Contributor Posts

Jantar Mantar, an astronomical observatory built in the 1730s in Jaipur, Rajasthan, India.

Sudipta Maulik, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.

Photo by Calob Photography

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Get out your red/blue glasses and float next to Helene, small, icy moon of Saturn. Appropriately named, Helene is a Trojan moon, so called because it orbits at a Lagrange point. A Lagrange point is a gravitationally stable position near two massive bodies, in this case Saturn and larger moon Dione. In fact, irregularly shaped ( about 36 by 32 by 30 kilometers) Helene orbits at Dione's leading Lagrange point while brotherly ice moon Polydeuces follows at Dione's trailing Lagrange point. The sharp stereo anaglyph was constructed from two Cassini images captured during a close flyby in 2011. It shows part of the Saturn-facing hemisphere of Helene mottled with craters and gully-like features.

The main greenhouse of the Botanical Garden of Curitiba, Paraná, Brazil. Today is the city's 332nd anniversary.

Rodrigo.Argenton, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Why is the Moon so dusty? On Earth, rocks are weathered by wind and water, creating soil and sand. On the Moon, eons of constant micrometeorite bombardment have blasted away at the rocky surface creating a layer of powdery lunar soil or regolith. For the Apollo astronauts and their equipment, the pervasive, fine, gritty dust was definitely a problem. On the lunar surface in December 1972, Apollo 17 astronauts Harrison Schmitt and Eugene Cernan needed to repair one of their rover's fenders in an effort to keep the rooster tails of dust away from themselves and their gear. This picture reveals the wheel and fender of their dust covered rover along with the ingenious application of spare maps, clamps, and a grey strip of "duct tape". Northern Hemisphere Alert : March 29 Partial Solar Eclipse

Mercedes-Benz W115, a series of executive sedans introduced in 1968 by Mercedes-Benz to replace the earlier W110 series.

1bumer, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

One of the brightest galaxies in planet Earth's sky is similar in size to our Milky Way Galaxy: big, beautiful Messier 81. Also known as NGC 3031 or Bode's galaxy for its 18th century discoverer, this grand spiral can be found toward the northern constellation of Ursa Major, the Great Bear. The sharp, detailed telescopic view reveals M81's bright yellow nucleus, blue spiral arms, pinkish starforming regions, and sweeping cosmic dust lanes. But some dust lanes actually cut across the galactic disk (left of center), contrary to other prominent spiral features. The errant dust lanes may be the lingering result of a close encounter between M81 and the nearby galaxy M82 lurking outside of this frame. Scrutiny of variable stars in M81 has yielded a well-determined distance for an external galaxy -- 11.8 million light-years.

Photo by Lorand Fenyes

A decorative golf-themed nest box on a wooden fence on West Sacramento Avenue in Chico, California. The pun “Birdies Welcome” refers to the sport of golf, where a score on a hole is colloquially referred to as a Birdie if the player needs one stroke less than specified.

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