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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. 2016 September 8 Mars in the Clouds Image Credit & Copyright: Sebastian Voltmer Explanation: Wandering through this stunning field of view, Mars really is in front of these colorful cosmic clouds. The mosaic contructed from telescopic images is about 5 degrees (10 full moons) across. It captures the planet's position on August 26, over 7 light-minutes from Earth and very near the line-of-sight to bright star Antares and...

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. 2016 September 7 Eclipse to Sunset Image Credit & Copyright: Luc Perrot (TWAN) Explanation: September's eclipse of the Sun is documented in the 68 frames of this timelapse composite. Starting at 1pm local time a frame every 4 minutes follow's the progress of the New Moon across the solar disk. Taken near the centerline of the narrow eclipse path, the series of exposures ends with a golden sunset....

Thursday’s explosion of a SpaceX rocket at Cape Canaveral is a reminder of just how easily billions of dollars in government subsidies can go up in flames.While the media reported the event as a mere setback for billionaire SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and “a major blow” to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s plans for expanding internet services in Africa, it is clear that the biggest looser is the American taxpayer.Musk’s SpaceX, together with his other high-profile ventures like Tesla Motors and SolarCity are supported heavily by a litany of government subsidies, having received nearly $5 billion in taxpayer dollars.Although Musk’s ventures are pushing the boundaries of...

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. 2016 September 6 The Whirlpool Galaxy and Beyond Image Credit & Copyright: Álvaro Ibáñez Pérez Explanation: Follow the handle of the Big Dipper away from the dipper's bowl, until you get to the handle's last bright star. Then, just slide your telescope a little south and west and you might find this stunning pair of interacting galaxies, the 51st entry in Charles Messier's famous catalog. Perhaps the original...

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. 2016 September 5 Spiral Meteor through the Heart Nebula Image Credit & Copyright: Roger N. Clark Explanation: What is this meteor doing? Dynamically, the unusually short and asymmetric train may indicate that the sand-sized grain at the center of the glow is momentarily spinning as it ablates, causing its path to be slightly spiral. Geographically, the meteor appears to be going through the Heart Nebula, although really it...

A new record for the most distant galaxy cluster has been set using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and other telescopes. This galaxy cluster may have been caught right after birth, a brief, but important stage of evolution never seen before. The galaxy cluster is called CL J1001+0220 (CL J1001 for short) and is located about 11.1 billion light years from Earth. The discovery of this object pushes back the formation time of galaxy clusters – the largest structures in the Universe held together by gravity – by about 700 million years. “This galaxy cluster isn’t just remarkable for its distance,...

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. 2016 September 2 Little Planet Astro Camp Image Credit & Copyright: György Soponyai Explanation: Day and night on this little planet look a lot like day and night on planet Earth. In fact, the images used to construct the little planet projection, a digitally warped and stitched mosaic covering 360x180 degrees, were taken during day and night near Tarján, Hungary, planet Earth. They span a successful 33-hour-long photo...

Several minutes have been cut from about 10 minutes. We hope for SpaceX to have a quick recovery to flight. Ask for permission before using or cutting. Sharing in the original version is fine SpaceX - Static Fire Anomaly

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. 2016 September 1 Light at the End of the Road Image Credit & Copyright: Josh Calcino Explanation: The bright light at the end of this country road is actually a remarkably close conjunction of two planets. After sunset on August 27 brilliant Venus and Jupiter almost appear as a single celestial beacon in the night skyscape taken near Lake Wivenhoe, Queensland, Australia. A spectacular vertical panorama from the...

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. 2016 August 31 Annular Solar Eclipse over New Mexico Image Credit & Copyright: Colleen Pinski Explanation: What is this person doing? In 2012 an annular eclipse of the Sun was visible over a narrow path that crossed the northern Pacific Ocean and several western US states. In an annular solar eclipse, the Moon is too far from the Earth to block out the entire Sun, leaving the Sun...

On Saturday, astronomers discovered a new asteroid, just a few hours before it almost hit us. The asteroid is called 2016 QA2, and it missed the Earth by less than a quarter of the distance to the moon. That puts it about three times as far away from Earth as our farthest satellites. And we never saw it coming. So how did 2016 QA2 sneak up on us like that? For this particular asteroid, the answer seems to be that it has a very peculiar orbit. It's highly elliptical, which means it can usually be found hanging out by either...

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. 2016 August 30 Aurora over Icelandic Fault Image Credit & Copyright: Juan Carlos Casado (TWAN, Earth and Stars) Explanation: Admire the beauty but fear the beast. The beauty is the aurora overhead, here taking the form of great green spiral, seen between picturesque clouds with the bright Moon to the side and stars in the background. The beast is the wave of charged particles that creates the aurora...

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. 2016 August 29 Young Suns of NGC 7129 Image Credit & Copyright: Robert Gendler, Roberto Colombari, Eric Recurt, Adam Block - Additional Data: Subaru (NAOJ) Explanation: Young suns still lie within dusty NGC 7129, some 3,000 light-years away toward the royal constellation Cepheus. While these stars are at a relatively tender age, only a few million years old, it is likely that our own Sun formed in a...

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. 2016 August 28 Abell 370: Galaxy Cluster Gravitational Lens Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team& ST-ECF Explanation: What is that strange arc? While imaging the cluster of galaxies Abell 370, astronomers had noted an unusual arc to the right of many cluster galaxies. Although curious, one initial response was to avoid commenting on the arc because nothing like it had ever been noted before....

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. 2016 August 27 Lunar Orbiter Earthset Image Credit: NASA / Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project Explanation: August 10th was the 50th anniversary of the launch of Lunar Orbiter 1. It was the first of five Lunar Orbiters intended to photograph the Moon's surface to aid in the selection of future landing sites. That spacecraft's camera captured the data used in this restored, high-resolution version of its historic first...

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. 2016 August 26 The Milky Way Sets Image Credit & Copyright: Juan Carlos Casado (TWAN, Earth and Stars) Explanation: Under dark skies the setting of the Milky Way can be a dramatic sight. Stretching nearly parallel to the horizon, this rich, edge-on vista of our galaxy above the dusty Namibian desert stretches from bright, southern Centaurus (left) to Cepheus in the north (right). From early August, the digitally...

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. 2016 August 25 Closest Star has Potentially Habitable Planet Image Credit & License: Y. Beletsky (LCO), ESO, Pale Red Dot Team Explanation: The star closest to the Sun has a planet similar to the Earth. As announced yesterday, recent observations confirmed that this planet not only exists but inhabits a zone where its surface temperature could allow liquid water, a key ingredient for life on Earth. It is...

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. 2016 August 24 Curiosity at Murray Buttes on Mars Image Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, MSSS Explanation: What are these unusual lumps on Mars? As NASA's robotic Curiosity rover continues rolling across Mars, it is now approaching Murray Buttes. Several of the 15-meter high buttes are visible ahead in this horizontally compressed 360-degree across image taken inside Gale Crater earlier this month. The buttes are thought similar to Earth buttes...

China has its sights set firmly on Mars and is aiming to launch its own rover to the red planet by 2020. New images have today provided the first glimpse of what this rover might look like when it launches at the end of the decade. As part of the announcement, China also launched a competition for members of the public to come up with a name and logo for the rover. China, which is pouring billions into its space programme and working to catch up with the US and Europe, announced in April it aims to send a spacecraft...

Despite almost two years of silence, NASA never stopped searching for its long lost spacecraft STEREO-B. NASA announced Sunday that it had re-established contact with STEREO-B after communications were lost in October 2014. Contact with the spacecraft -- which works in tandem with a second spacecraft STEREO-A to study the sun -- was lost during a test of one of its timers. Launched in October 2006, the STEREO mission includes two spacecraft -- one ahead of Earth in its orbit, the other behind -- tasked with monitoring the flow of energy and matter from the sun to Earth. The spacecrafts...