Astronomy Picture Of the Day (APOD)
APOD: 2024 November 12 Б NGC 6888: The Crescent Nebula11.11.2024
How was the Crescent Nebula created? Looking like an emerging space cocoon, the Crescent Nebula, visible in the center of the featured image, was created by the brightest star in its center. A leading progenitor hypothesis has the Crescent Nebula beginning to form about 250,000 years ago.
APOD: 2024 November 11 Б The Unusual Tails of Comet Tsuchinshan Atlas
10.11.2024
What created an unusual dark streak in Comet Tsuchinshan-Atlas's tail? Some images of the bright comet during mid-October not only caught its impressively long tail and its thin anti-tail, but a rather unexpected feature: a dark streak in the long tail.
APOD: 2024 November 10 Б Valles Marineris: The Grand Canyon of Mars
9.11.2024
The largest canyon in the Solar System cuts a wide swath across the face of Mars. Named Valles Marineris, the grand valley extends over 3,000 kilometers long, spans as much as 600 kilometers across, and delves as much as 8 kilometers deep.
Neptune at Night
8.11.2024
Ice giant Neptune is faint in Earth's night sky. Some 30 times farther from the Sun than our fair planet, telescopes are needed to catch a glimpse of the dim and distant world. This dramatic view of Neptune's night just isn't possible for telescopes in the vicinity of planet Earth though.
Helping Hand in Cassiopeia
7.11.2024
Drifting near the plane of our Milky Way galaxy these dusty molecular clouds seem to extend a helping hand on a cosmic scale. Part of a local complex of star-forming interstellar clouds they include LDN 1358, 1357, and 1355 from American astronomer Beverly Lynds' 1962 Catalog of Dark Nebulae.
Shell Galaxies in Pisces
6.11.2024
This spectacular intergalactic skyscape features Arp 227, a curious system of galaxies from the 1966 Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies. Some 100 million light-years distant within the boundaries of the constellation Pisces, Arp 227 consists...
APOD: 2024 November 6 Б Comet Tsuchinshan Atlas over the Dolomites
5.11.2024
Comet Tsuchinshan-Atlas is now headed back to the outer Solar System. The massive dusty snowball put on quite a show during its trip near the Sun, resulting in many impressive pictures from planet Earth during October. The featured image was taken in mid-October and shows a defining visual feature of the comet -- its impressive anti-tail.
APOD: 2024 November 5 Б Milky Way over Easter Island
4.11.2024
Why were the statues on Easter Island built? No one is sure. What is sure is that over 900 large stone statues called moais exist there. The Rapa Nui (Easter Island) moais stand, on average, over twice as tall as a person and have over 200 times as much mass.
APOD: 2024 November 4 Б M42: The Great Nebula in Orion
3.11.2024
The Great Nebula in Orion, an immense, nearby starbirth region, is probably the most famous of all astronomical nebulas. Here, glowing gas surrounds hot young stars at the edge of an immense interstellar molecular cloud only 1500 light-years away.
APOD: 2024 November 3 Б Jupiter Abyss
2.11.2024
What's that black spot on Jupiter? No one is sure. During one pass of NASA's Juno over Jupiter, the robotic spacecraft imaged an usually dark cloud feature informally dubbed the Abyss. Surrounding cloud patterns show the Abyss to be at the center of a vortex.
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