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Astronomy Picture Of the Day (APOD)
NGC 3603: An Active Star Cluster
18.10.1999
NGC 3603 is home to a massive star cluster, thick dust pillars, and a star about to explode. The central open cluster contains about 2000 bright stars, each of which is much brighter and more massive than our Sun.
Black Holes in Galactic Centers
17.10.1999
Do all galaxies have black holes at their centers? Although not even a single galaxy has yet been proven to have a central black hole, the list of candidates continues to increase. Results...
Maria Mitchell Inspires a Generation
16.10.1999
"Do not look at stars as bright spots only - try to take in the vastness of the universe." On October 1, 1847 Maria Mitchell swept the sky with her telescope and discovered a comet (comet Mitchell 1847VI).
Moon Crashers
15.10.1999
On July 31, 1964, Ranger 7 crashed into the Moon. Seventeen minutes before impact it snapped this picture - the first image of the Moon ever taken by a U.S. spacecraft. Of course Ranger 7 was intended to crash, transmitting close-up pictures of the lunar surface during its final moments.
Moon Over Eugenia
14.10.1999
Eugenia is an asteroid with a moon! This animation was constructed from infrared discovery images of the Eugenia-moon system taken in November 1998 using the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT). Main belt asteroid Eugenia, represented here as a central white patch, is a mere 215 kilometers in diameter.
Ozone Hole Reduced
13.10.1999
Although a new ozone hole has formed again this year over the South Pole, this time it is a little bit smaller than the year before. Ozone is important because it shields us from damaging ultraviolet sunlight. Ozone is vulnerable, though, to CFCs and halons being released into the atmosphere.
NGC 2346: A Butterfly Shaped Planetary Nebula
12.10.1999
It may look like a butterfly, but it's bigger than our Solar System. NGC 2346 is a planetary nebula made of gas and dust that has evolved into a familiar shape. At the heart of the bipolar planetary nebula is a pair of close stars orbiting each other once every sixteen days.
Eta Carinae in X Rays
11.10.1999
Eta Carinae is the one of the most luminous star systems in our Galaxy, radiating millions of times more power than our Sun. Eta Carinae is also one of the strangest star systems known, brightening and fading greatly since the early 1800s.
Triton: Neptune's Largest Moon
10.10.1999
One hundred and fifty three years ago, on October 10th, 1846, William Lassell was observing the newly discovered planet Neptune. He was attempting to confirm his observation, made just the previous week, that Neptune had a ring. But this time he discovered that Neptune had a satellite as well.
The Frothy Milky Way
9.10.1999
Astronomers have discovered that looking at dust along the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy is a bit like looking into a frothy glass of beer. The dust between stars in our galaxy appears...
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