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Astronomy Picture Of the Day (APOD)
A New Jupiter Oval Rotates
5.01.1999
Even Jupiter can do the twist. Large cloud systems on Jupiter rotate, and the newly formed oval pictured above is no different. This new oval formed earlier this year from the collision of two smaller ovals: an occurrence not unlike two large storms merging into one huge hurricane.
Ring Around the Cluster
4.01.1999
It is difficult to hide a galaxy behind a cluster of galaxies. The closer cluster's gravity will act like a huge lens, pulling images of the distant galaxy around the sides and greatly distorting them. This is just the case observed in the above recently released image from the VLT.
Orion's Horsehead Nebula
3.01.1999
The Horsehead Nebula is one of the most famous nebulae on the sky. It is visible as the black indentation to the red emission nebula seen just to the right of center of the above photograph. The bright star near the center is located in the belt of the familiar constellation of Orion.
Mercury: A Cratered Inferno
2.01.1999
Mercury's surface looks similar to our Moon's. Each is heavily cratered and made of rock. Mercury's diameter is about 4800 km, while the Moon's is slightly less at about 3500 km (compared with about 12,700 km for the Earth). But Mercury is unique in many ways.
ESO202-G23: Merging Galaxies
1.01.1999
ESO202-G
The Year of Distant Supernovae
31.12.1998
Distant supernovae were among topics at the forefront of astronomy during 1998. Two independent groups raced to deploy large telescopes to scan the sky, discovering and analyzing far-off supernovae with the promise of calibrating the geometry of our universe.
Supernova 1994D and the Unexpected Universe
30.12.1998
Far away, long ago, a star exploded. Supernova 1994D, visible as the bright spot on the lower left, occurred in the outskirts of disk galaxy NGC 4526. Supernova 1994D was not of interest for how different it was, but rather for how similar it was to other supernovae.
A Geminid from Gemini
29.12.1998
The Leonid meteor shower was not the only good meteor shower this season. Earlier this month, the annual Geminids meteor shower peaked, featuring as many as 140 meteors per hour from some locations. Geminid meteors can be seen streaking away from the constellation of Gemini, as depicted in the above all-sky photograph.
NEAR to Asteroid Eros
28.12.1998
On December 23, the NEAR spacecraft flew by asteroid 433 Eros. NEAR was originally scheduled to brake and orbit Eros, but an unexpected shutdown of its main engine caused this plan to be aborted. NEAR will now be reset and attempt to return to orbit Eros in early 2000.
M2 9: Wings of a Butterfly Nebula
27.12.1998
Are stars better appreciated for their art after they die? Actually, stars usually create their most artistic displays as they die. In the case of low-mass stars like our Sun and M2-9 pictured above, the stars transform themselves from normal stars to white dwarfs by casting off their outer gaseous envelopes.
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