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Astronomy Picture Of the Day (APOD)
Trifid Pillars & Jets
26.12.2007
Dust pillars are like interstellar mountains. They survive because they are more dense than their surroundings, but they are being slowly eroded away by a hostile environment. Visible in the above picture...
Mars and Orion Over Monument Valley
25.12.2007
Welcome to The World At Night. Sharing the night sky seen around the world, this view from Monument Valley, USA includes a picturesque foreground of famous buttes. Buttes are composed of hard volcanic rock left behind after water eroded away the surrounding soft rock.
Emission Nebula IC 1396
24.12.2007
Sprawling across hundreds of light-years, emission nebula IC 1396 mixes glowing cosmic gas and dark dust clouds. Stars are forming in this area, only about 3,000 light-years from Earth. This detailed view...
Moon and Mars Tonight
23.12.2007
The Full Moon and a brilliant, ruddy Mars will share the sky tonight. Skygazers can easily enjoy the celestial pairing as the two are separated by a degree or even less. In fact, seen from parts of northern North America and Europe, the Moon will actually occult (pass in front of) the Red Planet.
Tyrrhenian Sea and Solstice Sky
22.12.2007
Today the Solstice occurs at 0608 Universal Time, the Sun reaching its southernmost declination in planet Earth's sky. Of course, the December Solstice marks the beginning of winter in the northern hemisphere and summer in the south.
Horizon to Horizon
21.12.2007
Scroll right and journey from horizon to horizon as your gaze sweeps through the zenith in the night sky over Beg-Meil, France. Recorded on December 13th, the entertaining panorama (image key) covers 210 degrees in 21 separate exposures, beginning on the beach with bright star Sirius rising in the southeast.
Reflections on the 1970s
20.12.2007
The 1970s are sometimes ignored by astronomers. In particular, this beautiful grouping of reflection nebulae in Orion - NGC 1977, NGC 1975, and NGC 1973 - are usually overlooked in favor of the substantial glow from the nearby stellar nursery better known as the Orion Nebula.
Stars and Dust through Baade s Window
19.12.2007
Billions of stars light up the direction toward the center of our Galaxy. The vast majority of these stars are themselves billions of years old, rivaling their home Milky Way Galaxy in age. Together with interstellar dust, these old stars combine to create this yellowish starscape.
Unusual Silica Rich Soil Discovered on Mars
18.12.2007
You're rolling across Mars when you unexpectedly uncover some unusually light soil. You stop. You turn. You return to inspect the soil and find out it is almost purely silica -- the main ingredient in quartz and glass. Such soil has never been found on Mars before. What created this soil?
Saturn s Ancient Rings
17.12.2007
How old are Saturn's rings? No one is quite sure. One possibility is that the rings formed relatively recently in our Solar System's history, perhaps only about 100 million years ago when a moon-sized object broke up near Saturn.
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