Magazine Posts

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Deimos takes 30 hours and 18 minutes to complete one orbit around the Red Planet. That's a little more than one Martian day or sol which is about 24 hours and 40 minutes long, so Deimos drifts westward across the Martian sky. About 15 kilometers across at its widest, the smallest of Mars' two moons is bright though. In fact Deimos is the brightest celestial object in this Martian skyscape captured before sunrise by Perseverance on March 1, the 1,433rd sol of the Mars rover's mission. The image is a composed of 16 exposures recorded by one of the rover's navigation cameras. The individual exposures were combined into a single image for an enhanced low light view. Regulus and Algeiba, bright stars in the constellation Leo, are also visible in the dark Martian predawn sky.

Nationally, six-in-ten Americans say stricter environmental laws and regulations are worth the cost, while 38% say they cost too many jobs and hurt the economy. More at Pew Research Center ➜

This image of Mary Help of Christians was painted after the original by Lucas Cranach the Elder and is located in Maria Hilf pilgrimage church (Moosbronn, Baden-Württemberg, Germany). Today is the feast day of Mary Help of Christians in the Catholic Church.

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

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Most globular star clusters roam the halo of our Milky Way galaxy, but globular cluster NGC 6366 lies close to the galactic plane. About 12,000 light-years away toward the constellation Ophiuchus, the cluster's starlight is dimmed and reddened by the Milky Way's interstellar dust when viewed from planet Earth. As a result, the stars of NGC 6366 look almost golden in this telescopic scene, especially when seen next to relatively bright, bluish, and nearby star 47 Ophiuchi. Compared to the hundred thousand stars or so gravitationally bound in distant NGC 6366, 47 Oph itself is a binary star system a mere 100 light-years away. Still, the co-orbiting stars of 47 Oph are too close together to be individually distinguished in the image.

Photo by Massimo Di Fusco

Huvudsta metro station, Stockholm.

Arild Vågen, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

A bright spiral galaxy of the northern sky, Messier 63 is nearby, about 30 million light-years distant toward the loyal constellation Canes Venatici. Also cataloged as NGC 5055, the majestic island universe is nearly 100,000 light-years across, about the size of our own Milky Way. Its bright core and majestic spiral arms lend the galaxy its popular name, The Sunflower Galaxy. This exceptionally deep exposure also follows faint loops and curling star streams far into the galaxy's halo. Extending nearly 180,000 light-years from the galactic center, the star streams are likely remnants of tidally disrupted satellites of M63. Other satellite galaxies of M63 can be spotted in the remarkable wide-field image, including dwarf galaxies, which could contribute to M63's star streams in the next few billion years.

Photo by Alberto Pisabarro

Worm's-eye view of Tokyo Skytree, Japan. The tower was opened to the public on this day in 2012.

Basile Morin, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Typically, the International Space Station is visible only at night. Slowly drifting across the night sky as it orbits the Earth, the International Space Station (ISS) can be seen as a bright spot about once a month from many locations. The ISS is then visible only just after sunset or just before sunrise because it shines by reflected sunlight -- once the ISS enters the Earth's shadow, it will drop out of sight. The only occasion when the ISS is visible during the day is when it passes right in front of the Sun. Then, it passes so quickly that only cameras taking short exposures can visually freeze the ISS's silhouette onto the background Sun. The featured picture did exactly that -- it is actually a series of images taken a month ago from Sant Feliu de Buixalleu, Spain with perfect timing. This image series was later combined with a separate image highlighting the texture of the active Sun which included several Sun's prominences around the edge. Celestial Surprise: What picture did APOD feature on your birthday? (post 1995)

Photo by Pau Montplet Sanz