Astronomy: Picture of the Day
- Nov 24, 2009
- Uncategorized, astronomy, education, environment, hobbies, NASA, other, outdoor, photography, recreation, science, scientists, self help, space, technology, Uncategorized
- No Comments
Astronomy is the study of the universe. It is a serious science, but also an enjoyable hobby. Therefore, whenever an astronomy picture of the day is offered to people, they usually accept it. There are plenty of such pictures to choose from, and plenty of interesting objects out there to keep people looking.
NASA of course is a primary source for an astronomy picture of the day. This site NASA.gov shows a new image each and every day. There’s also another section that shows video footage. This could be used to create your own image site. Saturn’s moon Enceladus was featured on November 5, 2008.
The image was taken by a passing spacecraft. It gets down to details the size of a bus. The ice on this moon reflects nearly 100% of all the light that hits it. Wear sunglasses. This moon is so fascinating that Cassini will continue to fly by for more photos later in its mission.
NASA keeps an archive of all the astronomy picture of the day dating all the way back to June 16 of’95. It was a ‘what if’ photo of the Earth posing as a neutron star. The footage is a computer generation. The most fascinating feature is that the constellation of Orion is visible twice. Even light from behind a neutron star is visible because the dense star bends the light around it. This causes some objects to be seen twice.
The entry for September 8th,’95 was an amazing picture of the central part of the ‘Milky Way’ galaxy taken by NASA’s COBE satellite. This area is normally invisible because of the dust masking it. But COBE scans in infrared, so produced that amazing photo of our very symmetrical galaxy.
The astronomy picture of the day was the same on January 1st, 2000 and January 1st, 2001. The explanation why both dates shared this picture is that most people considered the year 2000 as the first year of the third millennium.
However, the third millennium actually started on January 1st, 2001. NASA reasoned it was just better to just go with the flow and do it on both dates. apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap010101.html shows mankind’s view of the universe as it grew from mere objects circling the Earth, all the way to the ‘Big Bang’ creating the universe as we see it today.
NASA has many more days with their own astronomy picture of the day. Visit the web site, NASA.gov to see them.
Astronomy: pictures of the day are fascinating to vast numbers of people. If you are fascinated by astronomy, visit our website at: http://astronomy.the-real-way.com Grab a totally unique version of this article from the Uber Article Directory