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Panixersee (Lag da Pigniu) above Andiast, Switzerland. Rock face above the reservoir.

Dominicus Johannes Bergsma., CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Which of these is not a comet? You guessed it - the one on the right is a globular star cluster. The diffuse greenish coma of periodic comet 10P/Tempel 2 is at left in the frame. In fact the globular star cluster is Messier 30, also known as M30, or the 30th entry in astronomer Charles Messier's catalog of things which are not comets. The well-known 18th century astronomer kept a list of objects he observed, now his famous Messier Catalogue of Nebulae and Star Clusters, which did not move from night to night against the background stars and so were not the comets he was hunting for. So the famous comet hunter would get the correct answer too, even though his telescope would show both 10P/Tempel 2 and distant star cluster as similar looking faint and fuzzy objects in his field of view. Recorded on July 29, this modern telescopic image captures periodic comet Tempel 2 as it briefly swept close on the sky to M30. While the periodic comet's faint, narrow, orbital dust trail seems to pierce the globular star cluster, Tempel 2 was a mere 3.5 light-minutes away. Messier 30 is some 28,000 light-years distant.

Photo by Dan Bartlett

The Milky Way over Mount Elbrus, the highest mountain in the Caucasus. The Serpens–Aquila Rift stands in the center of the view: a group of dark interstellar clouds in the constellations Aquila, Serpens Cauda, and eastern Ophiuchus.

oliwok, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.

Welcome to Kudos365 Weekly History Challenge. Test your history  knowledge and see how many of the history questions you can answer correctly. A new updated History Challenge is released every Saturday.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

There are more than half a million galaxies in the central panel of this image from the NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile. This is the COSMOS field, a patch of sky several times larger than the full moon, first observed by Hubble. It has also been observed by Webb and other telescopes because it contains comparatively few bright stars from our own galaxy, offering a relatively unimpeded view of other galaxies outside the Milky Way. The outer panels, numbered 1-10, show zoomed-in views of the corresponding small regions highlighted in the central panel. The variety of galaxy shapes and sizes is astonishing. Some of them are so far away that their light has traveled for billions of years before reaching Earth. Rubin will come back every couple of days to the COSMOS field as part of its ten-year Legacy Survey of Space and Time. It will allow a dynamic view of the COSMOS field and how the sky changes over time.

Photo by NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory/NOIRLab/SLAC/AURA Text: Cecilia Chirenti (NASA GSFC, UMCP, CRESST II)

Motion picture poster for Three Friends, a Biograph Studios release, shows three men clasping hands while sitting at a table in a bar. 1 print (poster) : lithograph, color ; 104 x 70 cm. Today is International Beer Day.

Cleveland : A.B.C. Co. (poster publisher), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.

Maya Angelou (1928-2014) American writer, poet, singer, and civil rights activist.
Image Source

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

What does the new sharpest image of our Sun show? Instability. To be clear, a certain kind of interactive process called the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability (KHI). This instability can create waves and swirls when two streams flow past each other -- in this case variable streams of solar magnetic plasma. Long hypothesized to occur on the Sun's surface, KHI streaks and swirls were confirmed in just-released dramatic high-resolution images taken recently by the Inouye Solar Telescope in Hawaii, USA.  The featured false-yellow image, actually taken in deep blue, is the highest resolution image yet of the Sun in visible light. It spans about the radius of the Earth, but its finest details are city sized. Visible are several smooth tops of changing solar granules, while the edges of the flower-like structures have been found to harbor multiple KHI swirls. Future research may investigate how the KHI helps move energy and magnetic fields, and may even heat the surrounding solar corona.

Samango monkey (Cercopithecus mitis labiatus), Mount Sheba, Pilgrim's Rest, South Africa.

Charles J. Sharp, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Don’t get spooked by Saturn’s ghostly spokes! Today we feature a nearly two-hour timelapse of Saturn and its rings looping forwards and backwards. If you look closely, a ghoulish shadow appears and disappears as  Saturn’s B ring  rotates. Decades of observation with  Voyager 2,  Cassini, and Hubble  show the appearance of Saturn’s spokes varies with  the planet’s seasons. Like Earth, Saturn’s  spin axis  is tilted compared to the plane of its orbit around the Sun. During Saturn’s  equinox, the rings are  less tilted  toward the Sun and they receive sunlight at a shallower angle. Saturn’s spokes may be electrically charged dust and ice temporarily levitated above the rings by electromagnetic forces. It is still uncertain, but the ring plasma and charge environment may be influenced by changing ultraviolet illumination, meteoroid impacts, or indirect effects from interactions between the solar wind and the planet’s magnetic field. Note: The text of this APOD has been revised. Find dark skies and look up this August to witness the Perseid meteor shower uninhibited by the Moon!

Photo by Brad Croslin Text: Keighley Rockcliffe (NASA GSFC, UMBC CSST, CRESST II)