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Astronomy Picture Of the Day (APOD)
Apollo 14: Rickshaw Tracks Across the Moon
27.04.1996
Brilliant sunlight glints off tracks gently winding across the the Moon's Frau Maro highlands. The tracks were made by the Apollo 14 crew's two-wheeled Modularized Equipment Transporter (MET), fondly known as the "rickshaw". The MET was designed as an aid to surface exploration.
A Giant Globular Cluster in M31
26.04.1996
G1, pictured above, is the brightest known globular cluster in the whole Local Group of galaxies. Also called Mayall II, it orbits the center of the largest nearby galaxy: M31. G1 contains over 300,000 stars and is almost as old as the entire universe.
In the Center of the Whirlpool
25.04.1996
In the center of M51, a spiral galaxy 23 million light-years away, astronomers have identified a dense region of young stars. The graceful swirling arcs of this galaxy's spiral arms have inspired its popular name, "The Whirlpool Galaxy".
Giant Cluster Bends, Breaks Galaxy Images
24.04.1996
What are those strange blue objects? Many are images of a single, unusual, beaded, blue, ring-like galaxy which just happens to line-up behind a giant cluster of galaxies. Cluster galaxies here appear yellow and -- together with the cluster's dark matter -- act as a gravitational lens.
Comet Hyakutake on a Starry Night
23.04.1996
It was a starry night in April (April 9th, 1996, 9:32 pm CDT to be exact) near Lone Jack, Missouri when Comet Hyakutake graced this astronomically rich field. Making an appearance as the brilliant evening star, Venus is overexposed at the far left.
At the Edge of the Helix
22.04.1996
While exploring the inner edge of the Helix Nebula with the Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2, astronomers were able to produce this striking image - rich in details of an exotic environment.
A Supernova in the Whirlpool
21.04.1996
In 1994, a new star in a distant galaxy was seen by amateur astronomers, who alerted the world to their discovery of a supernova. Near the nucleus of spiral galaxy M51, popularly known...
Apollo 17 Lunarscape: A Magnificent Desolation
20.04.1996
Buzz Aldrin, Apollo 11 Lunar Module pilot and the second human to walk on the Moon described the lunar landscape as "a magnificent desolation". Dramatic pictures from the Apollo missions to the moon's surface testify to this apt turn of phrase.
The Virgo Cluster: Hot Plasma and Dark Matter
19.04.1996
This ROSAT image of the Virgo cluster of galaxies reveals a hot X-ray emitting plasma or gas with a temperature of 10-100 million degrees pervading the cluster. False colors have been used to represent the intensity of X-ray emission.
Hyakutake, Venus, Orion, and Pond
18.04.1996
Can you find Comet Hyakutake in the above picture? In this gorgeous photo, the starry night sky of April 9th is pictured with its new comet visitor. In the foreground is a pond with the lights of Kansas City, Missouri on the western horizon. On the upper left, the constellation of Orion is visible.
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