Astronomy Picture Of the Day (APOD)
APOD: 2024 December 9 Б Pleiades: The Seven Sisters Star Cluster9.12.2024
Have you ever seen the Pleiades star cluster? Even if you have, you probably have never seen it as large and clear as this. Perhaps the most famous star cluster on the sky, the bright stars of the Pleiades can be seen with the unaided eye even from the depths of a light-polluted city.
APOD: 2024 December 8 Б Aurora around Saturns North Pole
8.12.2024
Are Saturn's auroras like Earth's? To help answer this question, the Hubble Space Telescope and the Cassini spacecraft monitored Saturn's North Pole simultaneously during Cassini's final orbits around the gas giant in September 2017. During this time, Saturn's tilt caused its North Pole to be clearly visible from Earth.
Rocket Engine Fireplace
7.12.2024
You might not think a close up view of rocket engines producing 8.8 million pounds of thrust would be relaxing, but here it can be. In fact, you can get a warm and cozy feeling just spending a few moments watching NASA's holiday rocket engine fireplace.
Xuyi Station and the Fireball
6.12.2024
Colorful and bright, this streaking fireball meteor was captured in a single exposure taken at Purple Mountain (Tsuchinshan) ObservatoryБs Xuyi Station in 2020, during planet Earth's annual Perseid meteor shower. The dome in the foreground houses the China Near Earth Object Survey Telescope (CNEOST), the largest multi-purpose Schmidt telescope in China.
Stereo Jupiter near Opposition
5.12.2024
Jupiter looks sharp in these two rooftop telescope images. Both were captured last year 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.
APOD: 2024 December 4 Б Driveway Analemma
4.12.2024
Does the Sun return to the same spot on the sky every day?б No.б A more visual answer is an analemma, a composite of sky images taken at the same time and from the same place over a year.
APOD: 2024 December 3 Б Ice Clouds over a Red Planet
3.12.2024
If you could stand on Mars -- what might you see? You might look out over a vast orange landscape covered with rocks under a dusty orange sky, with a blue-tinted Sun setting over the horizon, and odd-shaped water clouds hovering high overhead.
APOD: 2024 December 2 Б NGC 300: A Galaxy of Stars
2.12.2024
This galaxy is unusual for how many stars it seems that you can see. Stars are so abundantly evident in this deep exposure of the spiral galaxy NGC 300 because so many of these stars are bright blue and grouped into resolvable bright star clusters.
APOD: 2024 December 1 Б Cosmic Latte: The Average Color of the Universe
1.12.2024
What color is the universe? More precisely, if the entire sky were smeared out, what color would the final mix be? This whimsical question came up when trying to determine what stars are commonplace in nearby galaxies. The answer, depicted here, is a conditionally perceived shade of beige. In computer parlance: #FFF8E7.
Winter and Summer on a Little Planet
30.11.2024
Winter and summer appear to come on a single night to this stunning little planet. It's planet Earth of course. The digitally mapped, nadir centered panorama covers 360x180 degrees and is composed of frames recorded during January and July from the Col du Galibier in the French Alps.
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