Magazine Posts

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

In about a week the Perseid Meteor Shower will reach its maximum. Grains of icy rock will streak across the sky as they evaporate during entry into Earth's atmosphere. These grains were shed from Comet Swift-Tuttle. The Perseids result from the annual crossing of the Earth through Comet Swift-Tuttle's orbit, and are typically the most active meteor shower of the year. Although it is hard to predict the level of activity in any meteor shower, in a clear dark sky an observer might see a meteor a minute. This year's Perseids peak just a few days after full moon, and so some faint meteors will be lost to the lunar skyglow. Meteor showers in general are best seen from a relaxing position, away from lights. Featured here is a meteor caught exploding during the 2015 Perseids above Austria next to the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy.

Photo by Andre van der Hoeven

Lilac-breasted roller (Coracias caudatus), Kruger National Park, South Africa.

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

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Taken on July 29 and July 30, a registered and stacked series of exposures creates this dreamlike view of a northern summer night. Multiple firefly flashes streak across the foreground as the luminous Milky Way arcs above the horizon in the Sierra de Órganos national park of central Mexico, The collection of bright streaks aligned across the sky toward the upper left in the timelapse image are Delta Aquariid meteors. Currently active, the annual Delta Aquarid meteor shower shares August nights though, overlapping with the better-known Perseid meteor shower. This year that makes post-midnight, mostly moonless skies in early August very popular with late night skygazers. How can you tell a Delta Aquariid from a Perseid meteor? The streaks of Perseid meteors can be traced back to an apparent radiant in the constellation Perseus. Delta Aquariids appear to emerge from the more southerly constellation Aquarius, beyond the top left of this frame. Of course, the bioluminescent flashes of fireflies are common too on these northern summer nights. But how can you tell a firefly from a meteor? Just try to catch one.

Photo by Daniel Korona

La Fuentona, Muriel de la Fuente, Soria, Spain. The natural spring is a natural monument since 1998. There are only 6 such monuments in the Community of Castile and León (the biggest in Spain by surface).

Diego Delso, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

A small, dark, nebula looks isolated near the center of this telescopic close-up. The wedge-shaped cosmic cloudlet lies within a relatively crowded region of space though. About 7,000 light-years distant and filled with glowing gas and an embedded cluster of young stars, the region is known as M16 or the Eagle Nebula. Hubble's iconic images of the Eagle Nebula include the famous star-forming Pillars of Creation, towering structures of interstellar gas and dust 4 to 5 light-years long. But this small dark nebula, known to some as a Bok globule, is a fraction of a light-year across. The Bok globule stands out in silhouette against the expansive background of M16's diffuse glow. Found scattered within emission nebulae and star clusters, Bok globules are small interstellar clouds of cold molecular gas and obscuring dust that also form stars within their dense, collapsing cores.

Photo by Peter Bresseler

Édouard Manet's The Café-Concert, 1878. Scene set in the Cabaret de Reichshoffen on the Boulevard Rochechouart, where women on the fringes of society freely intermingled with well-heeled gentlemen. Today is International Beer Day.

Édouard Manet, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

A long time ago in a galaxy 50 million light-years away, a star exploded. Light from that supernova was first detected by telescopes on planet Earth on July 14th though, and the extragalactic transient is now known to astronomers as supernova 2025rbs. Presently the brightest supernova in planet Earth's sky, 2025rbs is a Type Ia supernova, likely caused by the thermonuclear detonation of a white dwarf star that accreted material from a companion in a binary star system. Type Ia supernovae are used as standard candles to establish the distance scale of the universe. The host galaxy of 2025rbs is NGC 7331. Itself a bright spiral galaxy in the northern constellation Pegasus, NGC 7331 is often touted as an analog to our own Milky Way.