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Astronomy Picture Of the Day (APOD)

25.03.2025
What causes a blue band to cross the Moon during a lunar eclipse? The blue band is real but usually quite hard to see. The featured HDR image of last week's lunar eclipse, however -- taken from Norman, Oklahoma (USA) -- has been digitally processed to exaggerate the colors.

23.03.2025
This was once a beach -- on ancient Mars. The featured 360-degree panorama, horizontally compressed, was taken in 2017 by the robotic Curiosity rover that explored the red planet. Named Ogunquit Beach after its terrestrial...

22.03.2025
What's the sound of one laser zapping? There's no need to consult a Zen master to find out, just listen to the first acoustic recording of laser shots on Mars. On Mars...
21.03.2025
This popular group leaps into the early evening sky around the March equinox and the northern hemisphere spring. Famous as the Leo Triplet, the three magnificent galaxies found in the prominent constellation Leo gather here in one astronomical field of view.

20.03.2025
Recorded from 2024 March 10, to 2025 March 1, this composited series of images reveals a pattern in the seasonal drift of the Sun's daily motion through planet Earth's sky. Known...

19.03.2025
On March 14 the Full Moon slid through Earth's dark umbral shadow and denizens of planet Earth were treated to a total lunar eclipse. Of course, from the Moon's near side that same astronomical syzygy was seen as a solar eclipse.

18.03.2025
There is no sea on Earth large enough to contain the Shark nebula. This predator apparition poses us no danger as it is composed only of interstellar gas and dust. Dark dust like that featured here is somewhat like cigarette smoke and created in the cool atmospheres of giant stars.

17.03.2025
Thor not only has his own day (Thursday), but a helmet in the heavens. Popularly called Thor's Helmet, NGC 2359 is a hat-shaped cosmic cloud with wing-like appendages. Heroically sized even for a Norse god, Thor's Helmet is about 30 light-years across.

16.03.2025
This was a very unusual type of solar eclipse. Typically, it is the Earth's Moon that eclipses the Sun. In 2012, though, the planet Venus took a turn. Like a solar eclipse by the Moon, the phase of Venus became a continually thinner crescent as Venus became increasingly better aligned with the Sun.

15.03.2025
On March 14 the Moon was Full. In an appropriate celebration of Pi day, that put the Moon 3.14 radians (180 degrees) in ecliptic longitude from the Sun in planet Earth's sky.
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