Astronomy Picture of the Day

2002-02-12

Can you help in reducing this blanket of methane gas that is warming up our Earth? Recent evidence holds that methane (CH4) is second only to carbon dioxide (CO2) in creating a warming greenhouse effect but is easier to control. Atmospheric ...

2002-02-11 AAO

An eerie blue glow and ominous columns of dark dust highlight M78, one of the brightest reflection nebula on the sky. M78 is visible with a small telescope toward the constellation of Orion. The dust not only absorbs light, but also reflects ...

2002-02-10 American Scientist

The stars are not alone. In the disk of our Milky Way Galaxy about 10 percent of visible matter is in the form of gas, called the interstellar medium (ISM). The ISM is not uniform, and shows patchiness even near our Sun. It can be quite ...

2002-02-09 Olivier Staiger

Fighting clouds and the glow of city lights, a young Moon shines over the western horizon of Mongolia's capital, Ulaan-Baatar. The thin sunlit crescent is about 2 days old and strongly over exposed in this image taken on March 10, 1997. The night ...

2002-02-08

The quasar known as PKS 1127-145 lies ten billion light-years from our fair planet. A Hubble Space Telescope view in the left panel shows this quasar along with other galaxies as they appear in optical light. The quasar itself is the brightest ...

2002-02-07

This ominous, dark shape sprawling across the face of the active Sun is a coronal hole -- a low density region extending above the surface where the solar magnetic field opens freely into interplanetary space. Studied extensively from space since ...

2002-02-06

What cosmic wallpaper is on the sky? The answer depends on the type of light considered, and for some wavelengths, all the cluttering material in the foreground makes it still unknown. Recently, however, the background in near infrared light ...

2002-02-05

Two of the largest storm systems on Jupiter are colliding, and nobody is sure what will result. The larger storm is the famous Great Red Spot, while the smaller is a large white oval. Both are swirling cloud systems that circulate on Jupiter. ...

2002-02-04

A new comet has brightened unexpectedly and is currently visible to unaided observers of southern skies. Comet C/2000 WM1 (LINEAR) is now reported by some observers to be at third magnitude, making it brighter -- although more diffuse -- than ...

2002-02-03 O. Lopez-Cruz

Almost every object in the above photograph is a galaxy. The Coma Cluster of Galaxies pictured above is one of the densest clusters known - it contains thousands of galaxies. Each of these galaxies houses billions of stars - just as our own ...