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Astronomy Picture Of the Day (APOD)
Close Comet and Large Magellanic Cloud
17.03.2016
Sporting a surprisingly bright, lovely green coma Comet 252P/Linear poses next to the Large Magellanic Cloud in this southern skyscape. The stack of telephoto exposures was captured on March 16 from Penwortham, South Australia.
A Phoenix Aurora over Iceland
16.03.2016
All of the other aurora watchers had gone home. By 3:30 am in Iceland, on a quiet night last September, much of that night's auroras had died down. Suddenly though, a new burst of particles streamed down from space, lighting up the Earth's atmosphere once again.
Cheering a Total Solar Eclipse
15.03.2016
What would you do if you saw the Sun disappear? Quite possibly: cheer. That's what many exuberant sky watchers did across Indonesia during a total eclipse of the Sun last week. There and then, the land and sky went dark during the day as our Sun disappeared for a few minutes behind our Moon.
Dark Nebulas across Taurus
14.03.2016
Sometimes even the dark dust of interstellar space has a serene beauty. One such place occurs toward the constellation of Taurus. The filaments featured here can be found on the sky between the Pleiades star cluster and the California Nebula.
Neon Saturn
13.03.2016
If seen in the right light, Saturn glows like a neon sign. Although Saturn has comparatively little of the element neon, a composite image false-colored in three bands of infrared light highlights features of the giant ringed planet like a glowing sign.
The Flash Spectrum of the Sun
12.03.2016
In a flash, the visible spectrum of the Sun changed from absorption to emission on March 9 during the total solar eclipse. That fleeting moment, at the beginning the total eclipse phase, is captured by telephoto lens and diffraction grating in this image from clearing skies over Ternate, Indonesia.
Lunar Shadow Transit
11.03.2016
This snapshot from deep space captures planet Earth on March 9. The shadow of its large moon is falling on the planet's sunlit hemisphere. Tracking toward the east (left to right) across the ocean-covered world the moon shadow moved quickly in the direction of the planet's rotation.
Dark Sun over Ternate
10.03.2016
A dark Sun hangs in the clearing sky over a volcanic planet in this morning sea and skycape. It was taken during this week's total solar eclipse, a dramatic snapshot from along the narrow path of totality in the dark shadow of a New Moon.
Edge On Galaxy NGC 5866
9.03.2016
Why is this galaxy so thin? Many disk galaxies are actually just as thin as NGC 5866, pictured above, but are not seen edge-on from our vantage point. One galaxy that is situated edge-on is our own Milky Way Galaxy.
Solar Eclipse Shoes in the Classroom
8.03.2016
The total solar eclipse of March 8/9 will be the only total eclipse in 2016. The New Moon's dark shadow traces a limited, narrow path across planet Earth for viewing the total phase, making landfall in Indonesia and mostly tracking across the Pacific Ocean.
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