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Astronomy Picture Of the Day (APOD)
In the Center of the Virgo Cluster
13.02.2005
The Virgo Cluster of Galaxies is the closest cluster of galaxies to our Milky Way Galaxy. The Virgo Cluster is so close that it spans more than 5 degrees on the sky - about 10 times the angle made by a full Moon.
NEAR at Eros: Before Touchdown
12.02.2005
On 12 February, 2001, the NEAR-Shoemaker spacecraft gently touched-down on the the surface of Eros -- the first ever landing on an asteroid. During the descent, the spacecraft's camera recorded successive images of the diminutive world's surface, revealing fractured boulders, dust filled craters, and a mysterious collapsed channel.
Blue Saturn
11.02.2005
Serene blue hues highlight this view of Saturn's northern hemisphere from the Cassini spacecraft. The image has been adjusted to approximate the natural blue color of visible sunlight scattered by the gas giant's upper atmosphere.
Red Saturn
10.02.2005
This strange, false-color image of otherwise familiar planet Saturn shows temperature changes based on thermal infrared emission in the gas giant's atmosphere and rings. Recorded from the Keck I telescope on Mauna Kea, the sharp, ground-based picture of Saturn's southern hemisphere is a mosaic of 35 images.
Heat Shield Impact Crater on Mars
9.02.2005
Broken metal and scorched Mars make the impact site of Opportunity's heat shield one of the more interesting sites inspected by the rolling robot. Visible on the image left is the conical outer hull of the shattered heat shield expelled by Opportunity as it plummeted toward Mars last year.
A Mysterious Streak Above Hawaii
8.02.2005
What in heavens-above was that? Not everything seen on the night sky is understood. The Night Sky Live (NSL) project keeps its global array of continuously updating web cameras (CONCAMs) always watching the night sky.
A Telescope Laser Creates an Artificial Star
7.02.2005
What do you get when you combine one of the world's most powerful telescopes with a powerful laser? An artificial star. Monitoring fluctuations in brightness of a genuine bright star can indicate how the Earth's atmosphere is changing, but many times no bright star exists in the direction where atmospheric information is needed.
NGC 3132: The Eight Burst Nebula
6.02.2005
It's the dim star, not the bright one, near the center of NGC 3132 that created this odd but beautiful planetary nebula. Nicknamed the Eight-Burst Nebula and the Southern Ring Nebula, the glowing gas originated in the outer layers of a star like our Sun.
The Radio Sky: Tuned to 408MHz
5.02.2005
Tune your radio telescope to 408MHz (408 million cycles per second) and check out the Radio Sky! In the 1970s large dish antennas at three radio observatories, Jodrell Bank, MPIfR, and Parkes Observatory, were used to do just that - the data were combined to map the entire sky.
V838 Mon: Light Echo Update
4.02.2005
Expanding light echoes continue to illuminate the dusty environs of V838 Monocerotis, mysterious variable star near the edge of our Galaxy. This stunning image, produced from Hubble data recorded in October of 2004, adds to a unique series of space-based, high-resolution views.
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