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Astronomy Picture Of the Day (APOD)
The Sun Erupts
16.09.1996
The Sun is a seething ball of extremely hot gas. Above, the Sun was captured by Skylab in 1973 throwing off one the largest eruptive prominences in recorded history. The Sun has survived for about 5 billion years, and will likely survive for another 5 billion.
Tycho Brahe Measures the Sky
15.09.1996
Tycho Brahe was the most meticulous astronomical observer of his time. Brahe, who lived between 1546 and 1601, set out to solve the day's most pressing astronomical problem: to determine whether the Earth or the Sun was at the center of the Solar System.
Aristarchus' Unbelievable Discoveries
14.09.1996
Here lived one of the greatest thinkers in human history. Aristarchus lived on the Greek island of Samos, a small island in the center of the above picture that can be identified with a good map.
Southwest Mercury
13.09.1996
The planet Mercury resembles a moon. Mercury's old surface is heavily cratered like many moons. Mercury is larger than most moons but smaller than Jupiter's moon Ganymede and Saturn's moon Titan. Mercury is much denser and more massive than any moon, though, because it is made mostly of iron.
Mercury: A Cratered Inferno
12.09.1996
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.
In the Center of Spiral M77
11.09.1996
What is happening in the center of nearby spiral galaxy M77? To find out, astronomers used the Hubble Space Telescope to peer deep into the dusty chaos of this active galactic nucleus in 1994.
M77: Spiral with a Strange Glow
10.09.1996
Why is M77 surrounded by an ultraviolet glow? M77, also called NGC 1068, appears at first sight to be a relatively normal barred spiral galaxy. But when photographed in the ultraviolet (UV), as shown above in false color, the galaxy sports an ultraviolet halo - shown as violet in the photograph.
The High Energy Crab Nebula
9.09.1996
This is the mess that is left when a star explodes. The Crab Nebula is so energetic that it glows in every kind of light known. Shown above are images of the Crab Nebula from visible light to the X-ray band.
Volcano Euboea Fluctus On Io
8.09.1996
Jupiter's moon Io is turning out to be our Solar System's geologic powerhouse. The churning moon was photographed again just recently on June 27th and again shows signs of violent activity. Shown above are photographs of the volcano Euboea Fluctus taken at different times.
Two Billion Years After the Big Bang
7.09.1996
What did the universe look like two billion years after the Big Bang? According to this computer model, the universe was filled with irregular looking objects like the ones shown above. The simulation then predicts that these blobs of stars and gas collide to form galaxies more similar to the ones we see today.
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