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Astronomy Picture Of the Day (APOD)
Northern Cygnus
20.09.2007
Bright, hot, supergiant star Deneb lies at top center in this gorgeous skyscape. The 20 frame mosaic spans an impressive 12 degrees across the northern end of Cygnus the Swan. Crowded with stars...
4000 Kilometers Above Saturns Iapetus
19.09.2007
What does the surface of Saturn's mysterious moon Iapetus look like? To help find out, the robotic Cassini spacecraft now orbiting Saturn was sent soaring last week just 2,000 kilometers from the unique equatorial ridge of the unusual walnut-shaped two-toned moon.
Tungurahua Erupts
18.09.2007
Volcano Tungurahua erupted spectacularly last year. Pictured above, molten rock so hot it glows visibly pours down the sides of the 5,000-meter high Tungurahua, while a cloud of dark ash is seen being ejected toward the left. Wispy white clouds flow around the lava-lit peak, while a star-lit sky shines in the distance.
Inside Victoria Crater on Mars
17.09.2007
NASA's Opportunity rover is now inside Victoria Crater on Mars. Last week the robot rolled about 20 meters into the largest crater any Martian rover has yet encountered, the crater next to which Opportunity has been perched for months.
To Fly Free in Space
16.09.2007
At about 100 meters from the cargo bay of the space shuttle Challenger, Bruce McCandless II was further out than anyone had ever been before. Guided by a Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU), astronaut McCandless, pictured above, was floating free in space.
Iapetus: 3D Equatorial Ridge
15.09.2007
This bizarre, equatorial ridge extending across and beyond the dark, leading hemisphere of Iapetus gives the two-toned Saturnian moon a distinct walnut shape. With red/blue glasses you can check out a remarkable stereo composition of this extraordinary feature -- based on close-up images from this week's Cassini spacecraft flyby.
Iapetus in Black and White
14.09.2007
Iapetus, Saturn's third largest moon, is a candidate for the strangest moon of Saturn. Tidally locked in its orbit around the ringed gas giant, Iapetus is sometimes called the yin-yang moon because...
NGC 7129 and NGC 7142
13.09.2007
This alluring telescopic image looks toward the constellation Cepheus and an intriguing visual pairing of dusty reflection nebula NGC 7129 (left) and open star cluster NGC 7142. The two appear separated by only half a degree on the sky, but they actually lie at quite different distances.
Six Rainbows Across Norway
12.09.2007
Have you ever seen six rainbows at once? They are not only rare to see -- they are a puzzle to understand. The common rainbow is caused by sunlight internally reflected by the backs of falling raindrops, while also being refracted at the air / water boundary.
A Scorpio Sky Spectacular
11.09.2007
If Scorpio looked this good to the unaided eye, humans might remember it better. Scorpio more typically appears as a few bright stars in a well known but rarely pointed out zodiacal constellation. To get a spectacular image like this, though, one needs a good camera, color filters, and a digital image processor.
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