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Astronomy Picture of the Day
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Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe long with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer is provided by the Goddard Spaceflight Center
Endeavour Against the Stars
Jun 2, 2011
"This luminous night view of the space shuttle orbiter Endeavour, docked with the International Space Station for a final time, was captured on May 28."
Video: The Earth Rotates Underneath the Sky
Jun 1, 2011
"Most time lapse videos of the night sky show the stars and sky moving above a steady Earth. Here, however, the frames have been digitally rotated so that it is the stars that stay (approximately) steady, and the Earth that moves beneath them."
Jets From Centaurus A
May 31, 2011
"Jets of streaming plasma expelled by the central black hole of a massive spiral galaxy light up this composite image of Centaurus A."
Spirit's Last Picture From Mars
May 31, 2011
"This is the last thing that the Spirit rover on Mars ever saw."
Iran's Messier Marathon
May 27, 2011
"In this action scene, red night vision lights, green laser pointers, tripods and telescopes in faint silhouette surround intrepid sky gazers embarked on the 10th annual Iran Messier Marathon."
A Supernova Sonata
May 26, 2011
"To create a sonata from supernovae, first you have to find the supernovae."
Endeavour Seen Launch From the Air
May 25, 2011
"If you looked out the window of an airplane at just the right place and time last week, you could have seen something very unusual -- the space shuttle Endeavour launching to orbit."
The Milky Way Over a National Park
May 24, 2011
"How many arches can you count in the above image? If you count both spans of the Double Arch in the Arches National Park in Utah, USA, then two. But since the above image was taken during a clear dark night, it caught a photogenic third arch far in the distance -- that of the overreaching Milky Way Galaxy."
A Gamma-Ray Flare From the Crab Nebula
May 23, 2011
"Why does the Crab Nebula flare? No one is sure. The unusual behavior, discovered over the past few years, seems only to occur in very high energy light -- gamma rays."
Volcanic Eruptions on Io
May 22, 2011
"Two sulfurous eruptions are visible on Jupiter's volcanic moon Io in this color composite image from the robotic Galileo spacecraft that orbited Jupiter from 1995 to 2003."