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Credit & Copyright: Stan Honda
Explanation:
Beautiful, luminous decorations on this pinyon pine tree
are actually bright stars
in the constellation Scorpius and the
faint glow of the central Milky Way.
Captured in June from the north rim of the Grand
Canyon of planet Earth, the
shallow, close focus image has rendered pine needles
on the tree branch sharp, but blurred the distant stars,
their light smeared into remarkably colorful disks.
Of course, temperature determines
the color of a star.
Most of the
out-of-focus bright
stars of Scorpius show a predominately blue hue,
their surface temperatures much hotter than the Sun's.
Cooler and larger than the Sun, and noticably redder
on the scene, is giant star
Antares
at the heart of the scorpion.
In focused, telescopic views the whitish disk at the
upper right would be immediately recognizable though,
reflecting the Sun's light as ringed
gas giant Saturn.
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Based on Astronomy Picture
Of the Day
Publications with keywords: color
Publications with words: color
See also: