Astronomy Picture Of the Day (APOD)
Henize 206: Cosmic Generations11.03.2004
Peering into a dusty nebula in nearby galaxy the Large Magellanic Cloud, infrared cameras on board the Spitzer Space Telescope recorded this detailed view of stellar nursery Henize 206 filled with newborn stars. The stars appear as white spots within the swirls of dust and gas in the false-color infrared image.
Humphrey Rock Indicates Ancient Martian Water
10.03.2004
How prevalent was water on Mars? Results from the Spirit rover now indicate that Gusev crater likely had a wet past, a result that comes shortly after Spirit's twin rover Opportunity uncovered clear evidence of past water at Meridiani Planum on the other side of Mars.
The Hubble Ultra Deep Field
9.03.2004
The above picture will be replaced later today (between 9 and 10 am EST) by the newly released Hubble Ultra Deep Field (HUDF). The HUDF is expected to be the deepest image of the universe ever taken in visible light.
Moon and Venus over Corona Del Mar Beach
8.03.2004
The crescent Moon passed nearly in front of Venus last week. The close conjunction of the night sky's two brightest objects created a striking pose for many viewing the evening sky just after sunset. Such a pose, shown above, was captured between clouds over Corona Del Mar Beach in California, USA.
An Anomalous SETI Signal
7.03.2004
No one knows for sure what caused this signal. There is a slight possibility that it just might originate from an extraterrestrial intelligence. The bright colors on the blue background indicate that an anomalous signal was received here on Earth by a radio telescope involved in a Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI).
N49's Cosmic Blast
6.03.2004
Scattered debris from a cosmic supernova explosion lights up the sky in this gorgeous composited image based on data from the Hubble Space Telescope. Cataloged as N49, these glowing filaments of shocked gas span about 30 light-years in our neighboring galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud.
V838 Mon: Echoes from the Edge
5.03.2004
Variable star V838 Monocerotis lies near the edge of our Milky Way Galaxy, about 20,000 light-years from the Sun. Still, ever since a sudden outburst was detected in January 2002, this enigmatic star...
Cold Mountain Sky
4.03.2004
This lovely celestial view is surely a familiar one to winter skygazers in the northern hemisphere. Lights silhouetting the trees are from nearby towns Morganton and Rutherford College, North Carolina, USA. But the scene may also look familiar to attentive fans of the movie Cold Mountain, whose fictional characters discuss this same factual starry sky.
Opportunity Rover Indicates Ancient Mars Was Wet
3.03.2004
Was Mars ever wet enough to support life? To help answer this question, NASA launched two rover missions to the red planet and landed them in regions that satellite images indicated might have been covered with water.
NGC 6960: The Witchs Broom Nebula
2.03.2004
Ten thousand years ago, before the dawn of recorded human history, a new light must suddenly have appeared in the night sky and faded after a few weeks. Today we know this light was an exploding star and record the colorful expanding cloud as the Veil Nebula.
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