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Astronomy Picture Of the Day (APOD)
Tornado and Rainbow Over Kansas
13.06.2005
The scene might have been considered serene if it weren't for the tornado. Last June in Kansas, storm chaser Eric Nguyen photographed this budding twister in a different light -- the light of a rainbow. Pictured above, a white tornado cloud descends from a dark storm cloud.
M2 9: Wings of a Butterfly Nebula
12.06.2005
Are stars better appreciated for their art after they die? Actually, stars usually create their most artistic displays as they die. In the case of low-mass stars like our Sun and M2-9 pictured above, the stars transform themselves from normal stars to white dwarfs by casting off their outer gaseous envelopes.
Earth at Twilight
11.06.2005
No sudden, sharp boundary marks the passage of day into night in this gorgeous view of ocean and clouds over our fair planet Earth. Instead, the shadow line or terminator is diffuse and shows the gradual transition to darkness we experience as twilight.
Titan s Cryovolcano
10.06.2005
Investigators suspect the domed feature detailed above is an ice volcano, or cryovolcano, seen in infrared light through the hazy atmosphere on Saturn's moon Titan. Since Titan's surface temperature is around -180...
Venus Returns to the Evening Sky
9.06.2005
This serene image of boats moored in the harbor of l'нle-Tudy, Bretagne, France was taken on June 1st, about an hour after sunset. It also features Venus, third brightest celestial object after the Sun and Moon.
Rampaging Supernova Remnant N63A
8.06.2005
What has this supernova left behind? As little as 2,000 years ago, light from a massive stellar explosion in the Large Magellanic Clouds (LMC) first reached planet Earth. The LMC is a close...
Galaxies in View
7.06.2005
Galaxies abound in this cosmic scene, a well chosen telescopic view toward the northern constellation of Ursa Major. Most noticeable are the striking pair of spiral galaxies - NGC 3718 (above, right) and NGC 3729 (below center) - a mere 52 million light-years distant.
Saturn: Dirty Rings and a Clean Moon
6.06.2005
Eating surface ice from Enceladus might be healthier than eating ice from Saturn's rings -- it certainly appears cleaner. From their apparent densities and reflectance properties, both the rings of Saturn and its shiniest moon, Enceladus, are thought to be composed predominantly of water ice.
A Milky Way Band
5.06.2005
Most bright stars in our Milky Way Galaxy reside in a disk. Since our Sun also resides in this disk, these stars appear to us as a diffuse band that circles the sky.
First US Spacewalk
4.06.2005
In 1965, forty years ago on June 3rd, astronaut Edward White made the first U.S. spacewalk. Tethered to his Gemini IV capsule, White is pictured above holding a compressed gas "zip gun" for maneuvers in his right hand.
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