Credit & Copyright: Stefan Seip
(TWAN)
Explanation:
Welcome to December's solstice, first day of winter in the north and
summer for the southern hemisphere.
Astronomical markers of the seasons,
solstice and equinox
dates are based on the Sun's place in its annual journey along the ecliptic, through planet Earth's sky.
At this solstice,
the Sun reaches its maximum southern
declination
of -23.5 degrees today at 15:59
UTC, while its
right ascension
coordinate on the
celestial sphere
is 18 hours.
That puts the Sun in the
constellation Sagittarius in a direction near
the center of our Milky Way galaxy.
In fact, if you could see today's
Solstice Sun
against faint background stars and nebulae (that's
really hard to do, especially in the daytime ...)
your view might look something like this composited panorama.
To make it, images of
our fair galaxy
were taken under dark
Namibian
night skies, then stitched together in a panoramic view.
From a snapshot made on
2015 December 21,
the Sun was digitally overlayed as a brilliant star at today's northern winter
solstice position, close to the center of the Milky Way.
Discovery + Outreach:
Graduate student research position open for APOD
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A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
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Publikacii s klyuchevymi slovami:
solstice - Milky Way - solncestoyanie - Mlechnyi Put'
Publikacii so slovami: solstice - Milky Way - solncestoyanie - Mlechnyi Put' | |
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