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NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Do you see the horse's head? What you are seeing is not the famous Horsehead nebula toward Orion, but rather a fainter nebula that only takes on a familiar form with deeper imaging. The main part of the here-imaged molecular cloud complex is reflection nebula IC 4592. Reflection nebulas are made up of very fine dust that normally appears dark but can look quite blue when reflecting the visible light of energetic nearby stars. In this case, the source of much of the reflected light is a star at the eye of the horse. That star is part of Nu Scorpii, one of the brighter star systems toward the constellation of the Scorpion (Scorpius). A second reflection nebula dubbed IC 4601 is visible surrounding two stars just below the image center. The featured picture was taken from Sawda Natheel in Qatar. Jigsaw Nebula: Astronomy Puzzle of the Day

Photo by Rabeea Alkuwari

The Ziegeleisee in Böckingen, Heilbronn, Germany, view in spring. In the centre a landing mute swan (Cygnus olor).

Roman Eisele, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.

Frida Lannerström on Unsplash

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Why doesn't Artemis II land on the Moon? The main reason is that Artemis II is primarily a test mission designed to make a future Artemis missions -- which will land humans on the Moon -- better prepared. Similarly, NASA's Apollo 8 and Apollo 10 went right near the Moon as tests before Apollo 11 -- which landed. As the trajectory in the featured animated video shows, Artemis II will loop around both the Earth and the Moon before returning to the Earth about 10 days after launch. The Artemis II mission will take humans outside the Earth's magnetosphere for the first time since the Apollo missions 50 years ago. In the video, particles from the solar wind are shown as streaks, while the Earth's reacting magnetosphere is shown in flickering green. The Earth's magnetosphere is important in deflecting powerful particles arriving from the Sun as well as creating picturesque auroras visible from the Earth's surface. Explore the Universe: Random APOD Generator

View NASA’s Astronomy Photo of the Day

Solitary tree with frost and fields near Hausdülmen, Dülmen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.

Dietmar Rabich, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.

Albert Einstein (March 14, 1879, - April 18, 1955)

Gary Bendig on Unsplash

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

The party is still going on in spiral galaxy NGC 3310. Roughly 100 million years ago, NGC 3310 likely collided with a smaller galaxy causing the large spiral galaxy to light up with a tremendous burst of star formation. The changing gravity during the collision created density waves that compressed existing clouds of gas and triggered the star-forming party. The featured image from the Gemini North Telescope shows the galaxy in great detail, color-coded so that pink highlights gas while white and blue highlight stars. Some of the star clusters in the galaxy are quite young, indicating that starburst galaxies may remain in star-burst mode for quite some time. NGC 3310 spans about 50,000 light years, lies about 50 million light years away, and is visible with a small telescope towards the constellation of Great Bear Ursa Major.

Photo by AAO ITSO Office, Gemini Obs./AURA & T. A. Rector (U. Alaska Anchorage)

Stained glass windows in the Iglesia de El Salvador, Santa Cruz de La Palma, Canary Islands, Spain. From left to right: *Baptism of Jesus *Parable of the Prodigal Son *Resurrection of Jesus *Calming the storm *Marriage at Cana Today is Easter Sunday in Western Christianity.

H. Zell, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.