Astronomy Picture Of the Day (APOD)
APOD: 2024 September 9 Б Mars: Moon, Craters, and Volcanos9.09.2024
If you could fly over Mars, what might you see? The featured image shows exactly this in the form of a Mars Express vista captured over a particularly interesting region on Mars in July. The picture's most famous feature is Olympus Mons, the largest volcano in the Solar System, visible on the upper right.
APOD: 2024 September 8 Б M31: The Andromeda Galaxy
8.09.2024
The most distant object easily visible to the unaided eye is M31, the great Andromeda Galaxy. Even at some two and a half million light-years distant, this immense spiral galaxy -- spanning over 200,000 light years -- is visible, although as a faint, nebulous cloud in the constellation Andromeda.
Small Moon Deimos
7.09.2024
Mars has two tiny moons, Phobos and Deimos, named for the figures in Greek mythology Fear and Panic. Detailed surface views of smaller moon Deimos are shown in both these panels. The images were taken in 2009, by the HiRISE camera on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft, NASA's long-lived interplanetary internet satellite.
Ringed Ice Giant Neptune
6.09.2024
Ringed ice giant Neptune lies near the center of this sharp near-infrared image from the James Webb Space Telescope. The dim and distant world is the farthest planet from the Sun, about 30 times farther away than planet Earth.
NGC 247 and Friends
5.09.2024
About 70,000 light-years across, NGC 247 is a spiral galaxy smaller than our Milky Way. Measured to be only 11 million light-years distant it is nearby though. Tilted nearly edge-on as seen from our perspective, it dominates this telescopic field of view toward the southern constellation Cetus.
APOD: 2024 September 4 Б NGC 6995: The Bat Nebula
4.09.2024
Can you see the bat? It haunts this cosmic close-up of the eastern Veil Nebula. The Veil Nebula itself is a large supernova remnant, the expanding debris cloud from the death explosion of a massive star.
APOD: 2024 September 3 Б Quarter Moon and Sister Stars
3.09.2024
Nine days ago, two quite different sky icons were imaged rising together. Specifically, Earth's Moon shared the eastern sky with the sister stars of the Pleiades cluster, as viewed from Alberta, Canada. Astronomical...
APOD: 2024 September 2 Б A Triangular Prominence Hovers Over the Sun
2.09.2024
Why is there a triangle hovering over the Sun? Although the shape is unusual, the type of structure is not: it is part of an evolving solar prominence. Looping magnetic fields on the Sun channel the flow of energetic particles, sometimes holding glowing gaseous structures aloft for months.
APOD: 2024 September 1 Б The Moon Dressed Like Saturn
1.09.2024
Why does Saturn appear so big? It doesn't -- what is pictured are foreground clouds on Earth crossing in front of the Moon. The Moon shows a slight crescent phase with most of its surface visible by reflected Earthlight, known as Da Vinci glow.
IFN and the NGC 7771 Group
31.08.2024
Galaxies of the NGC 7771 Group are featured in this intriguing skyscape. Some 200 million light-years distant toward the constellation Pegasus, NGC 7771 is the large, edge-on spiral near center, about 75,000 light-years across, with two smaller galaxies below it. Large spiral NGC 7769 is seen face-on to the right.
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