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Explore major historical events from today or any day on Kudos 365.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

As the Sun set, a bright Full Moon rose on July 10. Its golden light illuminates clouds drifting through southern hemisphere skies in this well-composed telephoto image from Conceição do Coité, Bahia, Brazil. The brightest lunar phase is captured here with both a short and long exposure. The two exposures were combined to reveal details of the lunar surface in bright moonlight and a subtle iridescence along the dramatically backlit cloudscape. Of course, July's Full Moon is a winter moon in the southern hemisphere. But in the north it's known to some as the Thunder Moon, likely a nod to the sounds of this northern summer month's typically stormy weather.

Photo by Alexsandro Mota

A dragon blood tree (Dracaena cinnabari) in the Diksam Plateau, on the island of Socotra, Yemen.

Alex38, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Transfusing sunlight as the sky grew darker, this exceptional display of noctilucent clouds was captured on July 10, reflected in the calm waters of Vallentuna Lake near Stockholm, Sweden. From the edge of space, about 80 kilometers above Earth's surface, the icy clouds themselves still reflect sunlight, even though the Sun is below the horizon as seen from the ground. Usually spotted at high latitudes in summer months, the night shining clouds have made a strong showing so far during the short northern summer nights. Also known as polar mesopheric clouds they are understood to form as water vapor driven into the cold upper atmosphere condenses on the fine dust particles supplied by disintegrating meteors or volcanic ash.

Photo by Clear Skies

Soba noodles deliveryman in Tokyo, 1935. Photo by the Mainichi Shimbun. Piles of soba bowls were packed on the shoulders of bicycle couriers.

Mainichi Shimbun, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Stars are forming in Lynds Dark Nebula (LDN) 1251. About 1,000 light-years away and drifting above the plane of our Milky Way galaxy, LDN 1251 is also less appetizingly known as "The Rotten Fish Nebula." The dusty molecular cloud is part of a complex of dark nebulae mapped toward the Cepheus flare region. Across the spectrum, astronomical explorations of the obscuring interstellar clouds reveal energetic shocks and outflows associated with newborn stars, including the telltale reddish glow from scattered Herbig-Haro objects hiding in the image. Distant background galaxies also lurk in the scene, almost buried behind the dusty expanse. This alluring telescopic frame spans almost three full moons on the sky. That corresponds to over 25 light-years at the estimated distance of LDN 1251.

Photo by Cristiano Gualco

Saint Anne, an 8th or 9th century Makurian wall painting, painted al secco with tempera on plaster, found at the Faras Cathedral within old Nubia in present-day Sudan.

Unknown authorUnknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

The beautiful Trifid Nebula is a cosmic study in contrasts. Also known as M20, it lies about 5,000 light-years away toward the nebula rich constellation Sagittarius. A star forming region in the plane of our galaxy, the Trifid does illustrate three different types of astronomical nebulae; red emission nebulae dominated by light from hydrogen atoms, blue reflection nebulae produced by dust reflecting starlight, and dark nebulae where dense dust clouds appear in silhouette. But, the red emission region roughly separated into three parts by obscuring dust lanes is what lends the Trifid its popular name. Pillars and jets sculpted by newborn stars, above and right of the emission nebula's center, appear in famous Hubble Space Telescope close-up images of the region. The Trifid Nebula is about 40 light-years across. Too faint to be seen by the unaided eye, in this deep telescopic view it almost covers the area of a full moon on planet Earth's sky.

Photo by Alessandro Cipolat Bares

Rifling of a M75 cannon (year 1891, Austro-Hungarian). Exposition of Ljubljana Castle (Ljubljana, Slovenia). The photo was made by macro stacking of 43 pictures.

Petar Milošević, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.