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Astronomy Picture Of the Day (APOD)
Pictured: An Ancient Martian?
8.08.1996
Alien! Alien? Is this what an ancient Martian looked like? The tube-like form on the above highly magnified image is now believed by many to be a fossil of a simple Martian organism that lived over 3.6 billion years ago.
Early Microscopic Life on Mars?
7.08.1996
Today a team of NASA and Stanford scientists announced the discovery of strong circumstantial evidence that microscopic life once existed on Mars. Dr. David McKay, Dr. Everett Gibson, and Kathie Thomas-Keprta of Lockheed-Martin, all from (NASA /JSC), and Dr.
Europa: Oceans of Life?
6.08.1996
Is there life beneath Europa's frozen surface? Some believe the oceans found there of carbon-enriched water are the best chance for life, outside the Earth, in our Solar System. Europa, the fourth largest moon of Jupiter, was recently discovered to have a thin oxygen atmosphere by scientists using the Hubble Space Telescope.
Erupting Volcanoes on Io
5.08.1996
Jupiter's moon Io has active volcanoes. The Voyager spacecraft caught several erupting when they passed the energetic moon in 1979. In the above picture, several of Io's volcanoes are visible and one is seen actually erupting.
NGC 3393: A Super Spiral?
4.08.1996
A bird? A plane? No, but pictured here is something physically much larger, flying much higher, and moving much faster than either of these. It is, in fact, a Seyfert type 2 spiral galaxy. The "S" is actually a lane of stars, gas and dust circling the core.
Jupiter's Colorful Clouds
3.08.1996
What makes the colors in Jupiter's clouds? With a mean temperature of 120 degrees Kelvin (-153 degrees Celsius) and a composition dominated by Hydrogen (about 90%), and Helium (about 10%) with a smattering...
Galileo, Cassini, and the Great Red Spot
2.08.1996
Imagine a hurricane that lasted for 300 years! Jupiter's Great Red Spot indeed seems to be a giant hurricane-like storm system rotating with the Jovian clouds. Observed in 1655 by Italian-French astronomer Jean-Dominique Cassini it is seen here over 300 years later - still going strong - in a mosaic of recent Galileo spacecraft images.
The Hydra Cluster of Galaxies
1.08.1996
You are flying through space and come to ... the Hydra Cluster of Galaxies. Listed as Abell 1060, the Hydra Cluster contains well over 100 bright galaxies. Clusters of galaxies are the largest gravitationally-bound objects in the universe.
A Violet Moon
31.07.1996
Checking out the Galileo spacecraft's cameras during its December 1992 flyby of Earth's Moon, controllers took this dramatically illuminated picture through a violet filter. The view looks down on the Moon...
Tonight: A Blue Moon
30.07.1996
How often does a Full Moon occur twice in a single month? Exactly once in a Blue Moon. In fact, the modern usage of the term "Blue Moon" refers to the second Full Moon in a single month. Tonight's Blue Moon (Universal Time) will be the first since September 1993.
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