Αστρονομική Εικόνα της Ημέρας από τη NASA

Προηγούμενες Αστρονομικές Εικόνες της Ημέρας από τη NASA

Light Pillar over Erupting Etna

24/02/2025

Can a lava flow extend into the sky? No, but light from the lava flow can. One effect is something quite unusual -- a volcanic light pillar. More typically, light pillars are caused by sunlight and so appear as a bright column that extends upward above a rising or setting Sun. Alternatively, other light pillars -- some quite colorful -- have been recorded above street and house lights. This light pillar, though, was illuminated by the red light emitted by the glowing magma of an erupting volcano. The volcano is Italy's Mount Etna, and the featured image was captured with a single shot during an early morning in mid-February. Freezing temperatures above the volcano's lava flow created ice-crystals either in the air above the volcano or in condensed water vapor expelled by Mount Etna. These ice crystals -- mostly flat toward the ground but fluttering -- then reflected away light from the volcano's caldera.

Saturn in Infrared from Cassini

23/02/2025

Saturn looks slightly different in infrared light. Bands of clouds show great structure, including long stretching storms. Also quite striking in infrared is the unusual hexagonal cloud pattern surrounding Saturn's North Pole. Each side of the dark hexagon spans roughly the width of our Earth. The hexagon's existence was not predicted, and its origin and likely stability remain a topics of research. Saturn's famous rings circle the planet and cast shadows below the equator. The featured image was taken by the robotic Cassini spacecraft in 2014 in several infrared colors. In 2017 September, the Cassini mission was brought to a dramatic conclusion when the spacecraft was directed to dive into the ringed giant. Your Sky Surprise: What picture did APOD feature on your birthday? (post 1995)

Rima Hyginus

22/02/2025

Rima Hyginus is a spectacular fissure, some 220 kilometers long, found near the center of the lunar near side. Easy to spot in telescopic views of the Moon, it stretches top left to bottom right across this lunar closeup. The image was made with exaggerated colors that reflect the mineral composition of the lunar soil. Hyginus crater lies near the center of the narrow lunar surface groove. About 10 kilometers in diameter, the low-walled crater is a volcanic caldera, one of the larger non-impact craters on the lunar surface. Dotted with small pits formed by surface collapse, Hyginus rima itself was likely created by stresses due to internal magma upwelling and collapse along a long surface fault. The intriguing region was a candidate landing site for the canceled Apollo 19 mission.

Hubble's Andromeda Galaxy Mosaic

21/02/2025

The largest photomosaic ever assembled from Hubble Space Telescope image data is a panoramic view of our neighboring spiral Andromeda Galaxy. With 600 overlapping frames assembled from observations made from July 2010 to December 2022, the full Hubble Andromeda Galaxy mosaic spans almost six full moons across planet Earth's sky. A cropped version shown above is nearly two full moons across and partially covers Andromeda's core and inner spiral arms. Also known as M31, the Andromeda Galaxy is 2.5 million light-years away. That makes it the closest large spiral galaxy to our own Milky Way. Our perspective on the spiral Milky Way is anchored to the view from the location of the Sun, a star found within the Milky Way's galactic disk. But Hubble's magnificent Andromeda mosaic offers an expansive view of a large spiral galaxy from the outside looking in. Hubble's comprehensive, detailed data set extending across the Andromeda Galaxy will allow astronomers to make an unprecedented holistic exploration of the mysteries of spiral galaxy structure and evolution.

Messier 87

20/02/2025

rmous elliptical galaxy Messier 87 is about 50 million light-years away. Also known as NGC 4486, the giant galaxy holds trillions of stars compared to the mere billions of stars in our large spiral Milky Way. M87 reigns as the large central elliptical galaxy in the Virgo galaxy cluster. An energetic jet from the giant galaxy's core is seen to stretch outward for about 5,000 light-years in this sharp optical and near-infrared view from the Hubble Space Telescope. In fact, the cosmic blow torch is seen across the electromagnetic spectrum from gamma-rays to radio wavelengths. Its ultimate power source is M87's central, supermassive black hole. An image of this monster in the middle of M87 has been captured by planet Earth's Event Horizon Telescope.

HH 30: A Star System with Planets Now Forming

19/02/2025

How do stars and planets form? New clues have been found in the protoplanetary system Herbig-Haro 30 by the James Webb Space Telescope in concert with Hubble and the Earth-bound ALMA. The observations show, among other things, that large dust grains are more concentrated into a central disk where they can form planets. The featured image from Webb shows many attributes of the active HH-30 system. Jets of particles are being expelled vertically, shown in red, while a dark dust-rich disk is seen across the center, blocking the light from the star or stars still forming there. Blue-reflecting dust is seen in a parabolic arc above and below the central disk, although why a tail appears on the lower left is currently unknown. Studying how planets form in HH 30 can help astronomers better understand how planets in our own Solar System once formed, including our Earth.

Thor's Helmet versus the Seagull

18/02/2025

Seen as a seagull and a duck, these nebulae are not the only cosmic clouds to evoke images of flight. But both are winging their way across this broad celestial landscape, spanning almost 7 degrees across planet Earth's night sky toward the constellation of the Big Dog (Canis Major). The expansive Seagull (top center) is itself composed of two major cataloged emission nebulas. Brighter NGC 2327 forms the head with the more diffuse IC 2177 as the wings and body. Impressively, the Seagull's wingspan would correspond to about 250 light-years at the nebula's estimated distance of 3,800 light-years. At the lower right, the Duck appears much more compact and would span only about 50 light-years given its 15,000 light-year distance estimate. Blown by energetic winds from an extremely massive, hot star near its center, the Duck nebula is cataloged as NGC 2359. Of course, the Duck's thick body and winged appendages also lend it the slightly more dramatic popular moniker, Thor's Helmet. Portal Universe: Random APOD Generator

SpaceX Rocket Launch Plume over California

17/02/2025

What's happened to the sky? Last Monday, the photogenic launch plume from a SpaceX rocket launch created quite a spectacle over parts of southern California and Arizona. Looking at times like a giant space fish, the impressive rocket launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base near Lompoc, California, was so bright because it was backlit by the setting Sun. The Falcon 9 rocket successfully delivered to low Earth orbit 23 Starlink communications satellites. The plume from the first stage is seen on the right, while the soaring upper stage rocket is seen at the apex of the plume toward the left. Venus appears at the top of the frame, while a bright streetlight shines on the far right. The featured image was captured toward the west after sunset from near Phoenix, Arizona.

Η Αστρονομική Εικόνα της Ημέρας από τη NASA

Savudrija Star Trails

05/06/2025