NASA Astronomy Pictures Of The Day [Week 6/2010]
Posted in Astronomy on April 24th, 2010 by admin
NASA Astronomy Pictures Of The Day [Week 6/2010]
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► A Sun Halo Over Cambodia
Have you ever seen a halo around the Sun? This fairly common sight occurs when high thin clouds containing millions of tiny ice crystals cover much of the sky. Each ice crystal acts like a miniature lens. Because most of the crystals have a similar elongated hexagonal shape, light entering one crystal face and exiting through the opposing face refracts 22 degrees, which corresponds to … http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap100208.html
► Night Launch of the Space Shuttle Endeavour
Sometimes, the space shuttle launches at night. Pictured above, the space shuttle Endeavour lifted off in yesterday’s early morning hours from Launch Pad 39A in Kennedy Space Center, Florida, USA, bound for the International Space Station (ISS). A night launch, useful for reaching the space station easily during some times of the year, frequently creates … http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap100209.html
► M51 Hubble Remix
The 51st entry in Charles Messier’s famous catalog is perhaps the original spiral nebula – a large galaxy with a well defined spiral structure also cataloged as NGC 5194. Over 60,000 light-years across, M51′s spiral arms and dust lanes clearly sweep in front of its companion galaxy (top), NGC 5195. Image data from the Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys has been reprocessed to … http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap091226.html
► Teide Sky Trails
The snow capped Teide volcano is reflected in a pool of water in this nearly symmetric night sky view from the Canary Island Tenerife. Bright north star Polaris stands above the peak in an exposure that also captures the brilliant trail of a polar orbiting Iridium satellite. Of course, with the camera fixed to a tripod, the stars themselves produce concentric trails in long exposures, a reflection of the Earth’s rotation around its axis … http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap100212.html
► Star Cluster M34
This pretty, open cluster of stars, M34, is about the size of the Full Moon on the sky. Easy to appreciate in small Telescopes, it lies some 1,800 light-years away in the constellation Perseus. At that distance, M34 physically spans about 15 light-years. Formed at the same time from the same cloud of dust and gas, all the stars of M34 are about 200 million years young. But like any open star cluster … http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap100211.html
► A Force from Empty Space: The Casimir Effect
This tiny ball provides evidence that the universe will expand forever. Measuring slightly over one tenth of a millimeter, the ball moves toward a smooth plate in response to energy fluctuations in the vacuum of empty space. The attraction is known as the Casimir Effect, named for its discoverer, who, 50 years ago, was trying to understand why fluids like mayonnaise move so slowly … http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap061217.html
► Field of Rosette
What surrounds the florid Rosette nebula? To better picture this area of the sky, the famous flowery emission nebula on the far right has been captured recently in a deep and dramatic wide field image that features several other sky highlights. Designated NGC 2237, the center of the Rosette nebula is populated by the bright blue stars of open cluster NGC 2244, whose winds and energetic light are … http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap100214.html
► A Graceful Arc
The graceful arc of the Milky Way begins and ends at two mountain peaks in this solemn night sky panorama. The view was created from a 24 frame mosaic, with exposures tracking Earth and sky separately. In the final composition, northern California’s Mount Lassen was positioned at the left and Mount Shasta at the far right … http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap091225.html
► Sakurajima Volcano with Lightning
Why does a volcanic eruption sometimes create lightning? The Sakurajima volcano in southern Japan was caught erupting early last month. Magma bubbles so hot they glow shoot away as liquid rock bursts through the Earth’s surface from below. The above image is particularly notable, however, for the lightning bolts caught near the volcano’s summit. Why lightning occurs even in … http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap100210.html
► Waterway to Orbit
The 32nd shuttle mission to the International Space Station, STS-130, left planet Earth on February 8. Its early morning launch to orbit from Kennedy Space Center’s pad 39A followed the long, graceful, eastward arc seen in this two minute time exposure … http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap100213.html
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• Text authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP);
• A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC & Michigan Tech. University
• http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/
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Duration : 0:2:57
NASA 
Hubblecast 22: Hubble Space Telescope Directly Observes Exoplanet Orbiting Fomalhaut.