Astronomy Picture Of the Day (APOD)
Meteor Storm Sights and Sounds30.11.2001
This dramatic four-frame animation shows a fireball meteor and its developing persistent "smoke" train, recorded two weeks ago in skies near Salvador, Brazil. Indeed similar sights are astonishingly familiar world-wide to witnesses of this November's fireball-rich Leonid meteor storm.
Coronal Inflow
29.11.2001
The active Sun has thrown a lot our way lately, including storms of particles streaming outward in the solar wind and clouds of plasma which triggered awesome auroral displays. Still, a growing body...
Extra Solar Planetary Atmosphere Detected
28.11.2001
By directly detecting the atmosphere of a planet outside our Solar System, humanity has taken another small step toward finding extraterrestrial life. The unexpected detection by David Charbonneau (Caltech) and associates came from Hubble Space Telescope observations of Sun-like star HD 209458.
Ancient Layered Rocks on Mars
27.11.2001
Is this a picture of Mars or Earth? Oddly enough, it is a picture of Mars. What may appear to some as a terrestrial coastline is in fact a formation of ancient layered rocks and wind-blown sand on Mars. The above-pictured region spans about three kilometers in Schiaparelli Crater.
Leonids from the Road
26.11.2001
Sometimes you just have to stop and watch the meteors. In the early morning hours of November 18, a band of eleven people searched for a flat and cloudless site to see the 2001 Leonids Meteor Shower.
M16: Stars from Eagle's EGGs
25.11.2001
Newborn stars are forming in the Eagle Nebula. This image, taken with the Hubble Space Telescope in 1995, shows evaporating gaseous globules (EGGs) emerging from pillars of molecular hydrogen gas and dust. The giant pillars are light years in length and are so dense that interior gas contracts gravitationally to form stars.
Mariner s Mercury
24.11.2001
Mercury, the closest planet to the Sun, remains the most mysterious of the Solar System's inner planets. Hiding in the Sun's glare it is a difficult target for Earth bound observers.
Counting Falling Stardust
23.11.2001
In the clear, dark and moonless predawn hours of November 18, Greenbelt, Maryland's local baseball field was packed. The crowd stared skyward and occasionally conversed in hushed and reverent tones. "How many did you count?" a man asked.
Fireball, Smoke Trail, Meteor Storm
22.11.2001
Returning from orbit, space shuttles enter the atmosphere at about 8 kilometers per second as friction heats their protective ceramic tiles to over 1,400 degrees Celsius. By contrast, the bits of comet dust...
The Galactic Ring of NGC 6782
21.11.2001
Do spiral galaxies look the same in every color? NGC 6782 demonstrates colorfully that they do not. In visible light, NGC 6782 appears to be a normal spiral galaxy with a bright bar across its center.
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