APOD: 1996-06-20

1996-06-20

In November of 1969, homeward bound aboard the "Yankee Clipper" command module, the Apollo 12 astronauts took this dramatic photograph of the Sun emerging from behind the Earth. From this distant perspective, part of the solar disk peers over ...

APOD: 1996-06-19

1996-06-19

Looking out over Lake Superior at dusk you see Venus (lower left) and ... curtains? Like an ant looking up at window curtains, aurora frequently appear as huge flowing light displays. These colorful, often spectacular phenomena are most ...

APOD: 1996-06-18

1996-06-18

In the lower left corner, dressed in blue, is the Pleiades. Also known as the Seven Sisters and M45, the Pleiades is one of the brightest and most easily visible open clusters on the sky. The Pleiades contains over 3000 stars, is about 400 light ...

APOD: 1996-06-17

1996-06-17

This is what the United States of America looks like at night! Can you find your favorite US city on this image? Surprisingly, city lights make this task quite possible. The above picture is actually a composite of over 200 images made by ...

APOD: 1996-06-16

1996-06-16

The first Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) appeared one year ago today. Pictured above are Robert Nemiroff (left) and Jerry Bonnell (right), engaged in creating the APOD web pages. APOD started over speculative conversations on the ultimate ...

APOD: 1996-06-15

1996-06-15

Pictured above is the first american astronaut to walk in space: Edward White. White is seen floating outside the Gemini 4 capsule in 1965. The term "spacewalk" is deceiving since astronauts do not actually walk - they float - usually without ...

APOD: 1996-06-14

1996-06-14

NASA astronauts can float free in space without any connection to a spaceship. Here astronaut Bruce McCandless maneuvers outside the Space Shuttle Challenger by firing nitrogen gas thrusters on his manned maneuvering unit (MMU). This picture was ...

APOD: 1996-06-13

1996-06-13

About 11,000 years ago a star in the constellation of Vela exploded. This bright supernova may have been visible to the first human farmers. Today the Vela supernova remnant marks the position of a relatively close and recent explosion in our ...

APOD: 1996-06-12

1996-06-12

What happens when a star explodes? A huge fireball of hot gas shoots out in all directions. When this gas slams into the existing interstellar medium, it heats up so much it glows in X-rays. The above picture by the ROSAT satellite has captured ...

APOD: 1996-06-11

1996-06-11

Carinae may be about to explode. But no one knows when - it may be next year, it may be one million years from now. Eta Carinae's mass - about 100 times greater than our Sun - make it an excellent candidate for a full blown supernova. Historical ...