Sunday, March 30, 2025

APOD - A Partial Solar Eclipse over Iceland

Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2025 March 30
A a cloudy sky appears with an overall pink - red hue.  The Sun appears partially eclipsed over a slanting hill.   A person on the hill has their arms raised and appears to   be holding up the partially eclipsed Sun.   Please see the explanation for more detailed information.

A Partial Solar Eclipse over Iceland
Image Credit & Copyright: Wioleta Gorecka

Explanation: What if the Sun and Moon rose together? That happened yesterday over some northern parts of planet Earth as a partial solar eclipse occurred shortly after sunrise. Regions that experienced the Moon blocking part of the Sun included northeastern parts of North America and northwestern parts of Europe, Asia, and Africa. The featured image was captured yesterday over the Grábrók volcanic crater in Iceland where much of the Sun became momentarily hidden behind the Moon. The image was taken through a cloudy sky but so well planned that the photographer's friend appeared to be pulling the Sun out from behind the Moon. No part of the Earth experienced a total solar eclipse this time. In the distant past, some of humanity was so surprised when an eclipse occurred that ongoing battles suddenly stopped. Today, eclipses are not a surprise and are predicted with an accuracy of seconds.

Growing Gallery: Partial Solar Eclipse of 2025 March
Tomorrow's picture: inside out solar system


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Saturday, March 29, 2025

APOD - Stereo Helene

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2025 March 29
See Explanation.  Clicking on the picture will download  the highest resolution version available.

Stereo Helene
Image Credit: Cassini Imaging Team, ISS, JPL, ESA, NASA; Stereo Image by Roberto Beltramini

Explanation: Get out your red/blue glasses and float next to Helene, small, icy moon of Saturn. Appropriately named, Helene is a Trojan moon, so called because it orbits at a Lagrange point. A Lagrange point is a gravitationally stable position near two massive bodies, in this case Saturn and larger moon Dione. In fact, irregularly shaped ( about 36 by 32 by 30 kilometers) Helene orbits at Dione's leading Lagrange point while brotherly ice moon Polydeuces follows at Dione's trailing Lagrange point. The sharp stereo anaglyph was constructed from two Cassini images captured during a close flyby in 2011. It shows part of the Saturn-facing hemisphere of Helene mottled with craters and gully-like features.

Tomorrow's picture: Ringed Jupiter


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Friday, March 28, 2025

[27+] Voyages Marins Uniques - Créatures uniques qui habitent le fond ..

25+

APOD - Lunar Dust and Duct Tape

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2025 March 28
See Explanation.  Clicking on the picture will download  the highest resolution version available.

Lunar Dust and Duct Tape
Image Credit: Apollo 17, NASA

Explanation: Why is the Moon so dusty? On Earth, rocks are weathered by wind and water, creating soil and sand. On the Moon, eons of constant micrometeorite bombardment have blasted away at the rocky surface creating a layer of powdery lunar soil or regolith. For the Apollo astronauts and their equipment, the pervasive, fine, gritty dust was definitely a problem. On the lunar surface in December 1972, Apollo 17 astronauts Harrison Schmitt and Eugene Cernan needed to repair one of their rover's fenders in an effort to keep the rooster tails of dust away from themselves and their gear. This picture reveals the wheel and fender of their dust covered rover along with the ingenious application of spare maps, clamps, and a grey strip of "duct tape".

Northern Hemisphere Alert : March 29 Partial Solar Eclipse Tomorrow's picture: pixels in space


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Thursday, March 27, 2025

APOD - Messier 81

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2025 March 27
See Explanation.  Clicking on the picture will download  the highest resolution version available.

Messier 81
Image Credit & Copyright: Lorand Fenyes

Explanation: One of the brightest galaxies in planet Earth's sky is similar in size to our Milky Way Galaxy: big, beautiful Messier 81. Also known as NGC 3031 or Bode's galaxy for its 18th century discoverer, this grand spiral can be found toward the northern constellation of Ursa Major, the Great Bear. The sharp, detailed telescopic view reveals M81's bright yellow nucleus, blue spiral arms, pinkish starforming regions, and sweeping cosmic dust lanes. But some dust lanes actually cut across the galactic disk (left of center), contrary to other prominent spiral features. The errant dust lanes may be the lingering result of a close encounter between M81 and the nearby galaxy M82 lurking outside of this frame. Scrutiny of variable stars in M81 has yielded a well-determined distance for an external galaxy -- 11.8 million light-years.

Tomorrow's picture: pixels in space


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Wednesday, March 26, 2025

APOD - Star Formation in the Pacman Nebula

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2025 March 26
A starfield dominated by a large nebula is pictured.   The center is blue and the perimeter is red. Many dark   dust pillars are visible.   Please see the explanation for more detailed information.

Star Formation in the Pacman Nebula
Image Credit & Copyright: Juan Montilla (AAE)

Explanation: You'd think the Pacman Nebula would be eating stars, but actually it is forming them. Within the nebula, a cluster's young, massive stars are powering the pervasive nebular glow. The eye-catching shapes looming in the featured portrait of NGC 281 are sculpted dusty columns and dense Bok globules seen in silhouette, eroded by intense, energetic winds and radiation from the hot cluster stars. If they survive long enough, the dusty structures could also be sites of future star formation. Playfully called the Pacman Nebula because of its overall shape, NGC 281 is about 10,000 light-years away in the constellation Cassiopeia. This sharp composite image was made through narrow-band filters in Spain in mid 2024. It combines emissions from the nebula's hydrogen and oxygen atoms to synthesize red, green, and blue colors. The scene spans well over 80 light-years at the estimated distance of NGC 281.

Tomorrow's picture: open space


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Tuesday, March 25, 2025

[22+] Oasis Végétale Urbaine - Anemone huphensis (Höstanemon) med Cimi..

20+

APOD - A Blue Banded Blood Moon

Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2025 March 25
A developing total lunar eclipse is shown in three frames.  At the top part of the uneclipsed Moon is visible with a   distinctive blue band separating it from the rest of the   reddened Moon. The middle frame shows a mostly reddened Moon  with a the blue band just visible on the upper right, while  the lowest frame shows an entirely eclipsed moon all in red.  Please see the explanation for more detailed information.

A Blue Banded Blood Moon
Image Credit & Copyright: Zixiong Jin

Explanation: What causes a blue band to cross the Moon during a lunar eclipse? The blue band is real but usually quite hard to see. The featured HDR image of last week's lunar eclipse, however -- taken from Norman, Oklahoma (USA) -- has been digitally processed to exaggerate the colors. The gray color on the upper right of the top lunar image is the Moon's natural color, directly illuminated by sunlight. The lower parts of the Moon on all three images are not directly lit by the Sun since it is being eclipsed -- it is in the Earth's shadow. It is faintly lit, though, by sunlight that has passed deep through Earth's atmosphere. This part of the Moon is red -- and called a blood Moon -- for the same reason that Earth's sunsets are red: because air scatters away more blue light than red. The unusual purple-blue band visible on the upper right of the top and middle images is different -- its color is augmented by sunlight that has passed high through Earth's atmosphere, where red light is better absorbed by ozone than blue.

Celestial Surprise: What picture did APOD feature on your birthday? (post 1995)
Tomorrow's picture: star factory


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Monday, March 24, 2025

APOD - A Total Lunar Eclipse Over Uruguay

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2025 March 24

A Total Lunar Eclipse Over Uruguay
Video Credit & Copyright: Mauricio Salazar

Explanation: If the full Moon suddenly faded, what would you see? The answer was recorded in a dramatic time lapse video taken during the total lunar eclipse last week from Uruguay. During a total lunar eclipse, the Earth moves between the Moon and the Sun, causing the Moon to fade dramatically. The Moon never gets completely dark, though, since the Earth's atmosphere refracts some light. As the featured video begins, the scene may appear to be daytime and sunlit, but actually it is nighttime and lit by the glow of the full Moon. As the Moon becomes eclipsed and fades, background stars become visible. Most spectacularly, the sky surrounding the eclipsed moon suddenly appears to be full of stars and highlighted by the busy plane of our Milky Way Galaxy. Nearly two hours after the eclipse started, the Moon emerged from the Earth's shadow and its bright full glare again dominated the sky.

Tomorrow's picture: moon glows blue


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Sunday, March 23, 2025

APOD - Ancient Ogunquit Beach on Mars

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2025 March 23
Rocks and brown sand occupy this horizontally compressed  image of Mars. At the top is a light colored peak.   Please see the explanation for more detailed information.

Ancient Ogunquit Beach on Mars
Image Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, MSSS, Curiosity Rover

Explanation: This was once a beach -- on ancient Mars. The featured 360-degree panorama, horizontally compressed, was taken in 2017 by the robotic Curiosity rover that explored the red planet. Named Ogunquit Beach after its terrestrial counterpart, evidence shows that at times long ago the area was underwater, while at other times it was at the edge of an ancient lake. The light peak in the central background is the top of Mount Sharp, the central feature in Gale Crater where Curiosity explored. Portions of the dark sands in the foreground were scooped up for analysis. The light colored bedrock is composed of sediment that likely settled at the bottom of the now-dried lakebed. The featured panorama (interactive version here) was created from over 100 images and seemingly signed by the rover on the lower left.

Tomorrow's picture: moon goes dark


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Friday, March 21, 2025

APOD - The Leo Trio

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2025 March 21
See Explanation.  Clicking on the picture will download  the highest resolution version available.

The Leo Trio
Image Credit & Copyright: Rabeea Alkuwari

Explanation: This popular group leaps into the early evening sky around the March equinox and the northern hemisphere spring. Famous as the Leo Triplet, the three magnificent galaxies found in the prominent constellation Leo gather here in one astronomical field of view. Crowd pleasers when imaged with even modest telescopes, they can be introduced individually as NGC 3628 (bottom left), M66 (middle right), and M65 (top center). All three are large spiral galaxies but tend to look dissimilar, because their galactic disks are tilted at different angles to our line of sight. NGC 3628, also known as the Hamburger Galaxy, is temptingly seen edge-on, with obscuring dust lanes cutting across its puffy galactic plane. The disks of M66 and M65 are both inclined enough to show off their spiral structure. Gravitational interactions between galaxies in the group have left telltale signs, including the tidal tails and warped, inflated disk of NGC 3628 and the drawn out spiral arms of M66. This gorgeous view of the region spans over 1 degree (two full moons) on the sky. Captured with a telescope from Sawda Natheel, Qatar, planet Earth, the frame covers over half a million light-years at the Leo Trio's estimated 30 million light-year distance.

Tomorrow's picture: one hand clapping


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Thursday, March 20, 2025

APOD - The Solar Eclipse Analemma Project

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2025 March 20
See Explanation.  Clicking on the picture will download  the highest resolution version available.

The Solar Eclipse Analemma Project
Image Credit & Copyright: Hunter Wells

Explanation: Recorded from 2024 March 10, to 2025 March 1, this composited series of images reveals a pattern in the seasonal drift of the Sun's daily motion through planet Earth's sky. Known to some as an analemma, the figure-eight curve was captured in exposures taken on the indicated dates only at 18:38 UTC from the exact same location south of Stephenville, Texas. The Sun's position on the 2024 solstice dates of June 20 and December 21 would be at the top and bottom of the curve and correspond to the astronomical beginning of summer and winter in the north. Points that lie along the curve half-way between the solstices would mark the equinoxes. The 2024 equinox on September 22, and in 2025 the equinox on March 20 (today) are the start of northern fall and spring. And since one of the exposures was made on 2024 April 8 from the Stephenville location at 18:38:40 UTC, this analemma project also reveals the solar corona in planet Earth's sky during a total solar eclipse.

Tomorrow's picture: pixels in space


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Wednesday, March 19, 2025

[50+] Cheveux Stylés Et Sophistiqués - Épinglé sur Katherine McNamara..

24+

APOD - Blue Ghost's Diamond Ring

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2025 March 19
See Explanation.  Clicking on the picture will download  the highest resolution version available.

Blue Ghost's Diamond Ring
Image Credit: Firefly Aerospace

Explanation: On March 14 the Full Moon slid through Earth's dark umbral shadow and denizens of planet Earth were treated to a total lunar eclipse. Of course, from the Moon's near side that same astronomical syzygy was seen as a solar eclipse. Operating in the Mare Crisium on the lunar surface, the Blue Ghost lander captured this video frame of Earth in silhouette around 3:30am CDT, just as the Sun was emerging from behind the terrestrial disk. From Blue Ghost's lunar perspective the beautiful diamond ring effect, familiar to earthbound solar eclipse watchers, is striking. Since Earth appears about four times the apparent size of the Sun from the lunar surface the inner solar corona, the atmosphere of the Sun most easily seen from Earth during a total solar eclipse, is hidden from view. Still, scattering in Earth's dense atmosphere creates the glowing band of sunlight embracing our fair planet.

Tomorrow's picture: welcome to the equinox


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Tuesday, March 18, 2025

APOD - LDN 1235: The Shark Nebula

Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2025 March 18
A dark brown cloud that appears similar to a shark is seen  against a background filled with stars and less prominent   blue-shaded nebulas.  Please see the explanation for more detailed information.

LDN 1235: The Shark Nebula
Image Credit & Copyright: Timothy Martin

Explanation: There is no sea on Earth large enough to contain the Shark nebula. This predator apparition poses us no danger as it is composed only of interstellar gas and dust. Dark dust like that featured here is somewhat like cigarette smoke and created in the cool atmospheres of giant stars. After expelling gas and gravitationally recondensing, massive stars may carve intricate structures into their birth cloud using their high energy light and fast stellar winds as sculpting tools. The heat they generate evaporates the murky molecular cloud as well as causing ambient hydrogen gas to disperse and glow red. During disintegration, we humans can enjoy imagining these great clouds as common icons, like we do for water clouds on Earth. Including smaller dust nebulae such as Van den Bergh 149 & 150, the Shark nebula, sometimes cataloged as LDN 1235, spans about 15 light years and lies about 650 light years away toward the constellation of the King of Aethiopia (Cepheus).

Explore Your Universe: Random APOD Generator
Tomorrow's picture: open space


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Monday, March 17, 2025

APOD - Thor's Helmet

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2025 March 17
The image shows a starfield with an oval shaped  red and light-blue tinged nebula in the center  Please see the explanation for more detailed information.

Thor's Helmet
Image Credit & Copyright: Brian Hopkins (East Coast Astronomer)

Explanation: Thor not only has his own day (Thursday), but a helmet in the heavens. Popularly called Thor's Helmet, NGC 2359 is a hat-shaped cosmic cloud with wing-like appendages. Heroically sized even for a Norse god, Thor's Helmet is about 30 light-years across. In fact, the cosmic head-covering is more like an interstellar bubble, blown by a fast wind from the bright, massive star near the bubble's center. Known as a Wolf-Rayet star, the central star is an extremely hot giant thought to be in a brief, pre-supernova stage of evolution. NGC 2359 is located about 15,000 light-years away toward the constellation of the Great Overdog. This sharp image is a mixed cocktail of data from narrowband filters, capturing not only natural looking stars but details of the nebula's filamentary structures. The star in the center of Thor's Helmet is expected to explode in a spectacular supernova sometime within the next few thousand years.

Tomorrow's picture: sky danger


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Sunday, March 16, 2025

[39+] Linge De Table En Lin - 6 serviettes de table, rouges à rayures..

22+

APOD - Venus and the Triply Ultraviolet Sun

Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2025 March 16
An image of the Sun in three colors of ultraviolet light  showing the transit circle of Venus and a deep coronal hole in  dark blue.  Please see the explanation for more detailed information.

Venus and the Triply Ultraviolet Sun
Image Credit: NASA/SDO & the AIA, EVE, and HMI teams; Digital Composition: Peter L. Dove

Explanation: This was a very unusual type of solar eclipse. Typically, it is the Earth's Moon that eclipses the Sun. In 2012, though, the planet Venus took a turn. Like a solar eclipse by the Moon, the phase of Venus became a continually thinner crescent as Venus became increasingly better aligned with the Sun. Eventually the alignment became perfect and the phase of Venus dropped to zero. The dark spot of Venus crossed our parent star. The situation could technically be labeled a Venusian annular eclipse with an extraordinarily large ring of fire. Pictured here during the occultation, the Sun was imaged in three colors of ultraviolet light by the Earth-orbiting Solar Dynamics Observatory, with the dark region toward the right corresponding to a coronal hole. Hours later, as Venus continued in its orbit, a slight crescent phase appeared again. The next Venusian transit across the Sun will occur in 2117.

Tomorrow's picture: big hat


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Saturday, March 15, 2025

APOD - Tololo Totality

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2025 March 15
See Explanation.  Clicking on the picture will download  the highest resolution version available.

Tololo Totality
Image Credit & Copyright: Petr Horálek/CTIO (Cerro Tololo Observatory) /AURA/NSF/ NOIRLab

Explanation: On March 14 the Moon was Full. In an appropriate celebration of Pi day, that put the Moon 3.14 radians (180 degrees) in ecliptic longitude from the Sun in planet Earth's sky. As a bonus for fans of Pi and the night sky, on that date the Moon also passed directly through Earth's umbral shadow in a total lunar eclipse. In clear skies, the colors of an eclipsed Moon can be vivid. Reflecting the deeply reddened sunlight scattered into Earth's shadow, the darkened lunar disk was recorded in this time series composite image from Cerro Tololo Observatory, Chile. The lunar triptych captures the start, middle, and end of the total eclipse phase that lasted about an hour. A faint bluish tint seen just along the brighter lunar limb at the shadow's edge is due to sunlight filtered through Earth's stratospheric ozone layer.

Growing Gallery: Total Lunar Eclipse of 2025 March
Tomorrow's picture: Venusian silhouette


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Friday, March 14, 2025

APOD - Moon Pi and Mountain Shadow

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2025 March 14
See Explanation.  Clicking on the picture will download  the highest resolution version available.

Moon Pi and Mountain Shadow
Image Credit & Copyright: Daniel Lopez (El Cielo de Canarias)

Explanation: What phase of the Moon is 3.14 radians from the Sun? The Full Moon, of course. Even though the Moon might look full for several days, the Moon is truly at its full phase when it is Pi radians (aka 180 degrees) from the Sun in ecliptic longitude. That's opposite the Sun in planet Earth's sky. Rising as the Sun set on March 9, 2020, only an hour or so after the moment of its full phase, this orange tinted and slightly flattened Moon still looked full. It was photographed opposite the setting Sun from Teide National Park on the Canary Island of Tenerife. Also opposite the setting Sun, seen from near the Teide volcano peak about 3,500 meters above sea level, is the mountain's rising triangular shadow extending into Earth's dense atmosphere. Below the distant ridge line on the left are the white telescope domes of Teide Observatory. Today, March 14 2025, the moon is Pi radians from the Sun at exactly 06:55 UTC. That's about three minutes before the midpoint of the March Full Moon's total lunar eclipse.

Tomorrow's picture: light-weekend


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Thursday, March 13, 2025

APOD - The Protostars within Lynds 483

Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2025 March 13
See Explanation.  Clicking on the picture will download  the highest resolution version available.

The Protostars within Lynds 483
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA,

Explanation: Two protostars are hidden in a single pixel near the center of a striking hourglass-shaped nebula in this near-infrared image from the James Webb Space Telescope. The actively forming star system lies in a dusty molecular cloud cataloged as Lynds 483, some 650 light-years distant toward the constellation Serpens Cauda. Responsible for the stunning bipolar outflows, the collapsing protostars have been blasting out collimated energetic jets of material over tens of thousands of years. Webb's high-resolution view shows the violence of star-formation in dramatic detail as twisting shock fronts expand and collide with slower, denser material. The premier close-up of the star-forming region spans less than 1/2 a light-year within dark nebula Lynds 483.

March 13/14: Total Lunar Eclipse Tomorrow's picture: Moon Pi


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[44+] Murs Lambris Bois Peint élégant - Jingdezhen ceramic fish tank,simulation ..

25+

Wednesday, March 12, 2025

APOD - NGC 772: The Fiddlehead Galaxy

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

2025 March 12
A dark field is filled with stars and galaxies. A large  spiral galaxy appears on the upper left. Toward the right,  there is a smaller fuzzy patch that is a comet with a short  tail.   Please see the explanation for more detailed information.

NGC 772: The Fiddlehead Galaxy
Image Credit & Copyright: Jean-François Bax & Serge Brunier, OCA/C2PU; Text: Ogetay Kayali (Michigan Tech U.)

Explanation: Why does this galaxy look like a curly vegetable? The Fiddlehead spiral galaxy likely gets its distorted spiral appearance from a gravitational interaction with its close-by elliptical companion NGC 770, seen just below. Cataloged as NGC 772 and Arp 78, the Fiddlehead spans over 200,000 light years, is a nearby 100 million light years beyond the stars of our Milky Way galaxy, and is visible toward the constellation of the Ram (Aries). But in the featured image, the Fiddlehead appears to have another companion -- one with a long and fuzzy tail: Comet 43P/Wolf-Harrington. Though the comet appears to be aimed straight at the massive galaxy, it is actually much closer to us, residing only light minutes away -- well within our Solar System. The comet will never reach the distant spiral galaxy, nor is it physically related to it. By a fortunate trick of perspective, though, these two cosmic wonders briefly share the same frame taken late last year from Calern, France.

Tomorrow's picture: open space


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Tuesday, March 11, 2025

APOD - NGC 1672: Barred Spiral Galaxy from Hubble

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

2025 March 11
A spiral galaxy is shown in great detail. Visible   are blue star clusters, red nebulas, and brown dust  in a spiral pattern around the image and galaxy center.  Please see the explanation for more detailed information.

NGC 1672: Barred Spiral Galaxy from Hubble
Image Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, O. Fox, L. Jenkins, S. Van Dyk, A. Filippenko, J. Lee and the PHANGS-HST Team, D. de Martin (ESA/Hubble), M. Zamani (ESA/Hubble)

Explanation: Many spiral galaxies have bars across their centers. Even our own Milky Way Galaxy is thought to have a modest central bar. Prominently barred spiral galaxy NGC 1672, featured here, was captured in spectacular detail in an image taken by the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope. Visible are dark filamentary dust lanes, young clusters of bright blue stars, red emission nebulas of glowing hydrogen gas, a long bright bar of stars across the center, and a bright active nucleus that likely houses a supermassive black hole. Light takes about 60 million years to reach us from NGC 1672, which spans about 75,000 light years across. NGC 1672, which appears toward the constellation of the Dolphinfish (Dorado), has been studied to find out how a spiral bar contributes to star formation in a galaxy's central regions.

Tomorrow's picture: comet versus galaxy


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Monday, March 10, 2025

APOD - NGC 1499: The California Nebula

Astronomy Picture of the Day

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2025 March 10
The starry image filled with a red glow features   a red, yellow, and blue colored nebula. The nebula   has, roughly, the shape of the US state of California.  Please see the explanation for more detailed information.

NGC 1499: The California Nebula
Image Credit & Copyright: Toni Fabiani Mendez

Explanation: Could Queen Calafia's mythical island exist in space? Perhaps not, but by chance the outline of this molecular space cloud echoes the outline of the state of California, USA. Our Sun has its home within the Milky Way's Orion Arm, only about 1,000 light-years from the California Nebula. Also known as NGC 1499, the classic emission nebula is around 100 light-years long. On the featured image, the most prominent glow of the California Nebula is the red light characteristic of hydrogen atoms recombining with long lost electrons, stripped away (ionized) by energetic starlight. The star most likely providing the energetic starlight that ionizes much of the nebular gas is the bright, hot, bluish Xi Persei just to the right of the nebula. A regular target for astrophotographers, the California Nebula can be spotted with a wide-field telescope under a dark sky toward the constellation of Perseus, not far from the Pleiades.

Explore Your Universe: Random APOD Generator
Tomorrow's picture: galaxy bar


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