Tag: APOD
A Milky Way Shadow at Loch Ard Gorge
Explanation: Have you ever seen the Milky Way’s glow create shadows? To do so, conditions need to be just right. First and foremost, the sky…
Sunset from the ISS
Explanation: What are these strange color bands being seen from the International Space Station? The Sun setting through Earth’s atmosphere. Pictured above, a sunset captured…
Starry Night Scavenger Hunt
Explanation: Did you know that Van Gogh’s painting Starry Night includes Comet Hale-Bopp? Hopefully not, because it doesn’t. But the above image does. Although today’s…
Orange Sun Simmering
> Explanation: Even a quiet Sun can be a busy place. And over the deep Solar Minimum of the past few years, our Sun has…
Hand of Fate
A Pulsar’s Hand Explanation: As far as pulsars go, PSR B1509-58 appears young. Light from the supernova explosion that gave birth to it would have…
What lies beneath?
Explanation: What created this strange sound in Earth’s Pacific Ocean? Pictured above is a visual representation of a loud and unusual sound, dubbed a Bloop,…
Beautiful Pics of our Sun Farting + Video
Explanation: Don’t panic, the Sun has not gone wild. But this wild-looking portrait of the nearest star to planet Earth was made on March 30th…
The Sun Farts
Explanation: What’s happened to our Sun? Last week, it produced one of the largest eruptive prominences ever seen. Pictured above, the prominence erupted in only…
In The End, There can be only One
Explanation: On the right, surrounded by blue spiral arms, is spiral galaxy M81. On the left, marked by red gas and dust clouds, is irregular…
Sun and Prominence
Explanation: Dramatic prominences can sometimes be seen looming just beyond the edge of the sun. Such was the case last week as a giant prominence,…
The Mysterious Voynich Manuscript
Explanation: The Mysterious Voynich Manuscript The ancient text has no known title, no known author, and is written in no known language: what does it…
Blue Moon Eclipse
The International Year of Astronomy 2009 ended with a Blue Moon and a partial lunar eclipse, as the second Full Moon of December grazed the…
The Average Color of the Universe
Explanation: What color is the universe? More precisely, if the entire sky were smeared out, what color would the final mix be? This whimsical question…
Galaxy Zoo Catalogs the Universe
Explanation: You, too, can Zoo. The Galaxy Zoo project has been enabling citizen scientists — inquisitive people like yourself armed with only a web browser–…
LCROSS Centaur Impact Flash
Explanation: This mid-infrared image was taken in the last minutes of the LCROSS flight mission to the Moon. The small white spot (enlarged in the…
Discovery’s Rainbow
Explanation: Just one minute before midnight EDT, Friday, August 28, the Space Shuttle Discovery began a long arc into a cloudy sky. Following the launch,…
Eclipse City
Explanation: During July 22nd’s solar eclipse, the Moon’s dark shadow traced a narrow path as it raced eastward across India and China and on into…
Triple Sunrise
Explanation: How can the same Sun rise three times? Last month on Friday, 2009 July 10, a spectacular triple sunrise was photographed at about 4:30…
Devil’s Tower
Explanation: Was Devils Tower once an explosive volcano? Famous for its appearance in films such as Close Encounters, the origin of Devil’s Tower in Wyoming,…
A Cosmic Call to Nearby Stars
Explanation: If Earth received this message from deep space, could we decode it? The people from the Cosmic Call project sent the above image as…
Molecular Cloud Barnard 68
Explanation: Where did all the stars go? What used to be considered a hole in the sky is now known to astronomers as a dark…
Possible Jet Blown Shells Near Microquasar Cygnus X-1
Explanation: What happens to matter that falls toward an energetic black hole? In the case of Cygnus X-1, perhaps little of that matter actually makes…
Atlantis and Hubble Side by Side
Explanation: On Wednesday, May 13, two, tiny, fast moving spots crossed an otherwise featureless solar disk. Not sunspots though, the dark blemishes were silhouettes of…
The Eskimo Nebula from Hubble
Explanation: In 1787, astronomer William Herschel discovered the Eskimo Nebula. From the ground, NGC 2392 resembles a person’s head surrounded by a parka hood. In…
Global Warming Predictions
Explanation: How much will the Earth’s surface warm up over the lives of our children? No one is sure. Compared to the past 100 million…
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