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Astronomy Picture Of the Day (APOD)
The M7 Open Star Cluster in Scorpius
22.02.2004
M7 is one of the most prominent open clusters of stars on the sky. The cluster, dominated by bright blue stars, can be seen with the naked eye in a dark sky in the tail of the constellation of Scorpius.
The Spiral Arms of NGC 4622
21.02.2004
While stirring a morning cup of coffee and thinking cosmic thoughts many astronomers would glance at this Hubble Space Telescope image of spiral galaxy NGC 4622 and assume that the galaxy was rotating counterclockwise in the picture.
SN1987A s Cosmic Pearls
20.02.2004
In February 1987, light from the brightest stellar explosion seen in modern times reached Earth -- supernova SN1987A. This Hubble Space Telescope image from the sharp Advanced Camera for Surveys taken in November 2003 shows the explosion site over 16 years later.
McNeil s Nebula
19.02.2004
It was a clear, cold western Kentucky night on January 23rd as seasoned amateur astronomer Jay McNeil tried out his recently acquired 3-inch refracting telescope by imaging the area around a familiar object, the M78 reflection nebula in Orion.
Anvil Cloud Over Sicily
18.02.2004
The cloud poses no danger to the building. Appearing to float above a remote monastery in Sicily, Italy, the anvil cloud's shape shows several classic cloud features. The cloud itself is composed of millions of very small droplets of water and ice.
Galaxy Cluster Lenses Farthest Known Galaxy
17.02.2004
Gravity can bend light, allowing whole clusters of galaxies to act as huge telescopes. Almost all of the bright objects in this just-released Hubble Space Telescope image are galaxies in the cluster known as Abell 2218.
A Patch of Spherules on Mars
16.02.2004
Some patches of Mars are full of mysterious tiny spherules. The microscopic imager on board the Opportunity rover on Mars recorded, last week, the above image showing over a dozen. The image was taken near a rock outcrop called Stone Mountain and spans roughly 6 centimeters across.
A Spherule from the Earths Moon
15.02.2004
How did this spherule come to be on the Moon? When a meteorite strikes the Moon, the energy of the impact melts some of the splattering rock, a fraction of which might cool into tiny glass beads. Many of these glass beads were present in lunar soil samples returned to Earth by the Apollo missions.
Solar System Portrait
14.02.2004
On another Valentine's Day (February 14, 1990), cruising four billion miles from the Sun, the Voyager 1 spacecraft looked back to make this first ever family portrait of our Solar System. The complete portrait is a 60 frame mosaic made from a vantage point 32 degrees above the ecliptic plane.
NGC 613: Spiral of Dust and Stars
13.02.2004
When morning twilight came to the Paranal Observatory in Chile, astronomers Mark Neeser and Peter Barthel interrupted their search for faint quasars, billions of light-years away. And just for a moment, they used Very Large Telescopes at the European Southern Observatory to appreciate the beauty of the nearby Universe.
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