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Astronomy Picture Of the Day (APOD)
Sedna of the Outer Solar System
16.03.2004
What is the most distant known object in our Solar System? A new answer to this centuries-old question was announced yesterday by NASA with the discovery of a dark red object dubbed Sedna. Although over twice the distance to Pluto, Sedna is near its closest approach to the Sun.
The Orion Nebula from CFHT
15.03.2004
Few astronomical sights excite the imagination like the nearby stellar nursery known as the Orion Nebula. The Nebula's glowing gas surrounds hot young stars at the edge of an immense interstellar molecular cloud only 1500 light-years away.
Comet Hale Bopp Over Val Parola Pass
14.03.2004
Comet Hale-Bopp became much brighter than any surrounding stars. It was seen even over bright city lights. Out away from city lights, however, it put on quite a spectacular show. Here Comet Hale-Bopp was photographed above Val Parola Pass in the Dolomite mountains surrounding Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy.
A Cerro Tololo Sky
13.03.2004
High atop a Chilean mountain lies one of the premier observatories of the southern sky: the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO). Pictured above is the dome surrounding one of the site's best known instruments, the 4-meter Blanco Telescope.
X Ray Saturn
12.03.2004
Above, the ringed planet Saturn shines in x-rays. Otherwise beyond the range of human vision, the eerie x-ray view was created by overlaying a computer generated outline of the gas giant's disk and ring system on a false-color picture of smoothed, reconstructed x-ray data from the orbiting Chandra Observatory.
Henize 206: Cosmic Generations
11.03.2004
Peering into a dusty nebula in nearby galaxy the Large Magellanic Cloud, infrared cameras on board the Spitzer Space Telescope recorded this detailed view of stellar nursery Henize 206 filled with newborn stars. The stars appear as white spots within the swirls of dust and gas in the false-color infrared image.
Humphrey Rock Indicates Ancient Martian Water
10.03.2004
How prevalent was water on Mars? Results from the Spirit rover now indicate that Gusev crater likely had a wet past, a result that comes shortly after Spirit's twin rover Opportunity uncovered clear evidence of past water at Meridiani Planum on the other side of Mars.
The Hubble Ultra Deep Field
9.03.2004
The above picture will be replaced later today (between 9 and 10 am EST) by the newly released Hubble Ultra Deep Field (HUDF). The HUDF is expected to be the deepest image of the universe ever taken in visible light.
Moon and Venus over Corona Del Mar Beach
8.03.2004
The crescent Moon passed nearly in front of Venus last week. The close conjunction of the night sky's two brightest objects created a striking pose for many viewing the evening sky just after sunset. Such a pose, shown above, was captured between clouds over Corona Del Mar Beach in California, USA.
An Anomalous SETI Signal
7.03.2004
No one knows for sure what caused this signal. There is a slight possibility that it just might originate from an extraterrestrial intelligence. The bright colors on the blue background indicate that an anomalous signal was received here on Earth by a radio telescope involved in a Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI).
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