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Astronomy Picture Of the Day (APOD)
APOD: 2024 August 14 Б Meteors and Aurora over Germany
13.08.2024
This was an unusual night. For one thing, the night sky of August 11 and 12, earlier this week, occurred near the peak of the annual Perseid Meteor Shower. Therefore, meteors streaked across the dark night as small bits cast off from Comet Swift-Tuttle came crashing into the Earth's atmosphere.
APOD: 2024 August 13 Б Giant Jet from the International Space Station
12.08.2024
What's that on the horizon? When circling the Earth on the International Space Station early last month, astronaut Matthew Dominick saw an unusual type of lightning just beyond the Earth's edge: a gigantic jet. The powerful jet appears on the left of the featured image in red and blue.
APOD: 2024 August 12 Б Perseid Meteors over Stonehenge
11.08.2024
What's happening in the sky above Stonehenge? A meteor shower: specifically, the Perseid meteor shower. A few nights ago, after the sky darkened, many images of meteors from this year's Perseids were captured separately and merged into a single frame.
APOD: 2024 August 11 Б Animation: Perseid Meteor Shower
10.08.2024
Where do Perseid meteors come from? Mostly small bits of stony grit, Perseid meteoroids were once expelled from Comet Swift-Tuttle and continue to follow this comet's orbit as they slowly disperse. The featured animation depicts the entire meteoroid stream as it orbits our Sun.
The Light, Dark, and Dusty Trifid
9.08.2024
Messier 20, popularly known as the Trifid Nebula, lies about 5,000 light-years away toward the nebula rich constellation Sagittarius. A star forming region in the plane of our galaxy, the Trifid does illustrate...
A Perseid Below
8.08.2024
Denizens of planet Earth typically watch meteor showers by looking up. But this remarkable view, captured on August 13, 2011 by astronaut Ron Garan, caught a Perseid meteor by looking down. From Garan...
Periodic Comet Swift Tuttle
7.08.2024
A Halley-type comet with an orbital period of about 133 years, Comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle is recognized as the parent of the annual Perseid Meteor Shower. The comet's last visit to the inner Solar System was in 1992.
APOD: 2024 August 7 Б Milky Way Behind Three Merlons
6.08.2024
To some, they look like battlements, here protecting us against the center of the Milky Way. The Three Merlons, also called the Three Peaks of Lavaredo, stand tall today because they are made of dense dolomite rock which has better resisted erosion than surrounding softer rock.
APOD: 2024 August 6 Б Storm Cloud Over Texas
5.08.2024
What makes this storm cloud so colorful? First, the cloud itself is composed of millions of tiny droplets of water and ice. Its bottom is almost completely flat -- but this isn't unusual. Bottom...
APOD: 2024 August 5 Б Milky Way Over Tunisia
4.08.2024
That's no moon. On the ground, that's the Lars Homestead in Tunisia. And that's not just any galaxy. That's the central band of our own Milky Way galaxy. Last, that's not just any meteor. It is a bright fireball likely from last year's Perseids meteor shower.
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