galaxy in our night
sky, but it is hidden from clear view and only glimpsed through the
veil of stars, gas and dust clouds along the plane of our own Milky Way
galaxy. Even though IC 342's light is dimmed and reddened by
intervening cosmic clouds, this sharp telescopic image traces the
galaxy's own obscuring dust, young star clusters, and glowing star
forming regions along spiral arms that wind far from the galaxy's core.
IC 342 has undergone a recent burst of star formation activity and is
close enough to have gravitationally influenced the evolution of the
local group of galaxies and the Milky Way.

Tomorrow's picture: pixels in space
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2023 November 23

Along the Taurus Molecular Cloud
Image Credit & Copyright: Yuexiao Shen, Joe Hua

Explanation: The cosmic brush of star formation composed this
interstellar canvas of emission, dust, and dark nebulae. A 5 degree
wide telescopic mosaic, it frames a region found north of bright star
Aldebaran on the sky, at an inner wall of the local bubble along the
Taurus molecular cloud. At lower left, emission cataloged as Sh2-239
shows signs of embedded young stellar objects. The region's Herbig-Haro
objects, nebulosities associated with newly born stars, are marked by
tell-tale reddish jets of shocked hydrogen gas. Above and right T
Tauri, the prototype of the class of T Tauri variable stars, is next to
a yellowish nebula historically known as Hind's Variable Nebula (NGC
1555). T Tauri stars are now generally recognized as young, less than a
few million years old, sun-like stars still in the early stages of
formation.

Tomorrow's picture: Stereo Jupiter
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
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2023 November 24

Stereo Jupiter near Opposition
Image Credit & Copyright: Marco Lorenzi

Explanation: Jupiter looks sharp in these two rooftop telescope images.
Both were captured on November 17 from Singapore, planet Earth, about
two weeks after Jupiter's 2023 opposition. Climbing high in midnight
skies the giant planet was a mere 33.4 light-minutes from Singapore.
That's about 4 astronomical units away. Jupiter's planet girdling dark
belts and light zones are visible in remarkable detail, along with the
giant world's whitish oval vortices. Its signature Great Red Spot is
still prominent in the south. Jupiter rotates rapidly on its axis once
every 10 hours. So, based on video frames taken only 15 minutes apart,
these images form a stereo pair. Look at the center of the pair and
cross your eyes until the separate images come together to see the
Solar System's ruling gas giant in 3D.

Tomorrow's picture: light-weekend
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2023 November 25

Little Planet Aurora
Image Credit & Copyright: Victor Lima

Explanation: Immersed in an eerie greenish light, this rugged little
planet appears to be home to stunning water falls and an impossibly
tall mountain. It's planet Earth of course. On the night of November 9
the nadir-centered 360 degree mosaic was captured by digital camera
from the Kirkjufell mountain area of western Iceland. Curtains of
shimmering Aurora Borealis or Northern Lights provide the pale greenish
illumination. The intense auroral display was caused by solar activity
that rocked Earth's magnetosphere in early November and produced strong
geomagnetic storms. Kirkjufell mountain itself stands at the top of the
stereographic projection's circular horizon. Northern hemisphere
skygazers will recognize the familiar stars of the Big Dipper just
above Kirkjufell's peak. At lower right the compact Pleiades star
cluster and truly giant planet Jupiter also shine in this little
planet's night sky.

Tomorrow's picture: The Surface of 67P
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2023 November 26
A dark and jagged hill is shown strewn with rocks. On the slope is a
white foggy area that appears to emanate from a non-descript place on
the rock face. Please see the explanation for more detailed
information.

A Dust Jet from the Surface of Comet 67P
Image Credit: ESA, Rosetta, MPS, OSIRIS;
UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA

Explanation: 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. In 2016, though, ESA's Rosetta spacecraft not only
imaged a jet emerging from Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, but flew
right through it. Featured is a telling picture showing a bright plume
emerging from a small circular dip bounded on one side by a 10-meter
high wall. Analyses of Rosetta data show that the jet was composed of
both dust and water-ice. The rugged but otherwise unremarkable terrain
indicates that something likely happened far under the porous surface
to create the plume. This image was taken about two months before
Rosetta's mission ended with a controlled impact onto Comet 67P's
surface.

Tomorrow's picture: eagle ray
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2023 November 27
A light brown nebula is seen on a dark starfield. The outline of the
nebula makes it appear like an eagle ray fish. Please see the
explanation for more detailed information.

LBN 86: The Eagle Ray Nebula
Image Credit & Copyright: Vikas Chander

Explanation: This eagle ray glides across a cosmic sea. Officially
cataloged as SH2-63 and LBN 86, the dark nebula is composed of gas and
dust that just happens to appear shaped like a common ocean fish. The
interstellar dust nebula appears light brown as it blocks and reddens
visible light emitted behind it. Dark nebulas glow primarily in
infrared light, but also reflect visible light from surrounding stars.
The dust in dark nebulas is usually sub-millimeter chunks of carbon,
silicon, and oxygen, frequently coated with frozen carbon monoxide and
nitrogen. Dark nebulas are also known as molecular clouds because they
also contain relatively high amounts of molecular hydrogen and larger
molecules. Previously unnamed, the here dubbed Eagle Ray Nebula is
normally quite dim but has been imaged clearly over 20-hours through
dark skies in Chile.

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Tomorrow's picture: largest moon
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2023 November 28
A tan sphere is shown with dark markings and a few light craters. The
sphere is the largest known moon in the Solar System: Jupiter's moon
Ganymede. Please see the explanation for more detailed information.

Ganymede from Juno
Image Credit & Copyright: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS; Processing &
License: Kevin M. Gill;

Explanation: What does the largest moon in the Solar System look like?
Jupiter's moon Ganymede, larger than even Mercury and Pluto, has an icy
surface speckled with bright young craters overlying a mixture of
older, darker, more cratered terrain laced with grooves and ridges. The
cause of the grooved terrain remains a topic of research, with a
leading hypothesis relating it to shifting ice plates. Ganymede is
thought to have an ocean layer that contains more water than Earth --
and might contain life. Like Earth's Moon, Ganymede keeps the same face
towards its central planet, in this case Jupiter. The featured image
was captured in 2021 by NASA's robotic Juno spacecraft when it passed
by the immense moon. The close pass reduced Juno's orbital period
around Jupiter from 53 days to 43 days. Juno continues to study the
giant planet's high gravity, unusual magnetic field, and complex cloud
structures.

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Tomorrow's picture: double twister
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2023 November 29
A funnel cloud is shown, but inside what appears to be a wider funnel
cloud. A blue sky with a few white clouds is seen in the background,
while flat plains are seen in the foreground. Please see the
explanation for more detailed information.

A Landspout Tornado over Kansas
Image Credit & Copyright: Brad Hannon

Explanation: Could there be a tornado inside another tornado? In
general, no. OK, but could there be a tornado inside a wider dust
devil? No again, for one reason because tornados comes down from the
sky, but dust devils rise up from the ground. What is pictured is a
landspout, an unusual type of tornado known to occur on the edge of a
violent thunderstorm. The featured landspout was imaged and identified
in Kansas, USA, in June 2019 by an experienced storm chaser. The real
tornado is in the center, and the outer sheath was possibly created by
large dust particles thrown out from the central tornado. So far, the
only planet known to create tornados is Earth, although tornado-like
activity has been found on the Sun and dust devils are common on Mars.

Almost Hyperspace: Random APOD Generator
Tomorrow's picture: Flight Day 13
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2023 November 30

Artemis 1: Flight Day 13
Image Credit: NASA, Artemis I

Explanation: On flight day 13 (November 28, 2022) of the Artemis I
mission, the Orion spacecraft reached its maximum distance from its
home world. Over 430,000 kilometers from Earth in a distant retrograde
orbit, Orion surpassed the record for most distant spacecraft designed
to carry humans. That record was previously set in 1970 during the
Apollo 13 mission to the Moon. Both Earth and Moon are in the same
field of view in this video frame from Orion on Artemis I mission
flight day 13. The planet and its large natural satellite even appear
about the same apparent size from the uncrewed spacecraft's
perspective.

Tomorrow's picture: galaxy rise
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2023 December 1

Milky Way Rising
Image Credit & Copyright: Jos+¬ Rodrigues

Explanation: The core of the Milky Way is rising beyond the Chilean
mountain-top La Silla Observatory in this deep night skyscape. Seen
toward the constellation Sagittarius, our home galaxy's center is
flanked on the left, by the European Southern Observatory's New
Technology Telescope which pioneered the use of active optics to
accurately control the shape of large telescope mirrors. To the right
stands the ESO 3.6-meter Telescope, home of the exoplanet hunting HARPS
and NIRPS spectrographs. Between them, the galaxy's central bulge is
filled with obscuring clouds of interstellar dust, bright stars,
clusters, and nebulae. Prominent reddish hydrogen emission from the
star-forming Lagoon Nebula, M8, is near center. The Trifid Nebula, M20,
combines blue light of a dusty reflection nebula with reddish emission
just left of the cosmic Lagoon. Both are popular stops on telescopic
tours of the galactic center. The composited image is a stack of
separate exposures for ground and sky made in April 2023, all captured
consecutively with the same framing and camera equipment.

Tomorrow's picture: light-weekend
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2023 December 2

Startrails over Beijing Ancient Observatory
Image Credit & Copyright: Jeff Dai (TWAN)

Explanation: You can take a subway ride to visit this observatory in
Beijing, China but you won't find any telescopes there. Starting in the
1400s astronomers erected devices at the Beijing Ancient Observatory
site to enable them to accurately measure and track the positions of
naked-eye stars and planets. Some of the large, ornate astronomical
instruments are still standing. You can even see stars from the star
observation platform today, but now only the very brightest celestial
beacons are visible against the city lights. In this time series of
exposures from a camera fixed to a tripod to record graceful arcing
startrails, the brightest trail is actually the Moon. Its broad arc is
seen behind the ancient observatory's brass armillary sphere. Compare
this picture from the Beijing Ancient Observatory taken in September
2023 to one taken in 1895.

Tomorrow's picture: moonset
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2023 December 3

Moon Setting Behind Teide Volcano
Video Credit & Copyright: Daniel L+|pez (El Cielo de Canarias); Music:
Piano della Moon (Dan Silva)

Explanation: These people are not in danger. What is coming down from
the left is just the Moon, far in the distance. Luna appears so large
here because she is being photographed through a telescopic lens. What
is moving is mostly the Earth, whose spin causes the Moon to slowly
disappear behind Mount Teide, a volcano in the Canary Islands off the
northwest coast of Africa. The people pictured are 16 kilometers away
and many are facing the camera because they are watching the Sun rise
behind the photographer. It is not a coincidence that a full moon rises
just when the Sun sets because the Sun is always on the opposite side
of the sky from a full moon. The featured video was made in 2018 during
the full Milk Moon. The video is not time-lapse -- this was really how
fast the Moon was setting.

Tomorrow's picture: moon shot
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
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2023 December 4
A thin crescent moon is shown with a bright red contrail going through
it, right to left. Please see the explanation for more detailed
information.

Plane Crossing Crescent Moon
Image Credit & Copyright: Juned Patel

Explanation: No, the Moon is not a bow, and no, it did not shoot out a
plane like an arrow. What is pictured is a chance superposition. The
plane's contrail would normally appear white, but the large volume of
air toward the rising Sun preferentially knocked away blue light, not
only making the sky blue, but giving the reflected trail a bright red
hue. Far in the distance, well behind the plane, the crescent Moon also
appears slightly reddened. Captured early last month from Bolton, UK,
the featured image was taken so soon after sunrise that the plane was
sunlit from below, as was its contrail. Within minutes, unfortunately,
the impromptu sky show ended. The plane moved out of sight. The Moon
kept rising but became harder to see through a brightening sky. And the
contrail gradually dispersed.

Tomorrow's picture: powerful ray
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2023 December 5
An illustrations depicts a high energy cosmic ray starting an air
shower in the Earth's atmosphere. Below is an array of air shower
detectors. Please see the explanation for more detailed information.

Energetic Particle Strikes the Earth
Illustration Credit: Osaka Metropolitan U./L-INSIGHT, Kyoto
U./Ryuunosuke Takeshige

Explanation: It was one of the most energetic particles ever known to
strike the Earth -- but where did it come from? Dubbed Amaterasu after
the Shinto sun goddess, this particle, as do all cosmic rays that
strike the Earth's atmosphere, caused an air shower of electrons,
protons, and other elementary particles to spray down onto the Earth
below. In the featured illustration, a cosmic ray air shower is
pictured striking the Telescope Array in Utah, USA, which recorded the
Amaterasu event in 2021 May. Cosmic ray air showers are common enough
that you likely have been in a particle spray yourself, although you
likely wouldn't have noticed. The origin of this energetic particle,
likely the nucleus of an atom, remains a mystery in two ways. First, it
is not known how any single particle or atomic nucleus can practically
acquire so much energy, and second, attempts to trace the particle back
to where it originated did not indicate any likely potential source.

Open Science: Browse 3,200+ codes in the Astrophysics Source Code
Library
Tomorrow's picture: torched by stars
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2023 December 6
Brown dust pillars in the Carina Nebula are shown. Many appear like a
torch since their ends are lit up with starlight. Please see the
explanation for more detailed information.

Stars Versus Dust in the Carina Nebula
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble Heritage (STScI/AURA); Processing:
Franco Meconi (Terraza al Cosmos)

Explanation: It's stars versus dust in the Carina Nebula and the stars
are winning. More precisely, the energetic light and winds from massive
newly formed stars are evaporating and dispersing the dusty stellar
nurseries in which they formed. Located in the Carina Nebula and inside
a region known informally as Mystic Mountain, these pillars' appearance
is dominated by opaque brown dust even though it is composed mostly of
clear hydrogen gas. Even though some of the dust pillars look like
torches, their ends are not on fire -- rather, they are illuminated by
nearby stars. About 7,500 light-years distant, the featured image was
taken with the Hubble Space Telescope and highlights an interior region
of Carina known as HH1066 which spans nearly a light year. Within a few
million years, the stars will likely win out completely and the dust
torches will completely evaporate.

Tomorrow's picture: Orion and the Ocean of Storms
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2023 December 7

Orion and the Ocean of Storms
Image Credit: NASA, Artemis 1

Explanation: On December 5, 2022, a camera on board the uncrewed Orion
spacecraft captured this view as Orion approached its return powered
flyby of the Moon. Beyond one of Orion's extended solar arrays lies
dark, smooth, terrain along the western edge of the Oceanus
Procellarum. Prominent on the lunar nearside Oceanus Procellarum, the
Ocean of Storms, is the largest of the Moon's lava-flooded maria. The
lunar terminator, shadow line between lunar night and day, runs along
the left of this frame. The 41 kilometer diameter crater Marius is top
center, with ray crater Kepler peeking in at the edge, just right of
the solar array wing. Kepler's bright rays extend to the north and
west, reaching the dark-floored Marius. On December 11, 2022 the Orion
spacecraft reached its home world. The historic Artemis 1 mission ended
with Orion's successful splashdown in planet Earth's water-flooded
Pacific Ocean.

Tomorrow's picture: pixels in space
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2023 December 8
See Explanation. Clicking on the picture will download the highest
resolution version available.

Vega and Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks
Image Credit & Copyright: Dan Bartlett

Explanation: On December 4, periodic Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks shared this
telescopic field of view with Vega, alpha star of the northern
constellation Lyra. Fifth brightest star in planet Earth's night, Vega
is some 25 light-years distant while the much fainter comet was about
21 light-minutes away. In recent months, outbursts have caused dramatic
increases in brightness for Pons-Brooks though. Nicknamed the Devil
Comet for its hornlike appearance, fans of interstellar spaceflight
have also suggested the distorted shape of this large comet's central
coma looks like the Millenium Falcon. A Halley-type comet,
12P/Pons-Brooks last visited the inner Solar System in 1954. Its next
perihelion passage or closest approach to the Sun will be April 21,
2024. That's just two weeks after the April 8 total solar eclipse path
crosses North America. But, highly inclined to the Solar System's
ecliptic plane, the orbit of periodic Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks will never
cross the orbit of planet Earth.

Tomorrow's picture: light-weekend
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2023 December 9

Pic du Pleiades
Image Credit & Copyright: Jean-Francois Graffand

Explanation: Near dawn on November 19 the Pleiades stood in still dark
skies over the French Pyrenees. But just before sunrise a serendipitous
moment was captured in this single 3 second exposure; a bright meteor
streak appeared to pierce the heart of the galactic star cluster. From
the camera's perspective, star cluster and meteor were poised directly
above the mountain top observatory on the Pic du Midi de Bigorre. And
though astronomers might consider the Pleiades to be relatively close
by, the grain of dust vaporizing as it plowed through planet Earth's
upper atmosphere actually missed the cluster's tight grouping of young
stars by about 400 light-years. While recording a night sky timelapse
series, the camera and telephoto lens were fixed to a tripod on the
Tour-de-France-cycled slopes of the Col du Tourmalet about 5 kilometers
from the Pic du Midi.

Tomorrow's picture: the plough over the mountain
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2023 December 10
A landscape shows tall mountains in the distance and evergreen trees
nearby. Overhead is a star filled sky, with the stars of the Big Dipper
easily apparent. A rollover image labels names for the Big Dipper
stars. Please see the explanation for more detailed information.

Big Dipper over Pyramid Mountain
Image Credit & Copyright: Steve Cullen

Explanation: When did you first learn to identify this group of stars?
Although they are familiar to many people around the world, different
cultures have associated this asterism with different icons and
folklore. Known in the USA as the Big Dipper, the stars are part of a
constellation designated by the International Astronomical Union in
1922 as the Great Bear (Ursa Major). The recognized star names of these
stars are (left to right) Alkaid, Mizar/Alcor, Alioth, Megrez, Phecda,
Merak, and Dubhe. Of course, stars in any given constellation are
unlikely to be physically related. But surprisingly, most of the Big
Dipper stars do seem to be headed in the same direction as they plough
through space, a property they share with other stars spread out over
an even larger area across the sky. Their measured common motion
suggests that they all belong to a loose, nearby star cluster, thought
to be on average only about 75 light-years away and up to 30
light-years across. The cluster is more properly known as the Ursa
Major Moving Group. The featured image captured the iconic stars
recently above Pyramid Mountain in Alberta, Canada.

Night Sky Network webinar: APOD editor to review coolest space images
of 2023
Tomorrow's picture: sun change
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2023 December 11

Solar Minimum versus Solar Maximum
Video Credit: NASA, SDO, SVS

Explanation: The surface of our Sun is constantly changing. Some years
it is quiet, showing relatively few sunspots and active regions. Other
years it is churning, showing many sunspots and throwing frequent
Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) and flares. Reacting to magnetism, our
Sun's surface goes through periods of relative calm, called Solar
Minimum and relative unrest, called Solar Maximum, every 11 years. The
featured video shows on the left a month in late 2019 when the Sun was
near Solar Minimum, while on the right a month in 2014 when near Solar
Maximum. The video was taken by NASA's Solar Dynamic Observatory in far
ultraviolet light. Our Sun is progressing again toward Solar Maximum in
2025, but displaying even now a surface with a surprisingly high amount
of activity.

Night Sky Network webinar: APOD editor to review coolest space images
of 2023
Tomorrow's picture: double sky arches
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2023 December 12
A night sky filled with stars is shown behind a picturesque foreground.
The foreground contains rounded rocks and a person before a distant
sea. The background contains bands of the Milky Way and bright aurora.
Please see the explanation for more detailed information.

Aurora and Milky Way over Norway
Image Credit & Copyright: Giulio Cobianchi

Explanation: What are these two giant arches across the sky? Perhaps
the more familiar one, on the left, is the central band of our Milky
Way Galaxy. This grand disk of stars and nebulas here appears to
encircle much of the southern sky. Visible below the stellar arch is
the rusty-orange planet Mars and the extended Andromeda galaxy. But
this night had more! For a few minutes during this cold arctic night, a
second giant arch appeared encircling part of the northern sky: an
aurora. Auroras are much closer than stars as they are composed of
glowing air high in Earth's atmosphere. Visible outside the green
auroral arch is the group of stars popularly known as the Big Dipper.
The featured digital composite of 20 images was captured in
mid-November 2022 over the Lofoten Islands in Norway.

APOD Year in Review (2023): RJN's Night Sky Network Lecture
Tomorrow's picture: deep heart
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2023 December 13
A starfield is shown filled with colorful gas glowing in different
colors, and dark dust. Please see the explanation for more detailed
information.

Deep Field: The Heart Nebula
Image Credit & Copyright: William Ostling, Telescope Live

Explanation: What excites the Heart Nebula? First, the large emission
nebula on the left, catalogued as IC 1805, looks somewhat like a human
heart. The nebula glows brightly in red light emitted by its most
prominent element, hydrogen, but this long-exposure image was also
blended with light emitted by silicon (yellow) and oxygen (blue). In
the center of the Heart Nebula are young stars from the open star
cluster Melotte 15 that are eroding away several picturesque dust
pillars with their atom-exciting energetic light and winds. The Heart
Nebula is located about 7,500 light years away toward the constellation
of Cassiopeia. At the bottom right of the Heart Nebula is the companion
Fishhead Nebula. This wide and deep image clearly shows, though, that
glowing gas surrounds the Heart Nebula in all directions.

Tomorrow's picture: open space
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2023 December 15

Betelgeuse Eclipsed
Image Credit & Copyright: Sebastian Voltmer

Explanation: Asteroid 319 Leona cast a shadow across planet Earth on
December 12, as it passed in front of bright star Betelgeuse. But to
see everyone's favorite red giant star fade this time, you had to stand
near the center of the narrow shadow path starting in central Mexico
and extending eastward across southern Florida, the Atlantic Ocean,
southern Europe, and Eurasia. The geocentric celestial event is
captured in these two panels taken at Almodovar del Rio, Spain from
before (left) and during the asteroid-star occultation. In both panels
Betelgeuse is seen above and left, at the shoulder of the familiar
constellation Orion. Its brightness diminishes noticeably during the
exceedingly rare occultation when, for several seconds, the giant star
was briefly eclipsed by a roughly 60 kilometer diameter main-belt
asteroid.

Tomorrow's picture: light-weekend
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2023 December 16

Crescent Enceladus
Image Credit: Cassini Imaging Team, SSI, JPL, ESA, NASA

Explanation: Peering from the shadows, the Saturn-facing hemisphere of
tantalizing inner moon Enceladus poses in this Cassini spacecraft
image. North is up in the dramatic scene captured during November 2016
as Cassini's camera was pointed in a nearly sunward direction about
130,000 kilometers from the moon's bright crescent. In fact, the
distant world reflects over 90 percent of the sunlight it receives,
giving its surface about the same reflectivity as fresh snow. A mere
500 kilometers in diameter, Enceladus is a surprisingly active moon.
Data and images collected during Cassini's flybys have revealed water
vapor and ice grains spewing from south polar geysers and evidence of
an ocean of liquid water hidden beneath the moon's icy crust.

Tomorrow's picture: the same color
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2023 December 17
Two people are pictured from the back looking at a dark star-filled
sky. The sky is also filled with numerous streaks caused by meteors
from the Geminids meteor shower. Please see the explanation for more
detailed information.

Geminids over China's Nianhu Lake
Image Credit & Copyright: Hongyang Luo

Explanation: Where are all of these meteors coming from? In terms of
direction on the sky, the pointed answer is the constellation of
Gemini. That is why the major meteor shower in December is known as the
Geminids -- because shower meteors all appear to come from a radiant
toward Gemini. Three dimensionally, however, sand-sized debris expelled
from the unusual asteroid 3200 Phaethon follows a well-defined orbit
about our Sun, and the part of the orbit that approaches Earth is
superposed in front of the constellation of Gemini. Therefore, when
Earth crosses this orbit, the radiant point of falling debris appears
in Gemini. Featured here is a composite of many images taken a few days
ago through dark skies from Nianhu Lake in China. Over 100 bright
meteor streaks from the Geminids meteor shower are visible.

APOD Year in Review (2023): RJN's Night Sky Network Lecture
Tomorrow's picture: the same color
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2023 December 18
A checkerboard is shown with squares colored light and dark grey. A
green tube sits on the board and casts a shadow. The image has a letter
A typed on a dark square, and a letter B types on a light square cast
in shadow. The question is asked if the two squares, A and B, are
really the same color. Please see the explanation for more detailed
information.

The Same Color Illusion
Image Credit: Edward H. Adelson, Wikipedia

Explanation: Are squares A and B the same color? They are! To verify
this, either run your cursor over the image or click here to see them
connected. The featured illusion, an example of the same color
illusion, illustrates that purely human perceptions in science may be
ambiguous or inaccurate, even such a seemingly direct perception as
relative color. Similar illusions exist on the sky, such as the size of
the Moon near the horizon, or the apparent shapes of astronomical
objects. The advent of automated, reproducible measuring devices such
as CCDs have made science in general and astronomy in particular less
prone to, but not free of, human-biased illusions.

APOD Year in Review (2023): RJN's Night Sky Network Lecture
Tomorrow's picture: california on high
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2023 December 19
A red gaseous nebula is shown in front of a dark starfield. The shape
of the nebula resembles the US state of California. Please see the
explanation for more detailed information.

NGC 1499: The California Nebula
Image Credit & Copyright: Steven Powell

Explanation: Could Queen Calafia's mythical island exist in space?
Perhaps not, but by chance the outline of this molecular space cloud
echoes the outline of the state of California, USA. Our Sun has its
home within the Milky Way's Orion Arm, only about 1,000 light-years
from the California Nebula. Also known as NGC 1499, the classic
emission nebula is around 100 light-years long. On the featured image,
the most prominent glow of the California Nebula is the red light
characteristic of hydrogen atoms recombining with long lost electrons,
stripped away (ionized) by energetic starlight. The star most likely
providing the energetic starlight that ionizes much of the nebular gas
is the bright, hot, bluish Xi Persei just to the right of the nebula. A
regular target for astrophotographers, the California Nebula can be
spotted with a wide-field telescope under a dark sky toward the
constellation of Perseus, not far from the Pleiades.

Explore Your Universe: Random APOD Generator
Tomorrow's picture: ice fog sky
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2023 December 20
A building is seen from a distance on white snow and with mountains in
the background. An ice-crystal filled sky is seen above. Superposed on
the night sky are numerous curving whisps -- halos of ice reflecting
background moonlight. Please see the explanation for more detailed
information.

Ice Halos over Bavaria
Image Credit & Copyright: Bastian Werner

Explanation: What's causing those unusual sky arcs? Ice crystals. While
crossing a field of fresh snow near F+'ssen, Bavaria, Germany, earlier
this month, the photographer noticed that he had entered an ice fog.
For suspended water to freeze into an ice fog requires quite cold
temperatures, and indeed the air temperature on this day was measured
at well below zero. The ice fog reflected light from the Sun setting
behind St. Coleman Church. The result was one of the greatest
spectacles the photographer has ever seen. First, the spots in the
featured picture are not background stars but suspended ice and snow.
Next, two prominent ice halos are visible: the 22-degree halo and the
46-degree halo. Multiple arcs are also visible, including, from top to
bottom, antisolar (subsun), circumzenithal, Parry, tangent, and
parhelic (horizontal). Finally, the balloon shaped curve connecting the
top arc to the Sun is the rarest of all: it is the heliac arc, created
by reflection from the sides of hexagonally shaped ice crystals
suspended in a horizontal orientation.

Tomorrow's picture: open space
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2023 December 21

Three Galaxies and a Comet
Image Credit & Copyright: Dan Bartlett

Explanation: Distant galaxies abound in this one degree wide field of
view toward the southern constellation Grus (The Crane). But the three
spiral galaxies at the lower right are quite striking. In fact, all
three galaxies are grouped about 70 million light years away and
sometimes known as the Grus Triplet. They share the pretty telescopic
frame, recorded on December 13, with the comet designated C/2020 V2
ZTF. Now outbound from the inner Solar System and swinging below the
ecliptic plane in a hyperbolic orbit, the comet was about 29
light-minutes from our fair planet in this image. And though comet ZTF
was brighter when it was closest to the Sun last May and closest to
Earth in September of 2023, it still shines in telescopes pointed
toward southern night skies, remaining almost as bright as the Grus
Triplet galaxies.

Tomorrow's picture: solstice solargraphy
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2023 December 22

183 Days in the Sun
Image Credit & Copyright: Jos+¬ Zarcos Palma

Explanation: A single 183 day exposure with a pinhole camera and
photographic paper resulted in this long-duration solargraph. Recorded
from solstice to solstice, June 21 to December 21, in 2022, it follows
the Sun's daily arcing path through planet Earth's skies from Mertola,
Portugal. On June 21, the Sun's highest point and longest arc
represents the longest day and the astronomical beginning of summer in
the northern hemisphere. The solstice date with the fewest hours of
daylight is at the beginning of winter in the north, corresponding to
the Sun's shortest and lowest arc in the 2022 solargraph. For 2023, the
northern winter solstice was on December 22 at 3:27 UTC. That's
December 21 for North America time zones.

Tomorrow's picture: light-weekend
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2023 December 23

A December Summer Night
Image Credit & Copyright: Ian Griffin (Otago Museum)

Explanation: Colours of a serene evening sky are captured in this 8
minute exposure, made near this December's solstice from New Zealand,
southern hemisphere, planet Earth. Looking south, star trails form the
short concentric arcs around the rotating planet's south celestial pole
positioned just off the top of the frame. At top and left of center are
trails of the Southern Cross stars and a dark smudge from the Milky
Way's Coalsack Nebula. Alpha and Beta Centauri make the brighter yellow
and blue tinted trails, reflected below in the waters of Hoopers Inlet
in the Pacific coast of the South Island's Otago Peninsula. On that
short December summer night, aurora australis also gave luminous, green
and reddish hues to the sky above the hills. An upper atmospheric glow
distinct from the aurora excited by collisions with energetic
particles, pale greenish bands of airglow caused by a cascade of
chemical reactions excited by sunlight can be traced in diagonal bands
near the top left.

Tomorrow's picture: a cosmic cocoon
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2023 December 24
A nebula in purple and pink is shown with dust pillars curving around.
In the center is a bright orange spot. Please see the explanation for
more detailed information.

NGC 2440: Cocoon of a New White Dwarf
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble; Processing: H. Bond (STScI), R.
Ciardullo (PSU), Forrest Hamilton (STScI)

Explanation: What's that in the center? Like a butterfly, a white dwarf
star begins its life by casting off a cocoon of gas that enclosed its
former self. In this analogy, however, the Sun would be a caterpillar
and the ejected shell of gas would become the prettiest cocoon of all.
In the featured cocoon, the planetary nebula designated NGC 2440
contains one of the hottest white dwarf stars known. The white dwarf
can be seen as the bright orange dot near the image center. Our Sun
will eventually become a white dwarf butterfly, but not for another 5
billion years.

Tomorrow's picture: mansion mountain moon
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2023 December 25
A tree-lined hill is shown topped by a majestic cathedral. Directly
behind the cathedral is of a triangular-shaped mountain top. Directly
behind the mountain is a crescent moon, although the exposure is long
enough to see the rest of lunar circle. Please see the explanation for
more detailed information.

Cathedral, Mountain, Moon
Image Credit & Copyright: Valerio Minato

Explanation: Single shots like this require planning. The first step is
to realize that such an amazing triple-alignment actually takes place.
The second step is to find the best location to photograph it. But it
was the third step: being there at exactly the right time -- and when
the sky was clear -- that was the hardest. Five times over six years
the photographer tried and found bad weather. Finally, just ten days
ago, the weather was perfect, and a photographic dream was realized.
Taken in Piemonte, Italy, the cathedral in the foreground is the
Basilica of Superga, the mountain in the middle is Monviso, and, well,
you know which moon is in the background. Here, even though the setting
Moon was captured in a crescent phase, the exposure was long enough for
doubly reflected Earthlight, called the da Vinci glow, to illuminate
the entire top of the Moon.

Your Sky Surprise: What picture did APOD feature on your birthday?
(post 1995)
Tomorrow's picture: cosmic jellyfish
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2023 December 26
A complex nebula is shown in front of a dense starfield. The nebula
appears orange. A bright star is seen just to the right of the nebula.
Please see the explanation for more detailed information.

IC 443: The Jellyfish Nebula
Image Credit & Copyright: David Payne

Explanation: Why is this jellyfish swimming in a sea of stars? Drifting
near bright star Eta Geminorum, seen at the right, the Jellyfish Nebula
extends its tentacles from the bright arcing ridge of emission left of
center. In fact, the cosmic jellyfish is part of bubble-shaped
supernova remnant IC 443, the expanding debris cloud from a massive
star that exploded. Light from the explosion first reached planet Earth
over 30,000 years ago. Like its cousin in astronomical waters, the Crab
Nebula supernova remnant IC 443 is known to harbor a neutron star --
the remnant of the collapsed stellar core. The Jellyfish Nebula is
about 5,000 light-years away. At that distance, the featured image
would span about 140 light-years across.

Your Sky Surprise: What picture did APOD feature on your birthday?
(post 1995)
Tomorrow's picture: rainbow aurora
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2023 December 27
A waterfall is shown in the image center below a starry sky. Arching
above the waterfall is a colorful aurora. Arching above the aurora is
the central band of the Milky Way. Please see the explanation for more
detailed information.

Rainbow Aurora over Icelandic Waterfall
Image Credit & Copyright: Stefano Pellegrini

Explanation: Yes, but can your aurora do this? First, yes, auroras can
look like rainbows even though they are completely different phenomena.
Auroras are caused by Sun-created particles being channeled into
Earth's atmosphere by Earth's magnetic field, and create colors by
exciting atoms at different heights. Conversely, rainbows are created
by sunlight backscattering off falling raindrops, and different colors
are refracted by slightly different angles. Unfortunately, auroras
canCÇÖt create waterfalls, but if you plan well and are lucky enough, you
can photograph them together. The featured picture is composed of
several images taken on the same night last month near the Sk+|gafoss
waterfall in Iceland. The planning centered on capturing the central
band of our Milky Way galaxy over the picturesque cascade. By luck, a
spectacular aurora soon appeared just below the curving arch of the
Milky Way. Far in the background, the Pleiades star cluster and the
Andromeda galaxy can be found.

Your Sky Surprise: What picture did APOD feature on your birthday?
(post 1995)
Tomorrow's picture: open space
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2023 December 28

Jupiter and the Geminid
Image Credit & Copyright: Gaurav Singh

Explanation: For a brief moment, this brilliant fireball meteor
outshone Jupiter in planet Earth's night. The serendipitous image was
captured while hunting meteors under cold Canadian skies with a camera
in timelapse mode on December 14, near the peak of the Geminid meteor
shower. The Geminid meteor shower, asteroid 3200 Phaethon's annual
gift, always arrives in December. Dust shed along the orbit of the
mysterious asteroid causes the meteor streaks, as the vaporizing grains
plow through our fair planet's upper atmosphere at 22 kilometers per
second. Of course Geminid shower meteors appear to radiate from a point
in the constellation of the Twins. That's below and left of this frame.
With bright Jupiter on the right, also in the December night skyview
are the Pleiades and Hyades star clusters.

Tomorrow's picture: Shakespeare in space
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2023 December 29

Shakespeare in Space
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI

Explanation: In 1986, Voyager 2 became the only spacecraft to explore
ice giant planet Uranus close up. Still, this newly released image from
the NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) on the James Webb Space Telescope
offers a detailed look at the distant world. The tilted outer planet
rotates on its axis once in about 17 hours. Its north pole is presently
pointed near our line of sight, offering direct views of its northern
hemisphere and a faint but extensive system of rings. Of the giant
planet's 27 known moons, 14 are annotated in the image. The brighter
ones show hints of Webb's characteristic diffraction spikes. And though
these worlds of the outer Solar System were unknown in Shakespearean
times, all but two of the 27 Uranian moons are named for characters in
the English Bard's plays.

Tomorrow's picture: the cold and tired moon
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2023 December 30

The Last Full Moon
Image Credit & Copyright: Giacomo Venturin

Explanation: Known to some in the northern hemisphere as December's
Cold Moon or the Long Night Moon, the last full moon of 2023 is rising
in this surreal mountain and skyscape. The Daliesque scene was captured
in a single exposure with a camera and long telephoto lens near Monte
Grappa, Italy. The full moon is not melting, though. Its stretched and
distorted appearance near the horizon is caused as refraction along the
line of sight changes and creates shifting images or mirages of the
bright lunar disk. The changes in atmospheric refraction correspond to
atmospheric layers with sharply different temperatures and densities.
Other effects of atmospheric refraction produced by the long sight-line
to this full moon rising include the thin red rim seen faintly on the
distorted lower edge of the Moon and a thin green rim along the top.

Tomorrow's picture: Illustris
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2023 December 31

Illustris: A Simulation of the Universe
Video Credit: Illustris Collaboration, NASA, PRACE, XSEDE, MIT, Harvard
CfA;
Music: The Poisoned Princess (Media Right Productions)

Explanation: How did we get here? Click play, sit back, and watch. A
computer simulation of the evolution of the universe provides insight
into how galaxies formed and perspectives into humanity's place in the
universe. The Illustris project exhausted 20 million CPU hours in 2014
following 12 billion resolution elements spanning a cube 35 million
light years on a side as it evolved over 13 billion years. The
simulation tracks matter into the formation of a wide variety of galaxy
types. As the virtual universe evolves, some of the matter expanding
with the universe soon gravitationally condenses to form filaments,
galaxies, and clusters of galaxies. The featured video takes the
perspective of a virtual camera circling part of this changing
universe, first showing the evolution of dark matter, then hydrogen gas
coded by temperature (0:45), then heavy elements such as helium and
carbon (1:30), and then back to dark matter (2:07). On the lower left
the time since the Big Bang is listed, while on the lower right the
type of matter being shown is listed. Explosions (0:50) depict
galaxy-center supermassive black holes expelling bubbles of hot gas.
Interesting discrepancies between Illustris and the real universe have
been studied, including why the simulation produced an overabundance of
old stars.

Tomorrow's picture: a grand design
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2024 January 1
A spiral galaxy with big blue spiral arms is shown with a center that
appears more yellow. Please see the explanation for more detailed
information.

NGC 1232: A Grand Design Spiral Galaxy
Image Credit: FORS, 8.2-meter VLT Antu, ESO

Explanation: Galaxies are fascinating not only for what is visible, but
for what is invisible. Grand spiral galaxy NGC 1232, captured in detail
by one of the Very Large Telescopes, is a good example. The visible is
dominated by millions of bright stars and dark dust, caught up in a
gravitational swirl of spiral arms revolving about the center. Open
clusters containing bright blue stars can be seen sprinkled along these
spiral arms, while dark lanes of dense interstellar dust can be seen
sprinkled between them. Less visible, but detectable, are billions of
dim normal stars and vast tracts of interstellar gas, together wielding
such high mass that they dominate the dynamics of the inner galaxy.
Leading theories indicate that even greater amounts of matter are
invisible, in a form we don't yet know. This pervasive dark matter is
postulated, in part, to explain the motions of the visible matter in
the outer regions of galaxies.

Free APOD Lecture: January 9, 2024 to the Amateur Astronomers of
Association of New York
Tomorrow's picture: open space
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2024 January 2
A rocket is pictured ascending during launch. A nearly full moon is
behind it. The rocket exhaust, itself visible, causes the bottom of the
Moon to appear unusually rippled. Please see the explanation for more
detailed information.

Rocket Transits Rippling Moon
Image Credit & Copyright: Steven Madow

Explanation: Can a rocket make the Moon ripple? No, but it can make a
background moon appear wavy. The rocket, in this case, was a SpaceX
Falcon Heavy that blasted off from NASA's Kennedy Space Center last
week. In the featured launch picture, the rocket's exhaust plume glows
beyond its projection onto the distant, rising, and nearly full moon.
Oddly, the Moon's lower edge shows unusual drip-like ripples. The Moon
itself, far in the distance, was really unchanged. The physical cause
of these apparent ripples was pockets of relatively hot or rarefied air
deflecting moonlight less strongly than pockets of relatively cool or
compressed air: refraction. Although the shot was planned, the timing
of the launch had to be just right for the rocket to be transiting the
Moon during this single exposure.

Tomorrow's picture: red sky arc
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2024 January 3
A flat landscape with a pond is imaged at night below a starfield. A
multicolored aurora is seen in an arc across the image center. Around
this arc is another red arc that is particularly smooth. Please see the
explanation for more detailed information.

A SAR Arc from New Zealand
Image Credit & Copyright: Tristian McDonald; Text: Tiffany Lewis
(Michigan Tech U.)

Explanation: What is that unusual red halo surrounding this aurora? It
is a Stable Auroral Red (SAR) arc. SAR arcs are rare and have only been
acknowledged and studied since 1954. The featured wide-angle
photograph, capturing nearly an entire SAR arc surrounding more common
green and red aurora, was taken earlier this month from Poolburn, New
Zealand, during an especially energetic geomagnetic storm. Why SAR arcs
form remains a topic of research, but is likely related to Earth's
protective magnetic field, a field created by molten iron flowing deep
inside the Earth. This magnetic field usually redirects incoming
charged particles from the Sun's wind toward the Earth's poles.
However, it also traps a ring of ions closer to the equator, where they
can gain energy from the magnetosphere during high solar activity. The
energetic electrons in this ion ring can collide with and excite oxygen
higher in Earth's ionosphere than typical auroras, causing the oxygen
to glow red. Ongoing research has uncovered evidence that a red SAR arc
can even transform into a purple and green STEVE.

Tomorrow's picture: open space
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2024 January 4

Zeta Oph: Runaway Star
Image Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, Spitzer Space Telescope

Explanation: Like a ship plowing through cosmic seas, runaway star Zeta
Ophiuchi produces the arcing interstellar bow wave or bow shock seen in
this stunning infrared portrait. In the false-color view, bluish Zeta
Oph, a star about 20 times more massive than the Sun, lies near the
center of the frame, moving toward the left at 24 kilometers per
second. Its strong stellar wind precedes it, compressing and heating
the dusty interstellar material and shaping the curved shock front.
What set this star in motion? Zeta Oph was likely once a member of a
binary star system, its companion star was more massive and hence
shorter lived. When the companion exploded as a supernova
catastrophically losing mass, Zeta Oph was flung out of the system.
About 460 light-years away, Zeta Oph is 65,000 times more luminous than
the Sun and would be one of the brighter stars in the sky if it weren't
surrounded by obscuring dust. The image spans about 1.5 degrees or 12
light-years at the estimated distance of Zeta Ophiuchi. In January
2020, NASA placed the Spitzer Space Telescope in safe mode, ending its
16 successful years of exploring the cosmos.

Tomorrow's picture: at the heart of Orion
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2024 January 5

Trapezium: At the Heart of Orion
Image Credit & Copyright: Fred Zimmer, Telescope Live

Explanation: Near the center of this sharp cosmic portrait, at the
heart of the Orion Nebula, are four hot, massive stars known as the
Trapezium. Gathered within a region about 1.5 light-years in radius,
they dominate the core of the dense Orion Nebula Star Cluster.
Ultraviolet ionizing radiation from the Trapezium stars, mostly from
the brightest star Theta-1 Orionis C powers the complex star forming
region's entire visible glow. About three million years old, the Orion
Nebula Cluster was even more compact in its younger years and a
dynamical study indicates that runaway stellar collisions at an earlier
age may have formed a black hole with more than 100 times the mass of
the Sun. The presence of a black hole within the cluster could explain
the observed high velocities of the Trapezium stars. The Orion Nebula's
distance of some 1,500 light-years would make it one of the closest
known black holes to planet Earth.

Tomorrow's picture: light-weekend
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2024 January 6

The Snows of Churyumov-Gerasimenko
Images Credit: ESA, Rosetta, MPS, OSIRIS;
UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA;
Animation: Jacint Roger Perez

Explanation: You couldn't really be caught in this blizzard while
standing by a cliff on periodic comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.
Orbiting the comet in June of 2016, the Rosetta spacecraft's narrow
angle camera did record streaks of dust and ice particles similar to
snow as they drifted across the field of view close to the camera and
above the comet's surface. Still, some of the bright specks in the
scene are likely due to a rain of energetic charged particles or cosmic
rays hitting the camera, and the dense background of stars in the
direction of the constellation of the Big Dog (Canis Major). In the
video, the background stars are easy to spot trailing from top to
bottom. The stunning movie was constructed from 33 consecutive images
taken over 25 minutes while Rosetta cruised some 13 kilometers from the
comet's nucleus. In September 2016, the nucleus became the final
resting place for the Rosetta spacecraft after its mission was ended
with a successful controlled impact on 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

Tomorrow's picture: cats in space
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2024 January 7
An image of the Cat's Eye Nebula shows an unsually shaped gas structure
glowing in purple with a bright orange center. Please see the
explanation for more detailed information.

The Cat's Eye Nebula in Optical and X-ray
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble Legacy Archive; Chandra X-ray Obs.;
Processing & Copyright: Rudy Pohl

Explanation: To some it looks like a cat's eye. To others, perhaps like
a giant cosmic conch shell. It is actually one of the brightest and
most highly detailed planetary nebula known, composed of gas expelled
in the brief yet glorious phase near the end of life of a Sun-like
star. This nebula's dying central star may have produced the outer
circular concentric shells by shrugging off outer layers in a series of
regular convulsions. The formation of the beautiful,
complex-yet-symmetric inner structures, however, is not well
understood. The featured image is a composite of a digitally sharpened
Hubble Space Telescope image with X-ray light captured by the orbiting
Chandra Observatory. The exquisite floating space statue spans over
half a light-year across. Of course, gazing into this Cat's Eye,
humanity may well be seeing the fate of our sun, destined to enter its
own planetary nebula phase of evolution ... in about 5 billion years.

Free APOD Lecture: January 9, 2024 to the Amateur Astronomers of
Association of New York
Tomorrow's picture: Venus year around
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2024 January 8
Many images of Venus are shown superposed. Together, they make an arc
from the top, around the left, to the bottom. The smallest images of
Venus are at the top and show nearly complete circles. The largest are
at the bottom and show thin crescent. phases. Please see the
explanation for more detailed information.

The Phases of Venus
Image Credit & License: St+¬phane Gonzales

Explanation: Venus goes through phases. Just like our Moon, Venus can
appear as a full circular disk, a thin crescent, or anything in
between. Venus, frequently the brightest object in the post-sunset or
pre-sunrise sky, appears so small, however, that it usually requires
binoculars or a small telescope to clearly see its current phase. The
featured time-lapse sequence was taken over the course of six months in
2015 from Surg+¿res, Charente-Maritime, France, and shows not only how
Venus changes phase, but changes angular size as well. When Venus is on
the far side of the Sun from the Earth, it appears angularly smallest
and nearest to full phase, while when Venus and Earth are on the same
side of the Sun, Venus appears larger, but as a crescent. This month
Venus rises before dawn in waxing gibbous phases.

Free APOD Lecture: January 9, 2024 to the Amateur Astronomers of
Association of New York
Tomorrow's picture: Thor's hat
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2024 January 10

The Light, the Dark, and the Dusty
Image Credit & Copyright: G+íbor Galambos

Explanation: This colorful skyscape spans about three full moons across
nebula rich starfields along the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy toward
the royal northern constellation Cepheus. Near the edge of the region's
massive molecular cloud some 2,400 light-years away, bright reddish
emission region Sharpless (Sh)2-155 is at the center of the frame, also
known as the Cave Nebula. About 10 light-years across the cosmic cave's
bright walls of gas are ionized by ultraviolet light from the hot young
stars around it. Dusty bluish reflection nebulae, like vdB 155 at the
left, and dense obscuring clouds of dust also abound on the
interstellar canvas. Astronomical explorations have revealed other
dramatic signs of star formation, including the bright reddish fleck of
Herbig-Haro (HH) 168. At the upper left in the frame, the Herbig-Haro
object emission is generated by energetic jets from a newborn star.

Tomorrow's picture: unforgotten
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2024 January 11

Quadrantids of the North
Image Credit & Copyright: Hù'g#öHäØ Yeom Beom-seok

Explanation: Named for a forgotten constellation, the Quadrantid Meteor
Shower puts on an annual show for planet Earth's northern hemisphere
skygazers. The shower's radiant on the sky lies within the old,
astronomically obsolete constellation Quadrans Muralis. That location
is not far from the Big Dipper asterism, known to some as the Plough,
at the boundaries of the modern constellations Bootes and Draco. In
fact the Big Dipper "handle" stars are near the upper right corner in
this frame, with the meteor shower radiant just below. North star
Polaris is toward the top left. Pointing back toward the radiant,
Quadrantid meteors streak through the night in this skyscape from
Jangsu, South Korea. The composite image was recorded in the hours
around the shower's peak on January 4, 2024. A likely source of the
dust stream that produces Quadrantid meteors was identified in 2003 as
an asteroid.

Tomorrow's picture: pixels in space
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2024 January 12

Good Morning Moon
Image Credit & Copyright: Michael Luy, Trier Observatory, TWAN

Explanation: Yesterday, the Moon was New. But on January 9, early
morning risers around planet Earth were treated to the sight of an old
Moon, low in the east as the sky grew bright before dawn. Above the
city of Saarburg in Rhineland-Palatinate, western Germany, this simple
snapshot found the waning Moon's sunlit crescent just before sunrise.
But also never wandering far from the Sun in Earth's sky, inner planets
Venus and Mercury shared the cold morning skyview. In the foreground
are the historic city's tower and castle with ruins from the 10th
century.

Tomorrow's picture: circle around the Sun
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2024 January 13

Circling the Sun
Image Credit & Copyright: Radoslav Zboran

Explanation: Earth's orbit around the Sun is not a circle, it's an
ellipse. The point along its elliptical orbit where our fair planet is
closest to the Sun is called perihelion. This year, perihelion was on
January 2 at 01:00 UTC, with the Earth about 3 million miles closer to
the Sun than it was at aphelion (last July 6), the farthest point in
its elliptical orbit. Of course, distance from the Sun doesn't
determine the seasons, and it doesn't the determine size of Sun halos.
Easier to see with the Sun hidden behind a tall tree trunk, this
beautiful ice halo forms a 22 degree-wide circle around the Sun,
recorded while strolling through the countryside near Heroldstatt,
Germany. The Sun halo's 22 degree angular diameter is determined by the
six-sided geometry of water ice crystals drifting high in planet
Earth's atmosphere.

Tomorrow's picture: there be dragons
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2024 January 14
A person stands on snow and looks up at a starry sky. In the sky is a
large green aurora that resembles a dragon. Please see the explanation
for more detailed information.

Dragon Aurora over Iceland
Image Credit & Copyright: Jingyi Zhang & Wang Zheng

Explanation: Have you ever seen a dragon in the sky? Although real
flying dragons don't exist, a huge dragon-shaped aurora developed in
the sky over Iceland in 2019. The aurora was caused by a hole in the
Sun's corona that expelled charged particles into a solar wind that
followed a changing interplanetary magnetic field to Earth's
magnetosphere. As some of those particles then struck Earth's
atmosphere, they excited atoms which subsequently emitted light:
aurora. This iconic display was so enthralling that the photographer's
mother ran out to see it and was captured in the foreground. Our active
Sun continues to show an unusually high number of prominences,
filaments, sunspots, and large active regions as solar maximum
approaches in 2025.

Tomorrow's picture: reflecting stars
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2024 January 15
A cluster of stars is shown along with surrounding nebular gas a and
dust. Shown in infrared light in pink, the dust winds around the nebula
center and itself appears composed of many finer filaments. Please see
the explanation for more detailed information.

Star Cluster IC 348 from Webb
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, and K. Luhman (Penn State U.) and
C. Alves de Oliveira (ESA)

Explanation: Sometimes, it's the stars that are the hardest to see that
are the most interesting. IC 348 is a young star cluster that
illuminates surrounding filamentary dust. The stringy and winding dust
appears pink in this recently released infrared image from the Webb
Space Telescope. In visible light, this dust reflects mostly blue
light, giving the surrounding material the familiar blue hue of a
reflection nebula. Besides bright stars, several cool objects have been
located in IC 348, visible because they glow brighter in infrared
light. These objects are hypothesized to be low mass brown dwarfs.
Evidence for this includes the detection of an unidentified atmospheric
chemical, likely a hydrocarbon, seen previously in the atmosphere of
Saturn. These objects appear to have masses slightly greater than known
planets, only a few times greater than Jupiter. Together, these
indicate that this young star cluster contains something noteworthy --
young planet-mass brown dwarfs that float free, not orbiting any other
star.

Tomorrow's picture: almost orion
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2024 January 16
The constellation of Orion is shown, but the image is so deep that many
nebula appear, making the belt stars and surrounding star almost
recognizable. The rollover image labels the brightest stars. Please see
the explanation for more detailed information.

The Orion You Can Almost See
Image Credit & Copyright: Michele Guzzini

Explanation: Do you recognize this constellation? Although it is one of
the most recognizable star groupings on the sky, this is a more full
Orion than you can see -- an Orion only revealed with long exposure
digital camera imaging and post- processing. Here the cool red giant
Betelgeuse takes on a strong orange tint as the brightest star on the
upper left. Orion's hot blue stars are numerous, with supergiant Rigel
balancing Betelgeuse on the lower right, and Bellatrix at the upper
right. Lined up in Orion's belt are three stars all about 1,500
light-years away, born from the constellation's well-studied
interstellar clouds. Just below Orion's belt is a bright but fuzzy
patch that might also look familiar -- the stellar nursery known as
Orion's Nebula. Finally, just barely visible to the unaided eye but
quite striking here is Barnard's Loop -- a huge gaseous emission nebula
surrounding Orion's Belt and Nebula discovered over 100 years ago by
the pioneering Orion photographer E. E. Barnard.

Tomorrow's picture: the sea of serenity
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2024 January 17

America and the Sea of Serenity
Image Credit & Copyright: Gene Cernan, Apollo 17, NASA; Anaglyph by
Patrick Vantuyne

Explanation: Get out your red/blue glasses and check out this stereo
view of another world. The scene was recorded by Apollo 17 mission
commander Eugene Cernan on December 11, 1972, one orbit before
descending to land on the Moon. The stereo anaglyph was assembled from
two photographs (AS17-147-22465, AS17-147-22466) captured from his
vantage point on board the Lunar Module Challenger as he and Dr.
Harrison Schmitt flew over Apollo 17's landing site in the
Taurus-Littrow Valley. The broad, sunlit face of the mountain dubbed
South Massif rises near the center of the frame, above the dark floor
of Taurus-Littrow to its left. Piloted by Ron Evans, the Command Module
America is visible in orbit in the foreground against the South
Massif's peak. Beyond the mountains, toward the lunar limb, lies the
Moon's Mare Serenitatis. Four astronauts will venture around the Moon
and back again on the Artemis II mission, scheduled for launch no
earlier than September 2025.

Tomorrow's picture: geomagnetic stormy weather
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2024 January 18

Northern Lights from the Stratosphere
Image Credit & Copyright: Ralf Rohner

Explanation: Northern lights shine in this night skyview from planet
Earth's stratosphere, captured on January 15. The single, 5 second
exposure was made with a hand-held camera on board an aircraft above
Winnipeg, Canada. During the exposure, terrestrial lights below leave
colorful trails along the direction of motion of the speeding aircraft.
Above the more distant horizon, energetic particles accelerated along
Earth's magnetic field at the planet's polar regions excite atomic
oxygen to create the shimmering display of Aurora Borealis. The
aurora's characteristic greenish hue is generated at altitudes of
100-300 kilometers and red at even higher altitudes and lower
atmospheric densities. The luminous glow of faint stars along the plane
of our Milky Way galaxy arcs through the night, while the Andromeda
galaxy extends this northern skyview to extragalactic space. A diffuse
hint of Andromeda, the closest large spiral to the Milky Way, can just
be seen to the upper left.

Tomorrow's picture: shortest day in the Solar System
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2024 January 19

Jupiter over 2 Hours and 30 Minutes
Image Credit & License: Aur+¬lien Genin

Explanation: Jupiter, our Solar System's ruling gas giant, is also the
fastest spinning planet, rotating once in less than 10 hours. The gas
giant doesn't rotate like a solid body though. A day on Jupiter is
about 9 hours and 56 minutes long at the poles, decreasing to 9 hours
and 50 minutes near the equator. The giant planet's fast rotation
creates strong jet streams, separating its clouds into planet girdling
bands of dark belts and bright zones. You can easily follow Jupiter's
rapid rotation in this sharp sequence of images from the night of
January 15, all taken with a camera and small telescope outside of
Paris, France. Located just south of the equator, the giant planet's
giant storm system, also known as the Great Red Spot, can be seen
moving left to right with the planet's rotation. From lower left to
upper right, the sequence spans about 2 hours and 30 minutes.

Tomorrow's picture: boostback burn
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2024 January 20

Falcon Heavy Boostback Burn
Image Credit & Copyright: Dennis Huff

Explanation: The December 28 night launch of a Falcon Heavy rocket from
Kennedy Space Center in Florida marked the fifth launch for the
rocket's reusable side boosters. About 2 minutes 20 seconds into the
flight, the two side boosters separated from the rocket's core stage.
Starting just after booster separation, this three minute long exposure
captures the pair's remarkable boostback burns, maneuvers executed
prior to their return to landing zones on planet Earth. While no
attempt was made to recover the Falcon Heavy's core stage, both side
boosters landed successfully and can be flown again. The four previous
flights for these side boosters included last October's launch of
NASA's asteroid-bound Psyche mission.

Tomorrow's picture: snow day
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2024 January 21
A telephone poll is shown surrounded by snow. In the background,
another telephone poll is visible, as are some distant trees. Please
see the explanation for more detailed information.

The Upper Michigan Blizzard of 1938
Image Credit: Bill Brinkman; Courtesy: Paula Rocco

Explanation: Yes, but can your blizzard do this? In the Upper Peninsula
of Michigan's Storm of the Century in 1938, some snow drifts reached
the level of utility poles. Nearly a meter of new and unexpected snow
fell over two days in a storm that started 86 years ago this week. As
snow fell and gale-force winds piled snow to surreal heights, many
roads became not only impassable but unplowable; people became
stranded, cars, school buses and a train became mired, and even a
dangerous fire raged. Two people were killed and some students were
forced to spend several consecutive days at school. The featured image
was taken by a local resident soon after the storm. Although all of
this snow eventually melted, repeated snow storms like this help build
lasting glaciers in snowy regions of our planet Earth.

Tomorrow's picture: moon versus mountain
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2024 January 22
A black and white image of the Moon and a mountain are shown. Both are
half lit by the Sun, with the other half shadowed. The half-moon is
directly above the mountain peak. Please see the explanation for more
detailed information.

Shadows of Mountain and Moon
Image Credit & Copyright: Enzo Massa Micon

Explanation: Can the Moon and a mountain really cast similar shadows?
Yes, but the division between light and dark does not have to be
aligned. Pictured, a quarter moon was captured above the mountain
Grivola in Italy in early October of 2022. The Sun is to the right of
the featured picturesque landscape, illuminating the right side of the
Moon in a similar way that it illuminates the right side of the
mountain. This lunar phase is called "quarter" because the lit fraction
visible from Earth is one quarter of the entire lunar surface. Digital
post-processing of this single exposure gave both gigantic objects more
prominence. Capturing the terminator of this quarter moon in close
alignment with nearly vertical mountain ridge required careful timing
because the Earth rotates once a day.

Tomorrow's picture: sky wide
__________________________________________________________________

Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Ryan Smallcomb; Specific rights apply.
NASA Web Privacy Policy and Important Notices
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2024 January 23
A very deep image of the night sky shows many stars and nebulas. Many
bright nebulas appear to be connected by faint orange filaments. Please
see the explanation for more detailed information.

Deep Nebulas: From Seagull to California
Image Credit & Copyright: Alistair Symon

Explanation: How well do you know the night sky? OK, but how well can
you identify famous sky objects in a very deep image? Either way, here
is a test: see if you can find some well-known night-sky icons in a
deep image filled with faint nebulosity. This image contains the
Pleiades star cluster, Barnard's Loop, Horsehead Nebula, Orion Nebula,
Rosette Nebula, Cone Nebula, Rigel, Jellyfish Nebula, Monkey Head
Nebula, Flaming Star Nebula, Tadpole Nebula, Aldebaran, Simeis 147,
Seagull Nebula and the California Nebula. To find their real locations,
here is an annotated image version. The reason this task might be
difficult is similar to the reason it is initially hard to identify
familiar constellations in a very dark sky: the tapestry of our night
sky has an extremely deep hidden complexity. The featured composite
reveals some of this complexity in a mosaic of 28 images taken over 800
hours from dark skies over Arizona, USA.

Tomorrow's picture: you are here
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Amber Straughn; Specific rights apply.
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2024 January 24
The Moon and the Earth are pictured before a black background. The Moon
appears brown and slightly larger due to its closer proximity to the
Artemis 1 camera. The Earth is seen as a cloudy blue orb above the
Moon. Please see the explanation for more detailed information.

Earth and Moon from Beyond
Image Credit: NASA, Artemis I; Processing: Andy Saunders

Explanation: What do the Earth and Moon look like from beyond the Moon?
Although frequently photographed together, the familiar duo was
captured with this unusual perspective in late 2022 by the robotic
Orion spacecraft of NASA's Artemis I mission as it looped around
Earth's most massive satellite and looked back toward its home world.
Since our Earth is about four times the diameter of the Moon, the
satelliteCÇÖs seemingly large size was caused by the capsule being closer
to the smaller body. Artemis II, the next launch in NASACÇÖs Artemis
series, is currently scheduled to take people around the Moon in 2025,
while Artemis III is planned to return humans to lunar surface in late
2026. Last week, JAXA's robotic SLIM spacecraft, launched from Japan,
landed on the Moon and released two hopping rovers.

Explore Your Universe: Random APOD Generator
Tomorrow's picture: sky map
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Amber Straughn; Specific rights apply.
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& Michigan Tech. U.

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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2024 January 25

Jyv+ñskyl+ñ in the Sky
Image Credit & Copyright: Harri Kiiskinen

Explanation: You might not immediately recognize this street map of a
neighborhood in Jyv+ñskyl+ñ, Finland, planet Earth. But that's probably
because the map was projected into the night sky and captured with an
allsky camera on January 16. The temperature recorded on that northern
winter night was around minus 20 degrees Celsius. As ice crystals
formed in the atmosphere overhead, street lights spilling illumination
into the sky above produced visible light pillars, their ethereal
appearance due to specular reflections from the fluttering crystals'
flat surfaces. Of course, the projected light pillars trace a map of
the brightly lit local streets, though reversed right to left in the
upward looking camera's view. This light pillar street map was seen to
hover for hours in the Jyv+ñskyl+ñ night.

Tomorrow's picture: star with planet
__________________________________________________________________

Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Amber Straughn Specific rights apply.
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& Michigan Tech. U.

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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2024 January 26

Epsilon Tauri: Star with Planet
Image Credit & Copyright: Reg Pratt

Explanation: Epsilon Tauri lies 146 light-years away. A K-type red
giant star, epsilon Tau is cooler than the Sun, but with about 13 times
the solar radius it has nearly 100 times the solar luminosity. A member
of the Hyades open star cluster the giant star is known by the proper
name Ain, and along with brighter giant star Aldebaran, forms the eyes
of Taurus the Bull. Surrounded by dusty, dark clouds in Taurus, epsilon
Tau is also known to have a planet. Discovered by radial velocity
measurements in 2006, Epsilon Tauri b is a gas giant planet larger than
Jupiter with an orbital period of 1.6 years. And though the exoplanet
can't be seen directly, on a dark night its parent star epsilon Tauri
is easily visible to the unaided eye.

Tomorrow's picture: light-weekend
__________________________________________________________________

Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Amber Straughn Specific rights apply.
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& Michigan Tech. U.

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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2024 January 27

Full Observatory Moon
Image Credit & Copyright: Yuri Beletsky (Carnegie Las Campanas
Observatory, TWAN)

Explanation: A popular name for January's full moon in the northern
hemisphere is the Full Wolf Moon. As the new year's first full moon, it
rises over Las Campanas Observatory in this dramatic
Earth-and-moonscape. Peering from the foreground like astronomical eyes
are the observatory's twin 6.5 meter diameter Magellan telescopes. The
snapshot was captured with telephoto lens across rugged terrain in the
Chilean Atacama Desert, taken at a distance of about 9 miles from the
observatory and about 240,000 miles from the lunar surface. Of course
the first full moon of the lunar new year, known to some as the Full
Snow Moon, will rise on February 24.

Tomorrow's picture: Pluto in color
__________________________________________________________________

Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Amber Straughn Specific rights apply.
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& Michigan Tech. U.

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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2024 January 28
The minor planet Pluto is shown up close, as seen by the passing New
Horizons spacecraft, and in true color. Pluto is a complex mix of beige
regions and some dark brown regions. Please see the explanation for
more detailed information.

Pluto in True Color
Image Credit: NASA, JHU APL, SwRI; Processing: Alex Parker

Explanation: What color is Pluto, really? It took some effort to figure
out. Even given all of the images sent back to Earth when the robotic
New Horizons spacecraft sped past Pluto in 2015, processing these
multi-spectral frames to approximate what the human eye would see was
challenging. The result featured here, released three years after the
raw data was acquired by New Horizons, is the highest resolution true
color image of Pluto ever taken. Visible in the image is the
light-colored, heart-shaped, Tombaugh Regio, with the unexpectedly
smooth Sputnik Planitia, made of frozen nitrogen, filling its western
lobe. New Horizons found the dwarf planet to have a surprisingly
complex surface composed of many regions having perceptibly different
hues. In total, though, Pluto is mostly brown, with much of its muted
color originating from small amounts of surface methane energized by
ultraviolet light from the Sun.

Tomorrow's picture: stars versus dust
__________________________________________________________________

Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Amber Straughn; Specific rights apply.
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& Michigan Tech. U.

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* Origin: The Rusty MailBox - Penticton, BC Canada (1:153/757)

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2024 January 29
The famous Pleiades star cluster is shown surrounded by dust. Dust near
the bright stars reflects blue light, but dust further away appears
more red. Please see the explanation for more detailed information.

The Pleiades: Seven Dusty Sisters
Image Credit & Copyright: Craig Stocks

Explanation: The well-known Pleiades star cluster is slowly destroying
part of a passing cloud of gas and dust. The Pleiades is the brightest
open cluster of stars on Earth's sky and can be seen from almost any
northerly location with the unaided eye. Over the past 100,000 years, a
field of gas and dust is moving by chance right through the Pleiades
star cluster and is causing a strong reaction between the stars and
dust. The passing cloud might be part of the Radcliffe wave, a newly
discovered structure of gas and dust connecting several regions of star
formation in the nearby part of our Milky Way galaxy. Pressure from the
stars' light significantly repels the dust in the surrounding blue
reflection nebula, with smaller dust particles being repelled more
strongly. A short-term result is that parts of the dust cloud have
become filamentary and stratified. The featured deep image incorporates
nearly 9 hours of exposure and was captured from Utah Desert Remote
Observatory in Utah, USA, last year.

Tomorrow's picture: to the hyades
__________________________________________________________________

Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Amber Straughn; Specific rights apply.
NASA Web Privacy Policy and Important Notices
A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,
NASA Science Activation
& Michigan Tech. U.

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* Origin: The Rusty MailBox - Penticton, BC Canada (1:153/757)

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2024 January 30
The lunar surface is shown with a box-like gold-colored machine in the
middle. A close inspection of the machine reveals that its thrusters
are at the top, so it is on its side. The background sky is dark. Two
horizontal lines are an artifact of the digital imaging and not part of
the lunar landscape. Please see the explanation for more detailed
information.

SLIM Lands on the Moon
Image Credit & Copyright: JAXA, Takara Tomy, Sony Co., Doshisha U.

Explanation: New landers are on the Moon. Nearly two weeks ago, Japan's
Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) released two rovers as it
descended, before its main lander touched down itself. The larger of
the two rovers can hop like a frog, while the smaller rover is about
the size of a baseball and can move after pulling itself apart like a
transformer. The main lander, nicknamed Moon Sniper, is seen in the
featured image taken by the smaller rover. Inspection of the image
shows that Moon Sniper's thrusters are facing up, meaning that the
lander is upside down from its descent configuration and on its side
from its intended landing configuration. One result is that Moon
Sniper's solar panels are not in the expected orientation, so that
powering the lander had to be curtailed and adapted. SLIM's lander has
already succeeded as a technology demonstration, its main mission, but
was not designed to withstand the lunar night -- which starts tomorrow.

Tomorrow's picture: orion rising
__________________________________________________________________

Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Amber Straughn; Specific rights apply.
NASA Web Privacy Policy and Important Notices
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NASA Science Activation
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* Origin: The Rusty MailBox - Penticton, BC Canada (1:153/757)

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2024 February 11
The long plume of a launching rocket is seen on the left side of the
image. The upper part of the plume is bright, while the lower part is
smokey brown. The bright part of the plume is illuminated by the Sun
and casts a long and dark shadow corridor across the image. The shadow
appears to end on a Full Moon. Please see the explanation for more
detailed information.

Rocket Plume Shadow Points to the Moon
Image Credit: Pat McCracken, NASA

Explanation: Why would the shadow of a rocket's launch plume point
toward the Moon? In early 2001 during a launch of the space shuttle
Atlantis, the Sun, Earth, Moon, and rocket were all properly aligned
for this photogenic coincidence. First, for the space shuttle's plume
to cast a long shadow, the time of day must be either near sunrise or
sunset. Only then will the shadow be its longest and extend all the way
to the horizon. Finally, during a Full Moon, the Sun and Moon are on
opposite sides of the sky. Just after sunset, for example, the Sun is
slightly below the horizon, and, in the other direction, the Moon is
slightly above the horizon. Therefore, as Atlantis blasted off, just
after sunset, its shadow projected away from the Sun toward the
opposite horizon, where the Full Moon happened to be.

Almost Hyperspace: Random APOD Generator
Tomorrow's picture: space orbs
__________________________________________________________________

Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Amber Straughn; Specific rights apply.
NASA Web Privacy Policy and Important Notices
A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,
NASA Science Activation
& Michigan Tech. U.

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* Origin: The Rusty MailBox - Penticton, BC Canada (1:153/757)

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2024 February 18
A nearly perfect circular ring of blue stars is seen against a dark
field of small background galaxies. In the center of the ring is a ball
of yellow stars. Please see the explanation for more detailed
information.

Hoag's Object: A Nearly Perfect Ring Galaxy
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble; Processing: Benoit Blanco

Explanation: Is this one galaxy or two? This question came to light in
1950 when astronomer Arthur Hoag chanced upon this unusual
extragalactic object. On the outside is a ring dominated by bright blue
stars, while near the center lies a ball of much redder stars that are
likely much older. Between the two is a gap that appears almost
completely dark. How Hoag's Object formed, including its nearly
perfectly round ring of stars and gas, remains unknown. Genesis
hypotheses include a galaxy collision billions of years ago and the
gravitational effect of a central bar that has since vanished. The
featured photo was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and reprocessed
using an artificially intelligent de-noising algorithm. Observations in
radio waves indicate that Hoag's Object has not accreted a smaller
galaxy in the past billion years. Hoag's Object spans about 100,000
light years and lies about 600 million light years away toward the
constellation of the Snake (Serpens). Many galaxies far in the distance
are visible toward the right, while coincidentally, visible in the gap
at about seven o'clock, is another but more distant ring galaxy.

Tomorrow's picture: sideways sun
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Amber Straughn; Specific rights apply.
NASA Web Privacy Policy and Important Notices
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NASA Science Activation
& Michigan Tech. U.

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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2024 February 25
A green aurora fills a star filled sky. A mountain and a lake are in
the foreground. The aurora may resemble, to some, a flying or rising
Phoenix. Please see the explanation for more detailed information.

A Phoenix Aurora over Iceland
Image Credit & Copyright: Hallgrimur P. Helgason; Rollover Annotation:
Judy Schmidt

Explanation: All of the other aurora watchers had gone home. By 3:30 am
in Iceland, on a quiet September night, much of that night's auroras
had died down. Suddenly, unexpectedly, a new burst of particles
streamed down from space, lighting up the Earth's atmosphere once
again. This time, surprisingly, pareidoliacally, the night lit up with
an amazing shape reminiscent of a giant phoenix. With camera equipment
at the ready, two quick sky images were taken, followed immediately by
a third of the land. The mountain in the background is Helgafell, while
the small foreground river is called Kald+í, both located about 30
kilometers north of Iceland's capital Reykjav+¡k. Seasoned skywatchers
will note that just above the mountain, toward the left, is the
constellation of Orion, while the Pleiades star cluster is also visible
just above the frame center. The 2016 aurora, which lasted only a
minute and was soon gone forever -- would possibly be dismissed as a
fanciful fable -- were it not captured in the featured,
digitally-composed, image mosaic.

Your Sky Surprise: What picture did APOD feature on your birthday?
(post 1995)
Tomorrow's picture: open space
__________________________________________________________________

Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Amber Straughn; Specific rights apply.
NASA Web Privacy Policy and Important Notices
A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,
NASA Science Activation
& Michigan Tech. U.

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* Origin: The Rusty MailBox - Penticton, BC Canada (1:153/757)

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2024 February 4
A starfield is shown that has only a few bright stars. Vertically
through the center is a large reddish brown nebula that has a few stars
embedded. Please see the explanation for more detailed information.

The Cone Nebula from Hubble
Image Credit: Hubble Legacy Archive, NASA, ESA - Processing & Licence:
Judy Schmidt

Explanation: Stars are forming in the gigantic dust pillar called the
Cone Nebula. Cones, pillars, and majestic flowing shapes abound in
stellar nurseries where natal clouds of gas and dust are buffeted by
energetic winds from newborn stars. The Cone Nebula, a well-known
example, lies within the bright galactic star-forming region NGC 2264.
The Cone was captured in unprecedented detail in this close-up
composite of several observations from the Earth-orbiting Hubble Space
Telescope. While the Cone Nebula, about 2,500 light-years away in
Monoceros, is around 7 light-years long, the region pictured here
surrounding the cone's blunted head is a mere 2.5 light-years across.
In our neck of the galaxy that distance is just over half way from our
Sun to its nearest stellar neighbors in the Alpha Centauri star system.
The massive star NGC 2264 IRS, seen by Hubble's infrared camera in
1997, is the likely source of the wind sculpting the Cone Nebula and
lies off the top of the image. The Cone Nebula's reddish veil is
produced by dust and glowing hydrogen gas.

Tomorrow's picture: carina's crazy core
__________________________________________________________________

Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Amber Straughn; Specific rights apply.
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& Michigan Tech. U.

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* Origin: The Rusty MailBox - Penticton, BC Canada (1:153/757)

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2024 February 5
A star field strewn with filaments of dust and gas is shown: the center
of the Carina Nebula. Shown in colors emitted by specific elements, the
frame shows blue gas around the edges and orange and red colored gas in
the center. Dark dust laces the busy frame. Please see the explanation
for more detailed information.

In the Core of the Carina Nebula
Image Credit & Copyright: Carlos Taylor

Explanation: What's happening in the core of the Carina Nebula? Stars
are forming, dying, and leaving an impressive tapestry of dark dusty
filaments. The entire Carina Nebula, cataloged as NGC 3372, spans over
300 light years and lies about 8,500 light-years away in the
constellation of Carina. The nebula is composed predominantly of
hydrogen gas, which emits the pervasive red and orange glows seen
mostly in the center of this highly detailed featured image. The blue
glow around the edges is created primarily by a trace amount of glowing
oxygen. Young and massive stars located in the nebula's center expel
dust when they explode in supernovas. Eta Carinae, the most energetic
star in the nebula's center, was one of the brightest stars in the sky
in the 1830s, but then faded dramatically.

Your Sky Surprise: What picture did APOD feature on your birthday?
(post 1995)
Tomorrow's picture: hubble / webb
__________________________________________________________________

Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Amber Straughn; Specific rights apply.
NASA Web Privacy Policy and Important Notices
A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,
NASA Science Activation
& Michigan Tech. U.

--- BBBS/Li6 v4.10 Toy-6
* Origin: The Rusty MailBox - Penticton, BC Canada (1:153/757)

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2024 February 3

Apollo 14: A View from Antares
Image Credit: Edgar Mitchell, Apollo 14, NASA; Mosaic - Eric M. Jones

Explanation: Apollo 14's Lunar Module Antares landed on the Moon on
February 5, 1971. Toward the end of the stay astronaut Ed Mitchell
snapped a series of photos of the lunar surface while looking out a
window, assembled into this detailed mosaic by Apollo Lunar Surface
Journal editor Eric Jones. The view looks across the Fra Mauro
highlands to the northwest of the landing site after the Apollo 14
astronauts had completed their second and final walk on the Moon.
Prominent in the foreground is their Modular Equipment Transporter, a
two-wheeled, rickshaw-like device used to carry tools and samples. Near
the horizon at top center is a 1.5 meter wide boulder dubbed Turtle
rock. In the shallow crater below Turtle rock is the long white handle
of a sampling instrument, thrown there javelin-style by Mitchell.
Mitchell's fellow moonwalker and first American in space, Alan Shepard,
also used a makeshift six iron to hit two golf balls. One of Shepard's
golf balls is just visible as a white spot below Mitchell's javelin.

Tomorrow's picture: cone in the unicorn
__________________________________________________________________

Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Amber Straughn Specific rights apply.
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* Origin: The Rusty MailBox - Penticton, BC Canada (1:153/757)

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2024 February 12
The image shows a dark field filled with stars and a diffuse red nebula
running across horizontally. In the field are two circular objects that
are bright, light colored. The lower object is larger and encircled in
a blue glow. Please see the explanation for more detailed information.

HFG1 & Abell 6: Planetary Nebulae
Image Credit & Copyright: Julien Cadena & Mickael Coulon; Text: Natalia
Lewandowska (SUNY Oswego)

Explanation: Planetary nebulae like Heckathorn-Fesen-Gull 1 (HFG1) and
Abell 6 in the constellation Cassiopeia are remnants from the last
phase of a medium sized star like our Sun. In spite of their shapes,
planetary nebulae have nothing in common with actual planets. Located
in the bottom left part of the featured photo, HFG1 was created by the
binary star system V664 Cas, which consists of a white dwarf star and a
red giant star. Both stars orbit their center of mass over about half
an Earth day. Traveling with the entire nebula at a speed about 300
times faster than the fastest train on Earth, V664 Cas generates a
bluish arc shaped shock wave. The wave interacts most strongly with the
surrounding interstellar medium in the areas where the arc is
brightest. After roughly 10,000 years, planetary nebulae become
invisible due to a lack of ultraviolet light being emitted by the stars
that create them. Displaying beautiful shapes and structures, planetary
nebulae are highly desired objects for astrophotographers.

Tomorrow's picture: a wolf moon
__________________________________________________________________

Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Amber Straughn; Specific rights apply.
NASA Web Privacy Policy and Important Notices
A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,
NASA Science Activation
& Michigan Tech. U.

--- BBBS/Li6 v4.10 Toy-6
* Origin: The Rusty MailBox - Penticton, BC Canada (1:153/757)

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2024 February 19

Looking Sideways from the Parker Solar Probe
Video Credit: NASA, JHUAPL, Naval Research Lab, Parker Solar Probe;
Processing: Avi Solomon; h/t: Richard Petarius III;
Music: Beethoven's Symphony No. 7, Second Movement; Music Credit:
Wikimedia Commons

Explanation: What's happening near the Sun? To help find out, NASA
launched the robotic Parker Solar Probe (PSP) to investigate regions
closer to the Sun than ever before. The PSP's looping orbit brings it
nearer to the Sun each time around -- every few months. The featured
time-lapse video shows the view looking sideways from behind PSP's Sun
shield during its 16th approach to the Sun last year -- from well
within the orbit of Mercury. The PSP's Wide Field Imager for Solar
Probe (WISPR) cameras took the images over eleven days, but they are
digitally compressed here into about one minute video. The waving of
the solar corona is visible, as is a coronal mass ejection, with stars,
planets, and even the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy streaming by
in the background as the PSP orbits the Sun. PSP has found the solar
neighborhood to be surprisingly complex and to include switchbacks --
times when the Sun's magnetic field briefly reverses itself.

Tomorrow's picture: galactic pearls
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2024 February 26

Martian Moon Eclipses Martian Moon
Video Credit: ESA, DLR, FU Berlin, Mars Express; Processing & CC BY 2.0
License: Andrea Luck

Explanation: What if there were two moons in the sky -- and they
eclipsed each other? This happens on Mars. The featured video shows a
version of this unusual eclipse from space. Pictured are the two moons
of Mars: the larger Phobos, which orbits closer to the red planet, and
the smaller Deimos, which orbits further out. The sequence was captured
last year by the ESACÇÖs Mars Express, a robotic spacecraft that itself
orbits Mars. A similar eclipse is visible from the Martian surface,
although very rarely. From the surface, though, the closer moon Phobos
would appear to pass in front of farther moon Deimos. Most oddly, both
moons orbit Mars so close that they appear to move backwards when
compared to Earth's Moon from Earth, both rising in west and setting in
the east. Phobos, the closer moon, orbits so close and so fast that it
passes nearly overhead about three times a day.

Tomorrow's picture: spaghetti star
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2024 February 6
Spiral galaxy NGC 1566 is shown with an image from Hubble primarily in
visible light on the upper left, and an image from Webb in primarily
infrared light on the lower right. A rollover image shows the same
galaxy with the Webb and Hubble parts reversed. Please see the
explanation for more detailed information.

NGC 1566: A Spiral Galaxy from Webb and Hubble
Image Credit & Copyright: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, J. Lee (STScI), T.
Williams (Oxford), R. Chandar (UToledo), D. Calzetti (UMass), PHANGS
Team

Explanation: What's different about this galaxy? Very little, which
makes the Spanish Dancer galaxy, NGC 1566, one of the most typical and
photogenic spirals on the sky. There is something different about this
galaxy image, though, because it is a diagonal combination of two
images: one by the Hubble Space Telescope on the upper left, and the
other by the James Webb Space Telescope on the lower right. The Hubble
image was taken in ultraviolet light and highlights the locations of
bright blue stars and dark dust along the galaxy's impressive spiral
arms. In contrast, the Webb image was taken in infrared light and
highlights where the same dust emits more light than it absorbed. In
the rollover image, the other two sides of these images are revealed.
Blinking between the two images shows which stars are particularly hot
because they glow brighter in ultraviolet light, and the difference
between seemingly empty space and infrared-glowing dust.

Image Crunching Opportunity: Take NASA's Astrophoto Challenge
Tomorrow's picture: heart tails
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2024 February 13
A bright full moon is seen in the center of the image. Angular clouds
are seen around the edges which make the moon look like it is either in
the mouth of the wolf, or the eye of a wolf. Please see the explanation
for more detailed information.

A January Wolf Moon
Image Credit & Copyright: Antoni Zegarski

Explanation: Did you see the full moon last month? During every month,
on average, a full moon occurs in the skies over planet Earth. This is
because the Moon takes a month to complete another orbit around our
home planet, goes through all of its phases, and once again has its
entire Earth-facing half lit by reflected sunlight. Many indigenous
cultures give each full moon a name, and this past full moon's names
include the Ice Moon, the Stay at Home Moon, and the Quiet Moon.
Occurring in January on the modern western calendar, several cultures
have also named the most recent full moon the Wolf Moon, in honor of
the famous howling animal. Featured here above the Italian Alps
mountains, this past Wolf Moon was captured in combined long and short
exposure images. The image is striking because, to some, the
surrounding clouds appear as a wolf's mouth ready to swallow the Wolf
Moon, while others see the Moon as a wolf's eye.

Tomorrow's picture: a field of roses
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2024 February 20
A distorted galaxy is shown with a string of stars trailing off on the
left. Please see the explanation for more detailed information.

AM1054: Stars Form as Galaxies Collide
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, STScI; Processing: J. English (U. Manitoba);
Science: M. Rodruck (Penn State U. & Randolph-Macon C.) et al.;
Text: Jayanne English (U. Manitoba).

Explanation: When galaxies collide, how many stars are born? For
AM1054-325, featured here in a recently released image by the Hubble
Space Telescope, the answer is millions. Instead of stars being
destroyed as galaxy AM1054-325 and a nearby galaxy circle each other,
their gravity and motion has ignited stellar creation. Star formation
occurs rapidly in the gaseous debris stretching from AM1054-325CÇÖs
yellowish body due to the other galaxyCÇÖs gravitational pull. Hydrogen
gas surrounding newborn stars glows pink. Bright infant stars shine
blue and cluster together in compact nurseries of thousands to millions
of stars. AM1054-325 possesses over 100 of these intense-blue, dot-like
star clusters, some appearing like a string of pearls. Analyzing
ultraviolet light helped determine that most of these stars are less
than 10 million years old: stellar babies. Many of these nurseries may
grow up to be globular star clusters, while the bundle of young stars
at the bottom tip may even detach and form a small galaxy.

Tomorrow's picture: bigger bird
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2024 January 31
A snowy landscape is pictured with a big hill in the center. Above the
hill is a starfield with the stars and nebulae of the constellation
Orion appearing, with the red glow of the nebulas in great contrast to
the dark sky and bright snow. Please see the explanation for more
detailed information.

Camera Orion Rising
Image Credit & Copyright: Marcin +Ülipko

Explanation: What does Orion rising look like to a camera? During this
time of the year, the famous constellation is visible to the southeast
just after sunset. From most Earthly locations, Orion's familiar star
pattern, highlighted by the three-stars-in-a-row belt stars, rises
sideways. An entire section of the night sky that includes Orion was
photographed rising above +Ünie+'ka, a mountain on the border between
Poland and the Czech Republic. The long duration exposure sequence
brings up many faint features including the Orion and Flame Nebulas,
both encompassed by the curving Barnard's Loop. The featured wide-angle
camera composite also captured night sky icons including the blue
Pleiades star cluster at the image top and the red Rosette Nebula to
the left of Orion. Famous stars in the frame include Sirius,
Betelgeuse, Rigel and Aldebaran. Orion will appear successively higher
in the sky at sunset during the coming months.

Tomorrow's picture: open space
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2024 February 7
Two galaxies are seen colliding the image center. Together, they look
like a classic heart icon but with long tails. Please see the
explanation for more detailed information.

The Heart Shaped Antennae Galaxies
Image Credit & Copyright: Kent E. Biggs

Explanation: Are these two galaxies really attracted to each other?
Yes, gravitationally, and the result appears as an enormous iconic
heart -- at least for now. Pictured is the pair of galaxies cataloged
as NGC 4038 and NGC 4039,known as the Antennae Galaxies. Because they
are only 60 million light years away, close by intergalactic standards,
the pair is one of the best studied interacting galaxies on the night
sky. Their strong attraction began about a billion years ago when they
passed unusually close to each other. As the two galaxies interact,
their stars rarely collide, but new stars are formed when their
interstellar gases crash together. Some new stars have already formed,
for example, in the long antennae seen extending out from the sides of
the dancing duo. By the time the galaxy merger is complete, likely over
a billion years from now, billions of new stars may have formed.

Open Science: Browse 3,300+ codes in the Astrophysics Source Code
Library
Tomorrow's picture: open space
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2024 February 14
A busy star field is shown with several large red nebulae. The Rosette
Nebula is among them and seen on the lower right, while the nebula
surrounding the Cone Nebula is larger and visible toward the upper
left. Please see the explanation for more detailed information.

Rosette Deep Field
Image Credit & Copyright: Olivier Bernard & Philippe Bernhard

Explanation: Can you find the Rosette Nebula? The large, red, and
flowery-looking nebula on the upper left may seem the obvious choice,
but that is actually just diffuse hydrogen emission surrounding the
Cone and Fox Fur Nebulas. The famous Rosette Nebula is really located
on the lower right and connected to the other nebulas by irregular
filaments. Because the featured image of Rosetta's field is so wide and
deep, it seems to contain other flowers. Designated NGC 2237, the
center of the Rosette nebula is populated by the bright blue stars of
open cluster NGC 2244, whose winds and energetic light are evacuating
the nebula's center. The Rosette Nebula is about 5,000 light years
distant and, just by itself, spans about three times the diameter of a
full moon. This flowery field can be found toward the constellation of
the Unicorn (Monoceros).

Tomorrow's picture: open space
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2024 February 21
A red nebula in a dark starry sky is seen above a rocky peak. The
nebula appears similar to a flying bird. Please see the explanation for
more detailed information.

Seagull Nebula over Pinnacles' Peak
Image Credit & Copyright: Dheera Venkatraman

Explanation: The bird is bigger than the peak. Nicknamed for its avian
shape, the Seagull Nebula is an emission nebula on the night sky that
is vast, spanning an angle over five times the diameter of the full
moon and over 200 light years. The head of the nebula is catalogued as
IC 2177, and the star cluster under its right wing is catalogued as NGC
2343. Consisting of mostly red-glowing hydrogen gas, the Seagull Nebula
incorporates some dust lanes and is forming stars. The peak over which
this Seagull seems to soar occurs at Pinnacles National Park in
California, USA. The featured image is a composite of long exposure
images of the background sky and short exposure images of the
foreground, all taken consecutively with the same camera and from the
same location.

Explore Your Universe: Random APOD Generator
Tomorrow's picture: open space
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2024 February 1

NGC 1365: Majestic Island Universe
Image Credit & Copyright: Processing - Jean-Baptiste Auroux, Data -
Mike Selby

Explanation: Barred spiral galaxy NGC 1365 is truly a majestic island
universe some 200,000 light-years across. Located a mere 60 million
light-years away toward the faint but heated constellation Fornax, NGC
1365 is a dominant member of the well-studied Fornax Cluster of
galaxies
. This sharp color image shows the intense, reddish star forming
regions near the ends of the galaxy's central bar and along its spiral
arms. Seen in fine detail, obscuring dust lanes cut across the galaxy's
bright core. At the core lies a supermassive black hole. Astronomers
think NGC 1365's prominent bar plays a crucial role in the galaxy's
evolution, drawing gas and dust into a star-forming maelstrom and
ultimately feeding material into the central black hole.

Tomorrow's picture: pixels in space
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2024 February 8

Globular Star Cluster 47 Tuc
Image Credit & Copyright: Marco Lorenzi, Angus Lau, Tommy Tse

Explanation: Globular star cluster 47 Tucanae is a jewel of the
southern sky. Also known as NGC 104, it roams the halo of our Milky Way
Galaxy along with some 200 other globular star clusters. The second
brightest globular cluster (after Omega Centauri) as seen from planet
Earth, 47 Tuc lies about 13,000 light-years away. It can be spotted
with the naked-eye close on the sky to the Small Magellanic Cloud in
the constellation of the Toucan. The dense cluster is made up of
hundreds of thousands of stars in a volume only about 120 light-years
across. Red giant stars on the outskirts of the cluster are easy to
pick out as yellowish stars in this sharp telescopic portrait. Tightly
packed globular cluster 47 Tuc is also home to a star with the closest
known orbit around a black hole.

Tomorrow's picture: when roses aren't red
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2024 February 15

NGC 253: Dusty Island Universe
Image Credit & Copyright: Steve Crouch

Explanation: Shiny NGC 253 is one of the brightest spiral galaxies
visible, and also one of the dustiest. Some call it the Silver Coin
Galaxy for its appearance in small telescopes, or just the Sculptor
Galaxy for its location within the boundaries of the southern
constellation Sculptor. Discovered in 1783 by mathematician and
astronomer Caroline Herschel, the dusty island universe lies a mere 10
million light-years away. About 70 thousand light-years across, NGC 253
is the largest member of the Sculptor Group of Galaxies, the nearest to
our own Local Group of Galaxies. In addition to its spiral dust lanes,
tendrils of dust seem to be rising from its galactic disk laced with
young star clusters and star forming regions in this colorful galaxy
portrait. The high dust content accompanies frantic star formation,
earning NGC 253 the designation of a starburst galaxy. NGC 253 is also
known to be a strong source of high-energy x-rays and gamma rays,
likely due to massive black holes near the galaxy's center.

Tomorrow's picture: volcano world
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2024 February 22

A View Toward M106
Image Credit & Copyright: Kyunghoon Lim

Explanation: 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. Also known as NGC 4258, M106 is about 80,000
light-years across and 23.5 million light-years away, the largest
member of the Canes II galaxy group. For a far far away galaxy, the
distance to M106 is well-known in part because it can be directly
measured by tracking this galaxy's remarkable maser, or microwave laser
emission. Very rare but naturally occurring, the maser emission is
produced by water molecules in molecular clouds orbiting its active
galactic nucleus. Another prominent spiral galaxy on the scene, viewed
nearly edge-on, is NGC 4217 below and right of M106. The distance to
NGC 4217 is much less well-known, estimated to be about 60 million
light-years, but the bright spiky stars are in the foreground, well
inside our own Milky Way galaxy.

Tomorrow's picture: pixels in space
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
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2024 February 2

NGC 1893 and the Tadpoles of IC 410
Image Credit & Copyright: Sander de Jong

Explanation: This cosmic view shows off an otherwise faint emission
nebula IC 410, captured under clear Netherlands skies with telescope
and narrowband filters. Above and right of center you can spot two
remarkable inhabitants of the interstellar pond of gas and dust, known
as the tadpoles of IC 410. Partly obscured by foreground dust, the
nebula itself surrounds NGC 1893, a young galactic cluster of stars.
Formed in the interstellar cloud a mere 4 million years ago, the
intensely hot, bright cluster stars energize the glowing gas. Globules
composed of denser cooler gas and dust, the tadpoles are around 10
light-years long and are likely sites of ongoing star formation.
Sculpted by stellar winds and radiation their heads are outlined by
bright ridges of ionized gas while their tails trail away from the
cluster's central young stars. IC 410 and embedded NGC 1893 lie some
10,000 light-years away, toward the nebula-rich constellation Auriga.

Tomorrow's picture: light-weekend
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2024 February 9

When Roses Aren't Red
Image Credit & Copyright: Tommy Lease (Denver Astronomical Society)

Explanation: Not all roses are red of course, but they can still be
very pretty. Likewise, the beautiful Rosette Nebula and other star
forming regions are often shown in astronomical images with a
predominately red hue, in part because the dominant emission in the
nebula is from hydrogen atoms. Hydrogen's strongest optical emission
line, known as H-alpha, is in the red region of the spectrum. But the
beauty of an emission nebula need not be appreciated in red light
alone. Other atoms in the nebula are also excited by energetic
starlight and produce narrow emission lines as well. In this close-up
view of the Rosette Nebula, narrowband images are mapped into broadband
colors to show emission from Sulfur atoms in red, Hydrogen in green,
and Oxygen in blue. In fact, the scheme of mapping these narrow atomic
emission lines (SHO) into the broader colors (RGB) is adopted in many
Hubble images of emission nebulae. This image spans about 50
light-years across the center of the Rosette Nebula. The nebula lies
some 3,000 light-years away in the constellation Monoceros.

Tomorrow's picture: ingenuity
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

Pkt message 1 ÍÍ ESSNASA : Heading for its next perihelion passage on April 21, Comet
12P/Pons-Brooks is growing brighter. The greenish coma of this periodic
Halley-type comet has become relatively easy to observe in small
telescopes. But the bluish ion tail now streaming from the active
comet's coma and buffeted by the solar wind, is faint and difficult to
follow. Still, in this image stacked exposures made on the night of
February 11 reveal the fainter tail's detailed structures. The frame
spans over two degrees across a background of faint stars and
background galaxies toward the northern constellation Lacerta. Of
course Comet 12P's April 21 perihelion passage will be only two weeks
after the April 8 total solar eclipse, putting the comet in planet
Earth's sky along with a totally eclipsed Sun.

Tomorrow's picture: light-weekend
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2024 February 23

The Pencil Nebula Supernova Shock Wave
Image Credit & Copyright: Helge Buesing

Explanation: This supernova shock wave plows through interstellar space
at over 500,000 kilometers per hour. Centered and moving upward in the
sharply detailed color composite its thin, bright, braided filaments
are actually long ripples in a cosmic sheet of glowing gas seen almost
edge-on. Discovered in the 1840s by Sir John Herschel, the
narrow-looking nebula is sometimes known as Herschel's Ray. Cataloged
as NGC 2736, its pointed appearance suggests its modern popular name,
the Pencil Nebula. The Pencil Nebula is about 800 light-years away.
Nearly 5 light-years long it represents only a small part of the Vela
supernova remnant though. The enormous Vela remnant itself is around
100 light-years in diameter, the expanding debris cloud of a star that
was seen to explode about 11,000 years ago. Initially, the section of
the shock wave seen as the Pencil nebula was moving at millions of
kilometers per hour but has slowed considerably, sweeping up
surrounding interstellar material.

Tomorrow's picture: light-weekend
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2024 February 10

The Shadow of Ingenuity's Damaged Rotor Blade
Image Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, Ingenuity

Explanation: On January 18, 2024, during its 72nd flight in the thin
Martian atmosphere, autonomous Mars Helicopter Ingenuity rose to an
altitude of 12 meters (40 feet) and hovered for 4.5 seconds above the
Red Planet. Ingenuity's 72nd landing was a rough one though. During
descent it lost contact with the Perseverance rover about 1 meter above
the Martian surface. Ingenuity was able to transmit this image after
contact was re-established, showing the shadow of one of its rotor
blades likely damaged during landing. And so, after wildly exceeding
expectations during over 1,000 days of exploring Mars, the
history-making Ingenuity has ended its flight operations. Nicknamed
Ginny, Mars Helicopter Ingenuity became the first aircraft to achieve
powered, controlled flight on another planet on April 19, 2021. Before
launch, a small piece of material from the lower-left wing of the
Wright Brothers Flyer 1, the first aircraft to achieve powered,
controlled flight on planet Earth, was fixed to the underside of
Ingenuity's solar panel.

Tomorrow's picture: the shadow of a rocket plume
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2024 February 17

Meteor over the Bay of Naples
Image Credit & Copyright: Wang Letian (Eyes at Night)

Explanation: A cosmic dust grain plowing through the upper atmosphere
much faster than a falling leaf created this brilliant meteor streak.
In a serendipitous moment, the sublime night sky view was captured from
the resort island of Capri, in the Bay of Naples, on the evening of
February 8. Looking across the bay, the camera faces northeast toward
the lights of Naples and surrounding cities. Pointing toward the
horizon, the meteor streak by chance ends above the silhouette of Mount
Vesuvius. One of planet Earth's most famous volcanos, an eruption of
Mount Vesuvius destroyed the city of Pompeii in 79 AD.

Tomorrow's picture: nearly perfect
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2024 February 24

To the Moon
Image Credit: Intuitive Machines

Explanation: Intuitive Machines' robotic lander Odysseus has
accomplished the first U.S. landing on the Moon since the Apollo 17
mission in 1972. Launched on a SpaceX rocket on February 15, the phone
booth sized lander reached lunar orbit on the 21st and touched down on
the lunar surface at 6:23 pm ET on February 22nd. Its landing region is
about 300 kilometers north of the Moon's south pole, near a crater
designated Malapert A. The lander is presently collecting solar power
and transmitting data back to the Intuitive Machines' mission control
center in Houston. The mission marks the first commercial uncrewed
landing on the Moon. Prior to landing, OdysseusCÇÖ camera captured this
extreme wide angle image (landing legs visible at right) as it flew
over Schomberger crater some 200 kilometers from its landing site.
Odysseus was still about 10 kilometers above the lunar surface.

Tomorrow's picture: Phoenix over Iceland
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2024 February 27
A large filamentary nebula is shown dominated by red glow but with bits
of blue on the lower left. The nebula is shown in a dense starfield
surrounded by other faint red-glowing nebulae. Please see the
explanation for more detailed information.

Supernova Remnant Simeis 147
Image Credit & Copyright: St+¬phane Vetter (Nuits sacr+¬es)

Explanation: It's easy to get lost following the intricate, looping,
and twisting filaments of supernova remnant Simeis 147. Also cataloged
as Sharpless 2-240, the filamentary nebula goes by the popular nickname
the Spaghetti Nebula. Seen toward the boundary of the constellations of
the Bull (Taurus) and the Charioteer (Auriga), the impressive gas
structure covers nearly 3 degrees on the sky, equivalent to 6 full
moons. That's about 150 light-years at the stellar debris cloud's
estimated distance of 3,000 light-years. This composite image includes
data taken through narrow-band filters isolating emission from hydrogen
(red) and oxygen (blue) glowing gas. The supernova remnant has an
estimated age of about 40,000 years, meaning light from this massive
stellar explosion first reached the Earth when woolly mammoths roamed
free. Besides the expanding remnant, this cosmic catastrophe left
behind a pulsar: a spinning neutron star that is the remnant of the
original star's core.

Tomorrow's picture: how night falls
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2024 February 28
A rocky shoreline is shown with land on the right and water on the
left. Above is a sky that shows unusually pixelated and colored
vertical bands. Please see the explanation for more detailed
information.

Shades of Night
Image Credit & Copyright: Dario Giannobile

Explanation: How does the sky turn dark at night? In stages, and with
different characteristic colors rising from the horizon. The featured
image shows, left to right, increasingly late twilight times after
sunset in 20 different vertical bands. The picture was taken last month
in Syracuse, Sicily, Italy, in the direction opposite the Sun. On the
far left is the pre-sunset upper sky. Toward the right, prominent bands
include the Belt of Venus, the Blue Band, the Horizon Band, and the Red
Band. As the dark shadow of the Earth rises, the colors in these bands
are caused by direct sunlight reflecting from air and aerosols in the
Earth's atmosphere, multiple reflections sometimes involving a reddened
sunset, and refraction. In practice, these bands can be diffuse and
hard to discern, and their colors can depend on colors near the setting
Sun. Finally, the Sun completely sets and the sky becomes dark. Don't
despair -- the whole thing will happen in reverse when the Sun rises
again in the morning.

Tomorrow's picture: extra February
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2024 February 29

Julius Caesar and Leap Days
Image Credit & License: Classical Numismatic Group, Inc., Wikimedia

Explanation: In 46 BC Julius Caesar reformed the calendar system. Based
on advice by astronomer Sosigenes of Alexandria, the Julian calendar
included one leap day every four years to account for the fact that an
Earth year is slightly more than 365 days long. In modern terms, the
time it takes for the planet to orbit the Sun once is 365.24219 mean
solar days. So if calendar years contained exactly 365 days they would
drift from the Earth's year by about 1 day every 4 years and eventually
July (named for Julius Caesar himself) would occur during the northern
hemisphere winter. By adopting a leap year with an extra day every four
years, the Julian calendar year would drift much less. In 1582 Pope
Gregory XIII provided the further fine-tuning that leap days should not
occur in years ending in 00, unless divisible by 400. This Gregorian
Calendar system is the one in wide use today. Of course, tidal friction
in the Earth-Moon system slows Earth's rotation and gradually lengthens
the day by about 1.4 milliseconds per century. That means that leap
days like today will not be necessary, about 4 million years from now.
This Roman silver coin, a denarius, depicts Julius Caesar (left) and
Venus, Roman goddess of love.

Tomorrow's picture: pixels in space
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2024 March 1

Odysseus and The Dish
Image Credit & Copyright: John Sarkissian (ATNF Parkes Radio
Observatory)

Explanation: Murriyang, the CSIROCÇÖs Parkes radio telescope points
toward a nearly Full Moon in this image from New South Wales,
Australia, planet Earth. Bathed in moonlight, the 64 meter dish is
receiving weak radio signals from Odysseus, following the robotic
lander's February 22 touch down some 300 kilometers north of the Moon's
south pole. The landing of Odysseus represents the first U.S. landing
on the Moon since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972. Odysseus' tilted
orientation on the lunar surface prevents its high-gain antenna from
pointing toward Earth. But the sensitivity of the large, steerable
Parkes dish significantly improved the reception of data from the
experiments delivered to the lunar surface by the robotic moon lander.
Of course the Parkes Radio Telescope dish became famous for its
superior lunar television reception during the Apollo 11 mission in
1969, allowing denizens of planet Earth to watch the first moonwalk.

Tomorrow's picture: light-weekend
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2024 March 2

Odysseus on the Moon
Image Credit: Intuitive Machines

Explanation: Methalox rocket engine firing, Odysseus' landing legs
absorb first contact with the lunar surface in this wide-angle snapshot
from a camera on board the robotic Intuitive Machines Nova-C moon
lander. Following the landing on February 22, broken landing legs,
visible in the image, ultimately left the lander at rest but tilted.
Odysseus' gentle lean into a sloping lunar surface preserved the phone
booth-sized lander's ability to operate, collect solar power, and
return images and data to Earth. Its exact landing site in the Moon's
far south polar region was imaged by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance
Orbiter. Donated by NASA, the American flag seen on the lander's
central panel is 1970 Apollo program flight hardware.

Tomorrow's picture: behind the Moon
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2024 March 4
Numerous thin pillars of light connect a landscape filled with snow to
a star filled sky. The Big Dipper can be seen through the colorful
pillars. Please see the explanation for more detailed information.

Light Pillars Over Inner Mongolia
Image Credit & Copyright: N. D. Liao

Explanation: What's happening across that field? Pictured here are not
auroras but nearby light pillars, a phenomenon typically much closer.
In most places on Earth, a lucky viewer can see a Sun pillar, a column
of light appearing to extend up from the Sun caused by flat fluttering
ice-crystals reflecting sunlight from the upper atmosphere. Usually,
these ice crystals evaporate before reaching the ground. During
freezing temperatures, however, flat fluttering ice crystals may form
near the ground in a form of light snow sometimes known as a crystal
fog. These ice crystals may then reflect ground lights in columns not
unlike a Sun pillar. The featured image was taken last month across the
Wulan Butong Grasslands in Inner Mongolia, China.

Tomorrow's picture: star painters
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2024 March 5
A complex jumble of colorful gas and dark dust dominate a bright field
of stars. Please see the explanation for more detailed information.

NGC 2170: Angel Nebula Abstract Art
Image Credit & Copyright: David Moulton

Explanation: Is this a painting or a photograph? In this celestial
abstract art composed with a cosmic brush, dusty nebula NGC 2170, also
known as the Angel Nebula, shines just above the image center.
Reflecting the light of nearby hot stars, NGC 2170 is joined by other
bluish reflection nebulae, a red emission region, many dark absorption
nebulae, and a backdrop of colorful stars. Like the common household
items that abstract painters often choose for their subjects, the
clouds of gas, dust, and hot stars featured here are also commonly
found in a setting like this one -- a massive, star-forming molecular
cloud in the constellation of the Unicorn (Monoceros). The giant
molecular cloud, Mon R2, is impressively close, estimated to be only
2,400 light-years or so away. At that distance, this canvas would be
over 60 light-years across.

Tomorrow's picture: star plane
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2024 March 6
A starfield is shown with an unusual horizontal line segment running
throug the middle. The segment is an edge-on galaxy and many brown dust
filaments are visible. Please see the explanation for more detailed
information.

M102: Edge-on Disk Galaxy
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble; Processing: Ehsan Ebahimian

Explanation: What kind of celestial object is this? A relatively normal
galaxy -- but seen from its edge. Many disk galaxies are actually just
as thin as NGC 5866, the Spindle galaxy, pictured here, but are not
seen edge-on from our vantage point. A perhaps more familiar galaxy
seen edge-on is our own Milky Way galaxy. Also cataloged as M102, the
Spindle galaxy has numerous and complex dust lanes appearing dark and
red, while many of the bright stars in the disk give it a more blue
underlying hue. The blue disk of young stars can be seen in this Hubble
image extending past the dust in the extremely thin galactic plane.
There is evidence that the Spindle galaxy has cannibalized smaller
galaxies over the past billion years or so, including multiple streams
of faint stars, dark dust that extends away from the main galactic
plane, and a surrounding group of galaxies (not shown). In general,
many disk galaxies become thin because the gas that forms them collides
with itself as it rotates about the gravitational center. The Spindle
galaxy lies about 50 million light years distant toward the
constellation of the Dragon (Draco).

Tomorrow's picture: not a distant galactic nebula
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2024 March 7

The Crew-8 Nebula
Image Credit & Copyright: Michael Seeley

Explanation: Not the James Webb Space Telescope's latest view of a
distant galactic nebula, this cloud of gas and dust dazzled spacecoast
skygazers on March 3. The telephoto snapshot was taken minutes after
the launch of a Falcon 9 rocket on the SpaceX Crew-8 mission, to the
International Space Station. It captures plumes and exhaust from the
separated first and second stage, a drifting Rorschach pattern in dark
evening skies. The bright spot near bottom center within the stunning
terrestrial nebulosity is the second stage engine firing to carry 4
humans to space in the Crew Dragon spacecraft Endeavour. In sharp
silhouette just above it is the Falcon 9 first stage booster orienting
itself for return to a landing zone at Cape Canaveral, planet Earth.
This reuseable first stage booster was making its first flight. But the
Crew Dragon Endeavour capsule has flown humans to low Earth orbit and
back again 4 times before. Endeavour, as a name for a spacecraft, has
also seen reuse, christening retired Space Shuttle Endeavour and the
Apollo 15 command module.

Tomorrow's picture: distant galactic nebula
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2024 March 8

The Tarantula Zone
Image Credit & Copyright: Processing - Robert Gendler
Data - Hubble Tarantula Treasury, European Southern Observatory, James
Webb Space Telescope, Amateur Sources

Explanation: The Tarantula Nebula, also known as 30 Doradus, is more
than a thousand light-years in diameter, a giant star forming region
within nearby satellite galaxy the Large Magellanic Cloud. About 180
thousand light-years away, it's the largest, most violent star forming
region known in the whole Local Group of galaxies. The cosmic arachnid
sprawls across this magnificent view, an assembly of image data from
large space- and ground-based telescopes. Within the Tarantula (NGC
2070), intense radiation, stellar winds, and supernova shocks from the
central young cluster of massive stars cataloged as R136 energize the
nebular glow and shape the spidery filaments. Around the Tarantula are
other star forming regions with young star clusters, filaments, and
blown-out bubble-shaped clouds. In fact, the frame includes the site of
the closest supernova in modern times, SN 1987A, at lower right. The
rich field of view spans about 2 degrees or 4 full moons in the
southern constellation Dorado. But were the Tarantula Nebula closer,
say 1,500 light-years distant like the Milky Way's own star forming
Orion Nebula, it would take up half the sky.

Tomorrow's picture: light-weekend
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2024 March 9

Comet Pons-Brooks in Northern Spring
Image Credit & Copyright: Petr Hor+ílek / Institute of Physics in Opava

Explanation: As spring approaches for northern skygazers Comet
12P/Pons-Brooks is growing brighter. Currently visible with small
telescopes and binoculars the Halley-type comet could reach naked eye
visibility in the coming weeks. Seen despite a foggy atmosphere, the
comet's green coma and long tail hover near the horizon, in this
well-composed deep night skyscape from Revuca, Slovakia recorded on
March 5. In the sky above the Halley-type comet, the Andromeda (right)
and Triangulum galaxies flank bright star Mirach, beta star of the
constellation Andromeda. The two spiral galaxies are members of our
local galaxy group and over 2.5 million light-years distant. Comet
Pons-Brooks is a periodic visitor to the inner Solar System and less
than 14 light-minutes away. Reaching its perihelion on April 21, this
comet should be visible in the sky during the April 8 total solar
eclipse.

Tomorrow's picture: at the End of the World
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2024 March 10
A field of snow leads up to a dark circle. Light rays eminate from this
circle. In front, standing on the snow field is a person and to the
left is a folding chair and a bag. Please see the explanation for more
detailed information.

A Total Eclipse at the End of the World
Image Credit & Copyright: Fred Bruenjes (moonglow.net)

Explanation: Would you go to the end of the world to see a total
eclipse of the Sun? If you did, would you be surprised to find someone
else there already? In 2003, the Sun, the Moon, Antarctica, and two
photographers all lined up in Antarctica during an unusual total solar
eclipse. Even given the extreme location, a group of enthusiastic
eclipse chasers ventured near the bottom of the world to experience the
surreal momentary disappearance of the Sun behind the Moon. One of the
treasures collected was the featured picture -- a composite of four
separate images digitally combined to realistically simulate how the
adaptive human eye saw the eclipse. As the image was taken, both the
Moon and the Sun peeked together over an Antarctic ridge. In the sudden
darkness, the magnificent corona of the Sun became visible around the
Moon. Quite by accident, another photographer was caught in one of the
images checking his video camera. Visible to his left are an equipment
bag and a collapsible chair. A more easily visible solar eclipse will
occur in just under four weeks and be visible from a long, thin swath
of North America.

Tomorrow's picture: Full Plankton Moon
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2024 March 11
Several images of a full moon setting are superposed. The moon images
are nearly white near the top, but turn orange and then are covered by
low clouds near the horizon. Unusually, the setting moon images line up
almost vertically. In the foreground is a beach with waves illuminated
by blue-glowing plankton. Please see the explanation for more detailed
information.

A Full Plankton Moon
Credit & Copyright: Petr Hor+ílek / Institute of Physics in Opava

Explanation: What glows in the night? This night featured a combination
of usual and unusual glows. Perhaps the most usual glow was from the
Moon, a potentially familiar object. The full Moon's nearly vertical
descent results from the observer being near Earth's equator. As the
Moon sets, air and aerosols in Earth's atmosphere preferentially
scatter out blue light, making the Sun-reflecting satellite appear
reddish when near the horizon. Perhaps the most unusual glow was from
the bioluminescent plankton, likely less familiar objects. These
microscopic creatures glow blue, it is thought, primarily to surprise
and deter predators. In this case, the glow was caused primarily by
plankton-containing waves crashing onto the beach. The image was taken
on Soneva Fushi Island, Maldives just over one year ago.

Your Sky Surprise: What picture did APOD feature on your birthday?
(post 1995)
Tomorrow's picture: horizon spiral
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2024 March 14

Moon Pi and Mountain Shadow
Image Credit & Copyright: Daniel Lopez (El Cielo de Canarias)

Explanation: What phase of the Moon is 3.14 radians from the Sun? The
Full Moon, of course. Even though the Moon might look full for several
days, the Moon is truly at its full phase when it is Pi radians (aka
180 degrees) from the Sun in ecliptic longitude. That's opposite the
Sun in planet Earth's sky. Rising as the Sun set on March 9, 2020, only
an hour or so after the moment of its full phase, this orange tinted
and slightly flattened Moon still looked full. It was photographed
opposite the setting Sun from Teide National Park on the Canary Island
of Tenerife. Also opposite the setting Sun, seen from near the Teide
volcano peak about 3,500 meters above sea level, is the mountain's
rising triangular shadow extending into Earth's dense atmosphere. Below
the distant ridge line on the left are the white telescope domes of
Teide Observatory. Again Pi radians from the Sun, on March 25 the Full
Moon will dim slightly as it glides through Earth's outer shadow in a
penumbral lunar eclipse.

Tomorrow's picture: pixels in space
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2024 March 15

Portrait of NGC 1055
Image Credit & Copyright: Dave Doctor

Explanation: Big, beautiful spiral galaxy NGC 1055 is a dominant member
of a small galaxy group a mere 60 million light-years away toward the
aquatically intimidating constellation Cetus. Seen edge-on, the island
universe spans over 100,000 light-years, a little larger than our own
Milky Way galaxy. The colorful, spiky stars decorating this cosmic
portrait of NGC 1055 are in the foreground, well within the Milky Way.
But the telltale pinkish star forming regions are scattered through
winding dust lanes along the distant galaxy's thin disk. With a
smattering of even more distant background galaxies, the deep image
also reveals a boxy halo that extends far above and below the central
bulge and disk of NGC 1055. The halo itself is laced with faint, narrow
structures, and could represent the mixed and spread out debris from a
satellite galaxy disrupted by the larger spiral some 10 billion years
ago.

Tomorrow's picture: an extremely large telescope
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2024 March 16

ELT and the Milky Way
Image Credit & License: European Southern Observatory - Courtesy: Jens
Scheidtmann

Explanation: The southern winter Milky Way sprawls across this night
skyscape. Looking due south, the webcam view was recorded near local
midnight on March 11 in dry, dark skies over the central Chilean
Atacama desert. Seen below the graceful arc of diffuse starlight are
satellite galaxies of the mighty Milky Way, also known as the Large and
Small Magellanic clouds. In the foreground is the site of the European
Southern ObPkt message 9 ÍÍ ESSNASA planet Earth's biggest Eye on the Sky.

Tomorrow's picture: when galaxies collide
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Amber Straughn Specific rights apply.
NASA Web Privacy, Accessibility Notices
A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,
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& Michigan Tech. U.

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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2024 March 17
A blue spiral galaxy appears to be colliding -- and possibly moving
through -- a dusty brown galaxy. Please see the explanation for more
detailed information.

NGC 7714: Starburst after Galaxy Collision
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble Legacy Archive;
Processing & Copyright: Rudy Pohl

Explanation: Is this galaxy jumping through a giant ring of stars?
Probably not. Although the precise dynamics behind the featured image
is yet unclear, what is clear is that the pictured galaxy, NGC 7714,
has been stretched and distorted by a recent collision with a
neighboring galaxy. This smaller neighbor, NGC 7715, situated off to
the left of the frame, is thought to have charged right through NGC
7714. Observations indicate that the golden ring pictured is composed
of millions of older Sun-like stars that are likely co-moving with the
interior bluer stars. In contrast, the bright center of NGC 7714
appears to be undergoing a burst of new star formation. The featured
image was captured by the Hubble Space Telescope. NGC 7714 is located
about 130 million light years away toward the constellation of the Two
Fish (Pisces). The interactions between these galaxies likely started
about 150 million years ago and should continue for several hundred
million years more, after which a single central galaxy may result.

Tomorrow's picture: spiraling comet
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Amber Straughn Specific rights apply.
NASA Web Privacy, Accessibility, Notices;
A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,
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& Michigan Tech. U.

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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2024 March 27
A picture filled with fuzzy yellow spots is presented. All of the
yellow spots are galaxies, and most of the galaxies are members of the
Coma Cluster of Galaxies. The two bright blue dots are foreground stars
in our own Milky Way Galaxy. Please see the explanation for more
detailed information.

The Coma Cluster of Galaxies
Image Credit & Copyright: Joe Hua

Explanation: Almost every object in the featured photograph is a
galaxy. The Coma Cluster of Galaxies pictured here is one of the
densest clusters known - it contains thousands of galaxies. Each of
these galaxies houses billions of stars - just as our own Milky Way
Galaxy does. Although nearby when compared to most other clusters,
light from the Coma Cluster still takes hundreds of millions of years
to reach us. In fact, the Coma Cluster is so big it takes light
millions of years just to go from one side to the other. Most galaxies
in Coma and other clusters are ellipticals, while most galaxies outside
of clusters are spirals. The nature of Coma's X-ray emission is still
being investigated.

Tomorrow's picture: millions of stars
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Amber Straughn Specific rights apply.
NASA Web Privacy, Accessibility, Notices;
A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,
NASA Science Activation
& Michigan Tech. U.

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* Origin: The Rusty MailBox - Penticton, BC Canada (1:153/757)

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2024 March 28

Millions of Stars in Omega Centauri
Image Credit & Copyright: Massimo Di Fusco and Mirco Turra

Explanation: Globular star cluster Omega Centauri, also known as NGC
5139, is 15,000 light-years away. The cluster is packed with about 10
million stars much older than the Sun within a volume about 150
light-years in diameter. It's the largest and brightest of 200 or so
known globular clusters that roam the halo of our Milky Way galaxy.
Though most star clusters consist of stars with the same age and
composition, the enigmatic Omega Cen exhibits the presence of different
stellar populations with a spread of ages and chemical abundances. In
fact, Omega Cen may be the remnant core of a small galaxy merging with
the Milky Way. With a yellowish hue, Omega Centauri's red giant stars
are easy to pick out in this sharp, color telescopic view.

Tomorrow's picture: pixels in space
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Amber Straughn Specific rights apply.
NASA Web Privacy, Accessibility Notices
A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,
NASA Science Activation
& Michigan Tech. U.

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* Origin: The Rusty MailBox - Penticton, BC Canada (1:153/757)

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2024 March 29

Galileo's Europa
Image Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, SETI Institute, Cynthia Phillips,
Marty Valenti

Explanation: Looping through the Jovian system in the late 1990s, the
Galileo spacecraft recorded stunning views of Europa and uncovered
evidence that the moon's icy surface likely hides a deep, global ocean.
Galileo's Europa image data has been remastered here, with improved
calibrations to produce a color image approximating what the human eye
might see. Europa's long curving fractures hint at the subsurface
liquid water. The tidal flexing the large moon experiences in its
elliptical orbit around Jupiter supplies the energy to keep the ocean
liquid. But more tantalizing is the possibility that even in the
absence of sunlight that process could also supply the energy to
support life, making Europa one of the best places to look for life
beyond Earth. The Juno spacecraft currently in Jovian orbit has also
made repeated flybys of the water world, returning images along with
data exploring Europa's habitability. This October will see the launch
of the NASA's Europa Clipper on a voyage of exploration. The spacecraft
will make nearly 50 flybys, approaching to within 25 kilometers of
Europa's icy surface.

Tomorrow's picture: Ptolemy's astronomy
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Amber Straughn Specific rights apply.
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A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,
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& Michigan Tech. U.

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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2024 March 30

Medieval Astronomy from Melk Abbey
Image Credit: Paul Beck (Univ. Vienna), Georg Zotti (Vienna Inst. Arch.
Science)
Copyright: Library of Melk Abbey, Frag. 229

Explanation: Discovered by accident, this manuscript page provides
graphical insight to astronomy in medieval times, before the
Renaissance and the influence of Nicolaus Copernicus, Tycho de Brahe,
Johannes Kepler, and Galileo. The intriguing page is from lecture notes
on astronomy compiled by the monk Magister Wolfgang de Styria before
the year 1490. The top panels clearly illustrate the necessary geometry
for a lunar (left) and solar eclipse in the Earth-centered Ptolemaic
system. At lower left is a diagram of the Ptolemaic view of the Solar
System with text at the upper right to explain the movement of the
planets according to Ptolemy's geocentric model. At the lower right is
a chart to calculate the date of Easter Sunday in the Julian calendar.
The illustrated manuscript page was found at historic Melk Abbey in
Austria.

Tomorrow's picture: eclipse below
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Amber Straughn Specific rights apply.
NASA Web Privacy, Accessibility Notices
A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,
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& Michigan Tech. U.

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* Origin: The Rusty MailBox - Penticton, BC Canada (1:153/757)

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2024 March 31
A totally eclipsed Sun is seen in the distance. Around the eclipse is a
dark region dipping down from above. Below that are clouds and below
that is the wing and engine of an airplane. Please see the explanation
for more detailed information.

Total Solar Eclipse Below the Bottom of the World
Image Credit & Copyright: Petr Hor+ílek (ESO Photo Ambassador, Inst. of
Physics in Opava) ; Acknowledgement: Xavier Jubier

Explanation: In late 2021 there was a total solar eclipse visible only
at the end of the Earth. To capture the unusual phenomenon, airplanes
took flight below the clouded seascape of Southern Ocean. The featured
image shows one relatively spectacular capture where the bright spot is
the outer corona of the Sun and the eclipsing Moon is seen as the dark
spot in the center. A wing and engine of the airplane are visible
across the left and bottom of the image, while another airplane
observing the eclipse is visible on the far left. The dark area of the
sky surrounding the eclipsed Sun is called a shadow cone. It is dark
because you are looking down a long corridor of air shadowed by the
Moon. A careful inspection of the eclipsed Sun will reveal the planet
Mercury just to the right. You won't have to travel to the end of the
Earth to see the next total solar eclipse. The total eclipse path will
cross North America on 2024 April 8, just over one week from today.

NASA Coverage: Total Solar Eclipse of 2024 April 8
Tomorrow's picture: black hole twister
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Amber Straughn Specific rights apply.
NASA Web Privacy, Accessibility, Notices;
A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,
NASA Science Activation
& Michigan Tech. U.

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* Origin: The Rusty MailBox - Penticton, BC Canada (1:153/757)

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2024 April 1
A donut-shaped orange figure is seen with lines extending along the
emission in a swirling pattern. Please see the explanation for more
detailed information.

Swirling Magnetic Field around Our Galaxy's Central Black Hole
Image Credit: EHT Collaboration

Explanation: What's happening to the big black hole in the center of
our galaxy? It is sucking in matter from a swirling disk -- a disk that
is magnetized, it has now been confirmed. Specifically, the black
hole's accretion disk has recently been seen to emit polarized light,
radiation frequently associated with a magnetized source. Pictured here
is a close-up of Sgr A*, our Galaxy's central black hole, taken by
radio telescopes around the world participating in the Event Horizon
Telescope (EHT) Collaboration. Superposed are illustrative curved lines
indicating polarized light likely emitted from swirling magnetized gas
that will soon fall into the 4+ million mass central black hole. The
central part of this image is likely dark because little light-emitting
gas is visible between us and the dark event horizon of the black hole.
Continued EHT monitoring of this and M87's central black hole may yield
new clues about the gravity of black holes and how infalling matter
creates disks and jets.

NASA Predicts: Moon to Get in Way of Sun Tomorrow's picture:
corona-vision
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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Amber Straughn Specific rights apply.
NASA Web Privacy, Accessibility, Notices;
A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,
NASA Science Activation
& Michigan Tech. U.

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* Origin: The Rusty MailBox - Penticton, BC Canada (1:153/757)

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2024 April 2
The Sun is shown during a total solar eclipse. Accentuated is the
expansive corona of the Sun, which is shown streaming out in all
directions. Please see the explanation for more detailed information.

Detailed View of a Solar Eclipse Corona
Image Credit & Copyright: Phil Hart

Explanation: Only in the fleeting darkness of a total solar eclipse is
the light of the solar corona easily visible. Normally overwhelmed by
the bright solar disk, the expansive corona, the sun's outer
atmosphere, is an alluring sight. But the subtle details and extreme
ranges in the corona's brightness, although discernible to the eye, are
notoriously difficult to photograph. Pictured here, however, using
multiple images and digital processing, is a detailed image of the
Sun's corona taken during the April 20, 2023 total solar eclipse from
Exmouth, Australia. Clearly visible are intricate layers and glowing
caustics of an ever changing mixture of hot gas and magnetic fields.
Bright looping prominences appear pink just around the Sun's limb. A
similar solar corona might be visible through clear skies in a narrow
swath across the North America during the total solar eclipse that
occurs just six days from today

NASA Coverage: Total Solar Eclipse of 2024 April 8
Tomorrow's picture: celestial fireworks
__________________________________________________________________

Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Amber Straughn Specific rights apply.
NASA Web Privacy, Accessibility, Notices;
A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,
NASA Science Activation
& Michigan Tech. U.

--- BBBS/Li6 v4.10 Toy-6
* Origin: The Rusty MailBox - Penticton, BC Canada (1:153/757)

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2024 April 3
A nebula is shown that appears like a firework. Radial filaments
connect a glowing halo to a star in the center that appears as a blue
dot. Please see the explanation for more detailed information.

Unusual Nebula Pa 30
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, USAF, NSF; Processing: G. Ferrand (U.
Manitoba), J. English (U. Manitoba), R. A. Fesen (Dartmouth), C.
Treyturik (U. Manitoba); Text: G. Ferrand & J. English

Explanation: What created this unusual celestial firework? The nebula,
dubbed Pa 30, appears in the same sky direction now as a bright "guest
star" did in the year 1181. Although Pa 30's filaments look similar to
that created by a nova (for example GK Per), and a planetary nebula
(for example NGC 6751), some astronomers now propose that it was
created by a rare type of supernova: a thermonuclear Type Iax, and so
is (also) named SN 1181. In this model, the supernova was not the
result of the detonation of a single star, but rather a blast that
occurred when two white dwarf stars spiraled together and merged. The
blue dot in the center is hypothesized to be a zombie star, the remnant
white dwarf that somehow survived this supernova-level explosion. The
featured image combines images and data obtained with infrared (WISE),
visible (MDM, Pan-STARRS), and X-ray (Chandra, XMM) telescopes. Future
observations and analyses may tell us more.

NASA Coverage: Total Solar Eclipse of 2024 April 8
Tomorrow's picture: the comet at night
__________________________________________________________________

Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Amber Straughn Specific rights apply.
NASA Web Privacy, Accessibility, Notices;
A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,
NASA Science Activation
& Michigan Tech. U.

--- BBBS/Li6 v4.10 Toy-6
* Origin: The Rusty MailBox - Penticton, BC Canada (1:153/757)

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
written by a professional astronomer.

2024 April 4

Comet Pons-Brooks at Night
Image Credit & Copyright: Dan Bartlett`

Explanation: In dark evening skies over June Lake, northern hemisphere,
planet Earth, Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks stood just above the western
horizon on March 30. Its twisted turbulent ion tail and diffuse
greenish coma are captured in this two degree wide telescopic field of
view along with bright yellowish star Hamal also known as Alpha
Arietis. Now Pons-Brooks has moved out of the northern night though,
approaching perihelion on April 21. On April 8 you might still spot the
comet in daytime skies. But to do it, you will have to stand in the
path of totality and look away from the spectacle of an alluring solar
corona and totally eclipsed Sun.

NASA Coverage: Total Solar Eclipse of 2024 April 8
Tomorrow's picture: pixels in space
__________________________________________________________________

Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Amber Straughn Specific rights apply.
NASA Web Privacy, Accessibility Notices
A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,
NASA Science Activation
& Michigan Tech. U.

--- BBBS/Li6 v4.10 Toy-6
* Origin: The Rusty MailBox - Penticton, BC Canada (1:153/757)