Astronomy Picture Of the Day (APOD)
North America and the Pelican1.12.2017
Fans of our fair planet might recognize the outlines of these cosmic clouds. On the left, bright emission outlined by dark, obscuring dust lanes seems to trace a continental shape, lending the popular name North America Nebula to the emission region cataloged as NGC 7000.
M33: Triangulum Galaxy
30.11.2017
The small, northern constellation Triangulum harbors this magnificent face-on spiral galaxy, M33. Its popular names include the Pinwheel Galaxy or just the Triangulum Galaxy. M33 is over 50,000 light-years in diameter, third largest in the Local Group of galaxies after the Andromeda Galaxy (M31), and our own Milky Way.
M42: The Great Orion Nebula
29.11.2017
Few astronomical sights excite the imagination like the nearby stellar nursery known as the Orion Nebula. The Nebula's glowing gas surrounds hot young stars at the edge of an immense interstellar molecular cloud.
Juno Spots a Complex Storm on Jupiter
28.11.2017
Some storms on Jupiter are quite complex. The swirling storm was captured late last month by the NASA's robotic Juno spacecraft currently orbiting the Solar System's largest planet. The featured image spans about 30,000 kilometers, making this storm system just about as wide as planet Earth.
Hurricane Season Animated
27.11.2017
Where do hurricanes go? To better understand dangerous storms, NASA compiled data from several satellites into a supercomputer simulation of this past year's hurricane season. Specifically, the featured video shows how smoke (white), sea salt (blue), and dust (brown) tracked from 2017 August through October across the northern half of Earth's Western Hemisphere.
Our Story in One Minute
26.11.2017
Do you have a minute -- to see the entire backstory of human existence? This thrilling video culls together multiple teasing video snippets in an attempt to succinctly summarize our history. And sets it to music.
Crossing Horizons
25.11.2017
Follow this vertical panoramic view from horizon to horizon and your gaze will sweep through the zenith of a dark night sky over Pic du Midi mountaintop observatory. To make the journey above...
Apollo 17 at Shorty Crater
24.11.2017
In December of 1972, Apollo 17 astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt spent about 75 hours on the Moon in the Taurus-Littrow valley, while colleague Ronald Evans orbited overhead. This sharp image was taken by Cernan as he and Schmitt roamed the valley floor.
Alnitak, Alnilam, Mintaka
23.11.2017
Alnitak, Alnilam, and Mintaka, are the bright bluish stars from east to west (lower right to upper left) along the diagonal in this cosmic vista. Otherwise known as the Belt of Orion, these three blue supergiant stars are hotter and much more massive than the Sun.
APOD: 2017 November 22 Oumuamua: Interstellar Asteroid
22.11.2017
Nothing like it has ever been seen before. The unusual space rock 'Oumuamua is so intriguing mainly because it is the first asteroid ever detected from outside our Solar System -- although likely many more are to follow given modern computer-driven sky monitoring.
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