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NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

What's happening at the center of our galaxy? It's hard to tell with optical telescopes since visible light is blocked by intervening interstellar dust. In other bands of light, though, such as radio, the galactic center can be imaged and shows itself to be quite an interesting and active place. The featured picture shows an image of our Milky Way's center by the MeerKAT array of 64 radio dishes in South Africa. Spanning four times the angular size of the Moon (2 degrees), the image is impressively vast, deep, and detailed. Many known sources are shown in clear detail, including many with a prefix of Sgr, since the galactic center is in the direction of the constellation Sagittarius. In our galaxy's center lies Sgr A, found here in the image center, which houses the Milky Way's central supermassive black hole. Other sources in the image are not as well understood, including the Arc, just to the left of Sgr A, and numerous filamentary threads. The inset image shows a small patch recently imaged in infrared light with the James Webb Space Telescope to investigate the effects of magnetic fields on star formation. Open Science: Browse 3,600+ codes in the Astrophysics Source Code Library

4"x3" slide depicting John Wilkes Booth leaning forward to shoot President Abraham Lincoln as he watches Our American Cousin at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C.. The assassination occurred on this date 160 years ago.

unattributed; based on the depiction from a mechanical glass slide by T. M. McAllister of New York, c1865-75 Restored by Adam Cuerden     Description BritishImage restorationist, composer, amateur photographer and artist, and Wikipedian As Adam lives in Britain, which makes it incredibly easy to acquire copyright in his works, he grants, if needed, an irrevokable license to use this work however you see fit. He requests attribution where possible, and realises that "where possible" means that that request is not legally enforcable. Adam Cuerden (talk) 15:44, 16 January 2022 (UTC) Date of birth 8 June 1979 Location of birth United States InfoFieldSee file page for creator info., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

What created this unusual hole in Mars? Actually, there are numerous holes pictured in this Swiss cheese-like landscape, with all-but-one of them showing a dusty, dark, Martian terrain beneath evaporating, light, carbon dioxide ice. The most unusual hole is on the upper right, spans about 100 meters, and seems to punch through to a lower level. Why this hole exists and why it is surrounded by a circular crater remains a topic of speculation, although a leading hypothesis is that it was created by a meteor impact. Holes such as this are of particular interest because they might be portals to lower levels that extend into expansive underground caves. If so, these naturally occurring tunnels are relatively protected from the harsh surface of Mars, making them relatively good candidates to contain Martian life. These pits are therefore also prime targets for possible future spacecraft, robots, and even human interplanetary explorers.

A girl in Maracaibo selling goods for Palm Sunday observance. Today is Palm Sunday.

Wilfredor, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.

"Alcohol, whether consumed regularly or only on special occasions, takes a toll on your body. From your brain and heart, to your lungs and muscles, to your gastrointestinal and immune systems, alcohol has broad harmful effects on your health – including causing cancer" More at The Conversation ➜

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Most of us watch the Moon at night. But the Moon spends nearly as many daylight hours above our horizon, though in bright daytime skies the lunar disk looks pale and can be a little harder to see. Of course in daytime skies the Moon also appears to cycle through its phases, shining by reflected sunlight as it orbits our fair planet. For daytime moonwatchers, the Moon is probably easier to spot when the visible sunlit portion of the lunar disk is large and waxing following first quarter or waning approaching its third quarter phase. And though it might look unusual, a daytime moon is often seen even in urban skies. Captured here in a telephoto snapshot taken on March 12, a waxing daytime Moon is aligned near the edge of a popular observation deck that overlooks New York City's borough of Manahattan.

Photo by Jordi Coy

Machu Picchu, Peru.

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

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Made with a telescope shaded from bright sunlight by an umbrella, on April 5 a well-planned video captured a crescent Venus shining in clear daytime skies from Shoreline, Washington, USA at 11:57AM Pacific Time. It also caught the International Space Station in this single video frame. In close conjunction with the bright planet, the faint outline of the orbital outpost seen at a range of about 400 kilometers appears to be similar in size to the slender planetary crescent. Of course the ISS is much smaller than Venus. Now appearing as planet Earth's brilliant morning star and climbing above the eastern horizon in predawn skies, inner planet Venus was nearly 45 million kilometers from Shoreline.

Photo by A.J. Smadi

The old Jewish cemetery near Waibstadt, Germany. The gravestones in this part date from the 19th century; the photo shows a typical section of that part of the cemetery.

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