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Astronomy Picture Of the Day (APOD)
Supernova Remnant: Cooking Elements In The LMC
9.05.1996
Massive stars cook elements in their cores through nuclear fusion. Starting with the light elements of hydrogen and helium, their central temperatures and pressures produce progressively heavier elements, carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, etc. up through iron.
Neptune's Great Dark Spot: Gone But Not Forgotten
8.05.1996
When NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft flew by distant Neptune in August of 1989, astronomers were shocked. Since Neptune receives only 3 percent the sunlight Jupiter does, they expected to find a dormant, dark, frigid planet. Instead, the Voyager images revealed evidence of a dynamic and turbulent world.
The Clouds of Neptune
7.05.1996
These Hubble Space Telescope (HST) images reveal glimpses of the dynamic atmosphere of Neptune, the Solar System's most distant gas giant planet. The first close-up of Neptune's clouds was provided by NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft during its August 1989 flyby, giving a tantalizingly brief look.
Southern Lights and Shuttle Glow
6.05.1996
A background of distant stars, sinuous and spiky bands of Southern Lights (Aurora Australis), and the faint glow of charged plasma (ionized atomic gas) surrounding the Space Shuttle Discovery's engines give this photo from the STS-39 mission an eerie, otherworldly look.
Planet Near a Galaxy Core
5.05.1996
What would the night sky look like if you lived on a planet near the center of a galaxy? Now imagine that this galaxy houses a black hole billions of times more massive than a star. From this spectacular vantage point, the sky might look like the above illustration.
Astro 1 In Orbit
4.05.1996
In December of 1990, the Space Shuttle Columbia carried an array of astronomical telescopes high above the Earth's obscuring atmosphere to observe the Universe at ultraviolet and x-ray wavelengths. The telescopes, known...
The Milky Way Near the Southern Cross
3.05.1996
This breathtaking patch of sky would be above you were you to stand at the south pole of the Earth. Just above and to the right of the photograph's center are the four stars that mark the boundaries of the famous Southern Cross.
The Tails of Comet Hyakutake
2.05.1996
What makes comet tails so colorful? This photograph of Comet Hyakutake was taken the night of April 18th and highlights different components of the tail. The gold and red tail features are dust, made predominately of little bits of rock and carbon. The dust tail shines by reflecting sunlight.
Comet Hyakutake and a Cactus
1.05.1996
Comet Hyakutake is shown photographed the night of March 27 in Arizona, USA, with a cactus in the foreground. Polaris, the north star, is the bright star seen just to the upper right of the comet's head. Today Comet Hyakutake reaches its closest approach to the Sun.
Uranus' Ring System
30.04.1996
The rings of Uranus are thin, narrow, and dark compared to other planetary ring systems. Brightened artificially by computer, the ring particles reflect as little light as charcoal, although they are really made of ice chucks darkened by rock.
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