Tag: Astronomy Picture of the Day

January 1 to January 15 Astronomy Picture of the Day

These are the Astronomy Picture of the Day since the beginning of the year. Just click on the hyperlink next to the date for the pictures you want to see.

2023 January 15: APOD: 2023 January 15 – M1: The Crab Nebula from Hubble
2023 January 14: Perihelion Sun 2023
2023 January 13: Young Star Cluster NGC 346
2023 January 12: Stardust in Perseus
2023 January 11: APOD: 2023 January 11 – Spiral Aurora over Iceland
2023 January 10: APOD: 2023 January 10 – NGC 2264: The Cone Nebula
2023 January 09: APOD: 2023 January 9 – Tails of Comet ZTF
2023 January 08: APOD: 2023 January 8 – Where Your Elements Came From
2023 January 07: Space Stations in Low Earth Orbit
2023 January 06: Moon O Clock 2022
2023 January 05: Messier 45: The Daughters of Atlas and Pleione
2023 January 04: APOD: 2023 January 4 – CG4: The Globule and the Galaxy
2023 January 03: APOD: 2023 January 3 – Kembles Cascade of Stars
2023 January 02: APOD: 2023 January 2 – After Sunset Planet Parade
2023 January 01: The Largest Rock in our Solar System

November 20 Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

2022 November 20

Airglow Ripples over Tibet

Image Credit & Copyright: Jeff Dai

Explanation: Why would the sky look like a giant target? Airglow. Following a giant thunderstorm over Bangladesh in late April, giant circular ripples of glowing air appeared over Tibet, China, as pictured here. The unusual pattern is created by atmospheric gravity waves, waves of alternating air pressure that can grow with height as the air thins, in this case about 90-kilometers up. Unlike auroras powered by collisions with energetic charged particles and seen at high latitudes, airglow is due to chemiluminescence, the production of light in a chemical reaction. More typically seen near the horizon, airglow keeps the night sky from ever being completely dark.

November 19 Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

2022 November 19

Artemis 1 Moonshot

Image Credit & Copyright: John Kraus

Explanation: When the Artemis 1 mission’s Orion spacecraft makes its November 21 powered flyby of the Moon, denizens of planet Earth will see the Moon in a waning crescent phase. The spacecraft will approach to within about 130 kilometers of the lunar surface on its way to a distant retrograde orbit some 70,000 kilometers beyond the Moon. But the Moon was at last quarter for the November 16 launch and near the horizon in the dark early hours after midnight. It’s captured here in skies over Kennedy Space Center along with the SLS rocket engines and solid rocket boosters lofting the uncrewed Orion to space. Ragged fringes appearing along the bright edge of the sunlit lunar nearside are caused as pressure waves generated by the rocket’s passage change the index of refraction along the camera’s line of sight.

November 17 Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

2022 November 17

Planet Earth from Orion

Image Credit: NASA, Artemis 1

Explanation: A Space Launch System rocket left planet Earth on Wednesday, November 16 at 1:47am EST carrying the Orion spacecraft on the Artemis 1 mission, the first integrated test of NASA’s deep space exploration systems. Over an hour after liftoff from Kennedy Space Center’s historic Launch Complex 39B, one of Orion’s external video cameras captured this view of its new perspective from space. In the foreground are Orion’s Orbital Maneuvering System engine and auxillary engines, at the bottom of the European Service Module. Beyond one of the module’s 7-meter long extended solar array wings lies the spacecraft’s beautiful home world. The Artemis 1 mission will last almost four weeks, testing capabilities to enable human exploration of the Moon and Mars. The uncrewed Orion spacecraft is expected to fly by the Moon on November 21, performing a close approach to the lunar surface on its way to a retrograde orbit 70,000 kilometers beyond the Moon.

November 16 Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

2022 November 16

In the Arms of NGC 1097

Image Credit & Copyright: Mike Selby, Mark Hanson

Explanation: Spiral galaxy NGC 1097 shines in southern skies, about 45 million light-years away in the heated constellation Fornax. Its blue spiral arms are mottled with pinkish star forming regions in this colorful galaxy portrait. They seem to have wrapped around a small companion galaxy above and right of center, about 40,000 light-years from the spiral’s luminous core. That’s not NGC 1097’s only peculiar feature, though. This very deep exposure hints of faint, mysterious jets, seen to extend well beyond the bluish arms. In fact, four faint jets are ultimately recognized in optical images of NGC 1097. The jets trace an X centered on the galaxy’s nucleus, but probably don’t originate there. Instead, they could be fossil star streams, trails left over from the capture and disruption of a much smaller galaxy in the large spiral’s ancient past. A Seyfert galaxy, NGC 1097’s nucleus also harbors a supermassive black hole.

November 15 Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

2022 November 15

Wolf’s Cave Nebula

Image Credit & Copyright: Gianni Lacroce

Explanation: The mysterious blue reflection nebula found in catalogs as VdB 152 or Ced 201 really is very faint. It lies at the tip of the long dark nebula Barnard 175 in a dusty complex that has also been called Wolf’s Cave. At the center of this deep telescopic view, the cosmic apparitions are nearly 1,400 light-years away along the northern Milky Way in the royal constellation Cepheus. Interstellar dust in the region blocks light from background stars and scatters light from the embedded bright star, giving the end nebula its characteristic blue color. Though stars do form in molecular clouds, this star seems to have only accidentally wandered into the area, as its measured velocity through space is very different from the cloud’s velocity. At the image bottom is the planetary nebula Dengel-Hartl 5, while red glowing gas from an ancient supernova remnant is also visible along the image’s right side.

November 14 Today in History

Today’s Important Historical Events

1680 Gottfried Kirch discovers the Great Comet of 1680 (Kirch’s Comet/Newton’s Comet)

1896 Power plant at Niagara Falls begins operation

1908 Albert Einstein presents his quantum theory of light

1920 The Russian Bolshevik army occupies Sebastopol, ending anti-communist attempts to regain the government of Russia

Today’s Historical Events

1524 Francisco Pizarro begins his 1st great expedition, near Colombia

1550 Pope Julius III proclaims new seat on Council of Trente

1666 Samuel Pepys reports on 1st blood transfusion (between dogs)

1675 Pope Clemens X declares Gorcumse martyrs divine

1680 Gottfried Kirch discovers the Great Comet of 1680 (Kirch’s Comet/Newton’s Comet)

1698 Spanish king Carlos appoints grandson prince Jozef Ferdinand as heir

1732 First professional librarian in north America, Louis Timothee, hired in Philadelphia

Today’s Historical Events in Film and TV

1957 Dick Hutton beats Lou Thesz in Toronto, to become NWA wrestling champion

1965 KCST TV channel 39 in San Diego, CA (NBC) begins broadcasting

1968 U.S. premiere of film version of Morris L. West’s best seller “The Shoes of the Fisherman”

1976 “Network”, directed by Sidney Lumet, starring Faye Dunaway, Peter Finch and William Holden, premieres in Los Angeles and New York City (Finch – Academy Awards Best Actor 1977)

1980 Kimberley Santos, 19 of Guam, crowned 30th Miss World

1985 Holmfriour Karlsdottir of Iceland, 22, crowned 35th Miss World

Today’s Historical Events in Music

1908 Oscar Strauss’ musical “Der tapfere Soldat” premieres in Vienna

1952 First regular UK singles chart published by the New Musical Express

1959 “Girls against the Boys” closes at Alvin Theater NYC after 16 performances

1960 Ray Charles‘ single “Georgia On My Mind” reaches #1

1964 “Fade Out-Fade In” closes at Mark Hellinger NYC after 199 performances

1964 “Folies Bergere” closes at Broadway Theater NYC after 191 performances

1964 “Oliver!” closes at Imperial Theater NYC after 774 performances

1965 “Baker Street” closes at Broadway Theater NYC after 313 performances

Today’s Historical Events in Sports

1888 St Andrews Golf Club, Yonkers NY, opens with just 6 holes

1936 More than 21,000 watch Don Bradman score 192 for South Australia v Victoria in a drawn Sheffield Shield match at the Melbourne Cricket Ground

1943 Chic Bear Sid Luckman passes for 7 touchdowns vs NY Giants (56-7)

1957 Milwaukee Brave Hank Aaron wins NL MVP

1964 Detroit Red Wings Gordie Howe sets NHL record 627th career goal

1966 Muhammad Ali TKOs Cleveland Williams in 3 for heavyweight title

1973 Canada begins production of Olympic coins

1973 Jim Palmer is named AL Cy Young winner

November 13 Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

2022 November 13

Flying Saucer Crash Lands in Utah Desert

Image Credit: USAF 388th Range Sqd., Genesis Mission, NASA

Explanation: A flying saucer from outer space crash-landed in the Utah desert after being tracked by radar and chased by helicopters. The year was 2004, and no space aliens were involved. The saucer, pictured here, was the Genesis sample return capsule, part of a human-made robot Genesis spaceship launched in 2001 by NASA itself to study the Sun. The unexpectedly hard landing at over 300 kilometers per hour occurred because the parachutes did not open as planned. The Genesis mission had been orbiting the Sun collecting solar wind particles that are usually deflected away by Earth’s magnetic field. Despite the crash landing, many return samples remained in good enough condition to analyze. So far, Genesis-related discoveries include new details about the composition of the Sun and how the abundance of some types of elements differ across the Solar System. These results have provided intriguing clues into details of how the Sun and planets formed billions of years

November 11 Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

2022 November 11

Blood Moon, Ice Giant

Image Credit & Copyright: Ryan Han

Explanation: On November 8 the Full Moon turned blood red as it slid through Earth’s shadow in a beautiful total lunar eclipse. During totality it also passed in front of, or occulted, outer planet Uranus for eclipse viewers located in parts of northern America and Asia. For a close-up and wider view these two images were taken just before the occultation began, captured with different telescopes and cameras from the same roof top in Shanghai, China. Normally very faint compared to a Full Moon, the tiny, pale, greenish disk of the distant ice giant is just to the left of the Moon’s edge and about to disappear behind the darkened, red lunar limb. Though only visible from certain locations across planet Earth, lunar occultations of planets are fairly common. But for this rare “lunar eclipse occultation” to take place, at the time of the total eclipse the outer planet had to be both at opposition and very near the ecliptic plane to fall in line with Sun, Earth, and Moon.

 

Lunar Eclipse of November 2022: Notable Submissions to APOD
Love Eclipses? (US): Apply to become a NASA Partner Eclipse Ambassador

November 7 Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

2022 November 7

A Total Lunar Eclipse Over Tajikistan

Video Credit & Copyright: Jean-Luc Dauvergne (Ciel et Espace); Music: Valère Leroy & Sophie Huet (Space-Music)

Explanation: If the full Moon suddenly faded, what would you see? The answer was recorded in a dramatic time lapse video taken during the total lunar eclipse in 2011 from Tajikistan. During a total lunar eclipse, the Earth moves between the Moon and the Sun, causing the moon to fade dramatically. The Moon never gets completely dark, though, since the Earth’s atmosphere refracts some light. As the featured video begins, the scene may appear to be daytime and sunlit, but actually it is a nighttime and lit by the glow of the full Moon. As the Moon becomes eclipsed and fades, background stars become visible and here can be seen reflected in a lake. Most spectacularly, the sky surrounding the eclipsed moon suddenly appears to be full of stars and highlighted by the busy plane of our Milky Way Galaxy. The sequence repeats with a closer view, and the final image shows the placement of the eclipsed Moon near the Eagle, Swan, Trifid, and Lagoon nebulas. Nearly two hours after the eclipse started, the moon emerged from the Earth’s shadow and its bright full glare again dominated the sky. Later today or tomorrow, depending on your location relative to the International Date Line, a new total lunar eclipse will take place — with totality being primarily visible over northeastern Asia and northwestern North America.

 

Total Lunar Eclipse of November 2022: What you need to know.

November 5 Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

2022 November 5

Lunar Eclipse at the South Pole

Image Credit & Copyright: Aman Chokshi

Explanation: Last May 16 the Moon slid through Earth’s shadow, completely immersed in the planet’s dark umbra for about 1 hour and 25 minutes during a total lunar eclipse. In this composited timelapse view, the partial and total phases of the eclipse were captured as the Moon tracked above the horizon from Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. There it shared a cold and starry south polar night with a surging display of the aurora australis and central Milky Way. In the foreground are the BICEP (right) and South Pole telescopes at the southernmost station’s Dark Sector Laboratory. But while polar skies can be spectacular, you won’t want to go to the South Pole to view the total lunar eclipse coming up on November 8. Instead, that eclipse can be seen from locations in Asia, Australia, the Pacific, the Americas and Northern Europe. It will be your last chance to watch a total lunar eclipse until 2025.

November 4 Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

2022 November 4

InSight’s Final Selfie

Image Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, Mars InSight

Explanation: The Mars InSight lander returned its first image from the Red Planet’s flat, equatorial Elysium Planitia after a successful touchdown on November 26, 2018. The history making mission to explore the martian Interior using Seismic investigations, geodesy, and heat transport has been operating for over 1,400 martian days or sols. In that time the InSight mission has detected more than 1,300 marsquakes and recorded data from Mars-shaking meteoroid impacts, observing how the seismic waves travel to provide a glimpse inside Mars. Analyzing the archive of data collected is expected to yield discoveries for decades. But InSight’s final operational sol is likely not far off. The reason is evident in this selfie recorded earlier this year showing its deck and large, 2-meter-wide solar panels covered with dust. Kicked up by martian winds the dust continues to accumulate and drastically reduce the power that can be generated by InSight’s solar panels.

November 3 Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

2022 November 3

The Triangulum Galaxy, otherwise known as Messier 33, lies almost 3 million light-years from Earth, and is a near neighbor of the Andromeda Galaxy. The galaxy is imaged here by the Nicholas U. Mayall 4-meter Telescope, located at Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO), a Program of NSF’s NOIRLab.  The Triangulum Galaxy is the third-largest member of the Local Group, a cluster of galaxies that includes our Milky Way and its closest neighbors. The Andromeda Galaxy is the largest member. The Triangulum Galaxy and Andromeda Galaxy have history together, but astronomers are still investigating the details. Their close proximity has caused some researchers to suggest that Triangulum is a satellite of the Andromeda Galaxy, not unlike the way the Moon is a satellite of the Earth — just on a much, much bigger scale. Alternatively, some researchers propose that these two galaxies may be independent and have simply brushed past each other, as evidenced by streams of stars and neutral hydrogen gas linking the two galaxies. However they have interacted, it’s probable that they will dramatically collide in 2.5 billion years, resulting in their consolidation and eventual evolution into a lenticular galaxy.

M33: The Triangulum Galaxy

Image Credit & Copyright: Processing – Robert Gendler
Data – Hubble Legacy Archive, KPNO, NOIRLab, NSF, Aura, Amateur Sources

Explanation: The small, northern constellation Triangulum harbors this magnificent face-on spiral galaxy, M33. Its popular names include the Pinwheel Galaxy or just the Triangulum Galaxy. M33 is over 50,000 light-years in diameter, third largest in the Local Group of galaxies after the Andromeda Galaxy (M31), and our own Milky Way. About 3 million light-years from the Milky Way, M33 is itself thought to be a satellite of the Andromeda Galaxy and astronomers in these two galaxies would likely have spectacular views of each other’s grand spiral star systems. As for the view from the Milky Way, this sharp image combines data from telescopes on and around planet Earth to show off M33’s blue star clusters and pinkish star forming regions along the galaxy’s loosely wound spiral arms. In fact, the cavernous NGC 604 is the brightest star forming region, seen here at about the 1 o’clock position from the galaxy center. Like M31, M33’s population of well-measured variable stars have helped make this nearby spiral a cosmic yardstick for establishing the distance scale of the Universe.

List of the Astronomy Picture of the Day for October 2022

 Atronomy Picture of the Day from apod.nasa.gov Scroll down and click on the hyperlink for the day you want to see the picture for the date you want to see or here for all of 2022 pictures to date.

2022 October 31: LDN 43: The Cosmic Bat Nebula
2022 October 30: Night on a Spooky Planet
2022 October 29: LDN 673: Dark Clouds in Aquila
2022 October 28: Seven Years of Halley Dust
2022 October 27: Sunset, Moonset, Taj Mahal
2022 October 26: Cocoon Nebula Wide Field
2022 October 25: Jupiter Rotates as Moons Orbit
2022 October 24: Clouds Around Galaxy Andromeda
2022 October 23: Milky Way and Zodiacal Light over Australian Pinnacles
2022 October 22: NGC 1499: The California Nebula
2022 October 21: Andromeda in Southern Skies
2022 October 20: Pillars of Creation
2022 October 19: A Galaxy Beyond Stars, Gas, Dust
2022 October 18: Milky Way Auroral Flower
2022 October 17: X-Ray Rings Around a Gamma Ray Burst
2022 October 16: Barred Spiral Galaxy NGC 1300
2022 October 15: GRB 221009A
2022 October 14: The Falcon and the Hunter’s Moon
2022 October 13: Dust Shells around WR 140 from Webb
2022 October 12: Ou4: The Giant Squid Nebula
2022 October 11: Stars, Dust, Pillars, and Jets in the Pelican Nebula
2022 October 10: A Double Lunar Analemma over Turkey
2022 October 09: Auroras over Northern Canada
2022 October 08: Two Comets in Southern Skies
2022 October 07: In Ganymede’s Shadow
2022 October 06: NGC 4631: The Whale Galaxy
2022 October 05: Expanding Plume from DARTs Impact
2022 October 04: Star Forming Eagle Nebula without Stars
2022 October 03: Jupiter’s Europa from Spacecraft Juno
2022 October 02: Supernova Cannon Expels Pulsar J0002
2022 October 01: Lunation Matrix

 

November 1 Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

2022 November 1

This image, taken by astronomers using the US Department of Energy-fabricated Dark Energy Camera on the Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, a Program of NSF’s NOIRLab, captures the star-forming nebula NGC 6357, which is located 8000 light-years away in the direction of the constellation Scorpius. This image reveals bright, young stars surrounded by billowing clouds of dust and gas inside NGC 6357, which is also known as the Lobster Nebula.

NGC 6357: The Lobster Nebula

Image Credit: CTIO/NOIRLab/DOE/NSF/AURA; Processing: T. A. Rector (U. Alaska Anchorage/NSF’s NOIRLab), J. Miller (Gemini Obs./NSF’s NOIRLab), M. Zamani & D. de Martin (NSF’s NOIRLab)

Explanation: Why is the Lobster Nebula forming some of the most massive stars known? No one is yet sure. Cataloged as NGC 6357, the Lobster Nebula houses the open star cluster Pismis 24 near its center — a home to unusually bright and massive stars. The overall red glow near the inner star forming region results from the emission of ionized hydrogen gas. The surrounding nebula, featured here, holds a complex tapestry of gas, dark dust, stars still forming, and newly born stars. The intricate patterns are caused by complex interactions between interstellar winds, radiation pressures, magnetic fields, and gravity. The image was taken with DOE‘s Dark Energy Camera on the 4-meter Blanco Telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. NGC 6357 spans about 400 light years and lies about 8,000 light years away toward the constellation of the Scorpion.