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Astronomy Picture Of the Day (APOD)
Red Sprite Lightning
11.11.1995
Recently two new types of lightning have been verified: red sprites and blue jets. These atmospheric discharges occur very high in the Earth's atmosphere - much higher than the familiar form of lightning.
Lightning and the Space Shuttle
10.11.1995
There are many things about lightning that are not understood. Lightning has been seen in the atmospheres of Venus, Earth, Jupiter, and Saturn. A leading theory is that collisions of particles in clouds cause large areas of positive and negative charge.
M104: The Sombrero Galaxy
9.11.1995
The famous Sombrero galaxy (M104) is a bright nearby spiral galaxy. The prominent dust lane and halo of stars and globular clusters give this galaxy its name. Something very energetic is going on in the Sombrero's center, as much X-ray light has been detected from it.
Simulating the Universe
8.11.1995
The above cube represents a chunk of our universe as simulated by the Grand Challenge Cosmology Consortium (GC3). The cube is huge - it would take light 500 million years to cross it. Low density gas is shown as blue, and high density gas as red.
Eagle EGGs in M16
7.11.1995
Star forming regions known as "EGGs" are uncovered at the end of this giant pillar of gas and dust in the Eagle Nebula (M16). EGGs, short for evaporating gaseous globules, are dense regions of mostly molecular hydrogen gas that fragment and gravitationally collapse to form stars.
M16: Stars Upon Pillars
6.11.1995
How do stars form? This stunning picture taken recently by the Hubble Space Telescope gives us a first hand glimpse. Here evaporating gaseous globules (EGGs) are captured emerging from pillars of molecular hydrogen and dust in the Eagle Nebula (M16).
Vela Satellites: The Watchers
5.11.1995
In October of 1963 the US Air Force launched the first in a series of satellites inspired by a recently signed nuclear test ban treaty. Signatories of this treaty agreed not to test nuclear devices in the atmosphere or in space.
Neptune's Moon Proteus
4.11.1995
Proteus is the second largest moon of Neptune behind the mysterious Triton. Proteus was discovered only in 1982 by the Voyager 2 spacecraft. This is unusual since Neptune has a smaller moon - Nereid - which was discovered 33 years earlier from Earth.
Jupiter's Moon Amalthea
3.11.1995
Amalthea is Jupiter's fifth largest moon, much smaller than the four Galilean satellites Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. The orbit of Amalthea is inside of these moons, and with its long axis always pointing toward Jupiter. It's dark surface color is probably due to sulfur being expelled from Io.
The Red Rectangle
2.11.1995
The unusual geometry of this stellar nebula creates somewhat of a mystery. At the nebula's center is a young binary star system that probably created the nebula, but how? This type of nebula shows a "bipolar flow" which carries a significant amount of mass away from the central stars.
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