Magazine Posts

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Why is this asteroid a double? Earlier this month the Japanese robotic spacecraft Hayabusa2 shot past asteroid 98943 Torifune and captured pictures. Although previous observations from distant Earth indicated that Torifune was oblong, Hayabusa2 found that Torifune actually has two joined lobes. With a length of about four soccer fields, this space rock frequently comes near the Earth as it orbits the Sun, although it is not a threat. Besides the two lobes, Torifune shows many large boulders, but, surprisingly, no obvious craters, likely because its surface is a pile of rubble. Like asteroid Arrokoth, it appears that each lobe formed separately before colliding and becoming stuck together. Hayabusa2 famously encountered asteroid Ryugu in 2018, and now heads for an encounter in 2031 with 1998 KY26, a smaller asteroid that rotates unusually fast and might have reservoirs of ice.

Photo by JAXA, U. of Tokyo, Chiba Tech, Tokyo U. of Science, AIST, Paris Obs., IAC

The Medieval town of Belcastel in Aveyron, France, named one of "the most beautiful villages of France". Today is Bastille Day, the French National Day.

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

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

What do auroras look like from above? Behold! From the ground, auroras dance high above clouds, frequently causing spectacular displays. From space, they look a bit different. As the International Space Station (ISS) circles the Earth every 90 minutes, it sometimes sees auroras below that are active on the night side. A one-hour time-lapse video showing auroras from above was captured about two weeks ago from the orbiting ISS. The ISS -- and all objects in low Earth orbit -- will pass well above green auroras but just a bit above red glowing auroras. The auroras' electron and proton streams are too thin to be a danger to the ISS, just as clouds pose little danger to airplanes. From orbit, as magnetic fields change, auroras can appear to squiggle and crawl like giant snakes. The featured one-minute video was captured by French astronaut Sophie Adenot of the ISS Expedition 74 crew. Sky Surprise: What picture did APOD feature on your birthday? (after 1995)

Watch NASA's Astronomy Video of the Day

Arhbalou village nestled in the foothills of the barren north face of the Western High Atlas, Al Haouz, Morocco.

This Photo was taken by Timothy A. Gonsalves. Feel free to use my photos, but please mention me as the author. I would much appreciate if you send me an email tagooty@yahoo.com or write on my talk page, for my information. Please contact me before commercial use. Please do not upload an edited image here without consulting me. I would like to make corrections only at my own source to ensure that the changes improve the image and are preserved.Otherwise you may upload an edited image with a new name. Please use one of the templates derivative or extract., CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.

Georgia O'Keeffe - Was one of the most significant artists of the 20th century. She was known as the "Mother of American modernism". Her career spanned seven decades and her work remained largely independent of major art movements. Much of her work, presents large paintings of flowers, shells, rocks, and New Mexico desert landscapes. Biography

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

What's happening to galaxy NGC 474? The multiple layers of emission appear strangely complex given the relatively featureless appearance of the elliptical galaxy in less deep images. The cause of the shells is a topic of research, but they are possibly tidal tails related to debris left over from absorbing numerous small galaxies in the past billion years. Alternatively, the shells may be like ripples in a pond, where the ongoing collision with the spiral galaxy just to the right of NGC 474 is causing density waves to ripple through the galactic giant. Regardless of the actual cause, the featured image dramatically highlights the increasing evidence that the halos of some elliptical galaxies are surprisingly complicated. Similarly, the halo of our own Milky Way Galaxy is one example of such unexpected intricacies. NGC 474 spans about 250,000 light years and lies about 100 million light years distant toward the constellation of the Fish (Pisces).

Eastern Facade of Spøttrup Castle, Denmark.

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

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Unlike most entries in Charles Messier's famous catalog of deep sky objects, M24 is not a bright galaxy, star cluster, or nebula. It's a gap in nearby, obscuring interstellar dust clouds that allows a view of the distant stars in the Sagittarius spiral arm of our Milky Way galaxy. Direct your gaze through this gap with binoculars or a small telescope and you are looking through a window over 300 light-years wide at stars some 10,000 light-years or more from Earth. Sometimes called the Small Sagittarius Star Cloud, M24's luminous stars stretch across this gorgeous interstellar scene. Spanning over four full moons on the sky toward the constellation Sagittarius, the telescopic field of view includes dark markings B92 and B93 near the center of M24, along with other clouds of dust and glowing nebulae toward the center of the Milky Way.

Photo by Chuck Ayoub