Η Αστρονομική Εικόνα της Ημέρας από τη NASA
Earthset from Orion
20/11/2024
ght billion people are about to disappear in this snapshot from space taken on 2022 November 21. On the sixth day of the Artemis I mission, their home world is setting behind the Moon's bright edge as viewed by an external camera on the outbound Orion spacecraft. Orion was headed for a powered flyby that took it to within 130 kilometers of the lunar surface. Velocity gained in the flyby maneuver was used to reach a distant retrograde orbit around the Moon. That orbit is considered distant because it's another 92,000 kilometers beyond the Moon, and retrograde because the spacecraft orbited in the opposite direction of the Moon's orbit around planet Earth. Orion entered its distant retrograde orbit on November 25. Swinging around the Moon, Orion reached a maximum distance (just over 400,000 kilometers) from Earth on November 28, exceeding a record set by Apollo 13 for most distant spacecraft designed for human space exploration. The Artemis II mission, carrying 4 astronauts around the moon and back again, is scheduled to launch no earlier than September 2025.
Copyright: NASA
Προηγούμενες Αστρονομικές Εικόνες της Ημέρας από τη NASA
The Clipper and the Comet
17/10/2024
NASA's Europa Clipper is now headed toward an ocean world beyond Earth. The large spacecraft is tucked into the payload fairing atop the Falcon Heavy rocket in this photo, taken at Kennedy Space Center the day before the mission's successful October 14 launch. Europa Clipper's interplanetary voyage will first take it to Mars, then back to Earth, and then on to Jupiter on gravity assist trajectories that will allow it to enter orbit around Jupiter in April 2030. Once orbiting Jupiter, the spacecraft will fly past Europa 49 times, exploring a Jovian moon with a global subsurface ocean that may have conditions to support life. Posing in the background next to the floodlit rocket is Comet Tsuchinsan-ATLAS, about a day after the comet's closest approach to Earth. A current darling of evening skies, the naked-eye comet is a vistor from the distant Oort cloud Growing Gallery: Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS in 2024
Copyright: Ben Cooper
Colorful Aurora over New Zealand
16/10/2024
Sometimes the night sky is full of surprises. Take the sky over Lindis Pass, South Island, New Zealand one-night last week. Instead of a typically calm night sky filled with constant stars, a busy and dynamic night sky appeared. Suddenly visible were pervasive red aurora, green picket-fence aurora, a red SAR arc, a STEVE, a meteor, and the Moon. These outshone the center of our Milky Way Galaxy and both of its two satellite galaxies: the LMC and SMC. All of these were captured together on 28 exposures in five minutes, from which this panorama was composed. Auroras lit up many skies last week, as a Coronal Mass Ejection from the Sun unleashed a burst of particles toward our Earth that created colorful skies over latitudes usually too far from the Earth's poles to see them. More generally, night skies this month have other surprises, showing not only auroras -- but comets. Jigsaw Challenge: Astronomy Puzzle of the Day
Copyright: Tristian McDonald
Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS Over the Lincoln Memorial
14/10/2024
Go outside at sunset tonight and see a comet! C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan–ATLAS) has become visible in the early evening sky in northern locations to the unaided eye. To see the comet, look west through a sky with a low horizon. If the sky is clear and dark enough, you will not even need binoculars -- the faint tail of the comet should be visible just above the horizon for about an hour. Pictured, Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS was captured two nights ago over the Lincoln Memorial monument in Washington, DC, USA. With each passing day at sunset, the comet and its changing tail should be higher and higher in the sky, although exactly how bright and how long its tails will be can only be guessed. Growing Gallery: Comet Tsuchinsan-ATLAS in 2024
Copyright: Brennan Gilmore
Northern Lights, West Virginia
12/10/2024
A gravel country lane gently winds through this colorful rural night skyscape. Captured from Monroe County in southern West Virginia on the evening of October 10, the starry sky above is a familiar sight. Shimmering curtains of aurora borealis or northern lights definitely do not make regular appearances here, though. Surprisingly vivid auroral displays were present on that night at very low latitudes around the globe, far from their usual northern and southern high latitude realms. The extensive auroral activity was evidence of a severe geomagnetic storm triggered by the impact of a coronal mass ejection (CME), an immense magnetized cloud of energetic plasma. The CME was launched toward Earth from the active Sun following a powerful X-class solar flare. Growing Gallery: Global aurora during October 10/11, 2024
Copyright: Jonathan Eggleston
Ring of Fire over Easter Island
11/10/2024
The second solar eclipse of 2024 began in the Pacific. On October 2nd the Moon's shadow swept from west to east, with an annular eclipse visible along a narrow antumbral shadow path tracking mostly over ocean, making its only major landfall near the southern tip of South America, and then ending in the southern Atlantic. The dramatic total annular eclipse phase is known to some as a ring of fire. Also tracking across islands in the southern Pacific, the Moon's antumbral shadow grazed Easter Island allowing denizens to follow all phases of the annular eclipse. Framed by palm tree leaves this clear island view is a stack of two images, one taken with and one taken without a solar filter near the moment of the maximum annular phase. The New Moon's silhouette appears just off center, though still engulfed by the bright disk of the active Sun.
Copyright: Yuri Beletsky
Five Bright Comets from SOHO
10/10/2024
Five bright comets are compared in these panels, recorded by a coronograph on board the long-lived, sun-staring SOHO spacecraft. Arranged chronologically all are recognizable by their tails streaming away from the Sun at the center of each field of view, where a direct view of the overwhelmingly bright Sun is blocked by the coronagraph's occulting disk. Each comet was memorable for earthbound skygazers, starting at top left with Comet McNaught, the 21st century's brightest comet (so far). C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-Atlas, approaching its perihelion with the active Sun at bottom center, has most recently grabbed the attention of comet watchers around the globe. By the end of October 2024, the blank 6th panel may be filled with bright sungrazer comet C/2024 S1 Atlas. ... or not.
Copyright: NASA
M106: A Spiral Galaxy with a Strange Center
09/10/2024
What's happening at the center of spiral galaxy M106? A swirling disk of stars and gas, M106's appearance is dominated by blue spiral arms and red dust lanes near the nucleus, as shown in the featured image taken from the Kuwaiti desert. The core of M106 glows brightly in radio waves and X-rays where twin jets have been found running the length of the galaxy. An unusual central glow makes M106 one of the closest examples of the Seyfert class of galaxies, where vast amounts of glowing gas are thought to be falling into a central massive black hole. M106, also designated NGC 4258, is a relatively close 23.5 million light years away, spans 60 thousand light years across, and can be seen with a small telescope towards the constellation of the Hunting Dogs (Canes Venatici).
Copyright: Ali Al Obaidly
Annular Eclipse over Patagonia
08/10/2024
Can you find the Sun? OK, but can you explain why there’s a big dark spot in the center? The spot is the Moon, and the impressive alignment shown, where the Moon lines up inside the Sun, is called an annular solar eclipse. Such an eclipse occurred just last week and was visible from a thin swath mostly in Earth's southern hemisphere. The featured image was captured from Patagonia, Chile. When the Moon is significantly closer to the Earth and it aligns with the Sun, a total solar eclipse is then visible from parts of the Earth. Annular eclipses are slightly more common than total eclipses, but as the Moon moves slowly away from the Earth, before a billion more years, the Moon's orbit will no longer bring it close enough for a total solar eclipse to be seen from anywhere on Earth. Gallery: Annular Eclipse of October 2024
Copyright: Alexis Trigo
Η Αστρονομική Εικόνα της Ημέρας από τη NASA (NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day) είναι μια δωρεάν υπηρεσία που παρέχει καθημερινά μια εντυπωσιακή εικόνα από το σύμπαν, την λήψη της οποίας έχει πραγματοποιήσει κάποιος από τους αστρονόμους της NASA ή από κάποιον από τους δορυφόρους ή τα τηλεσκόπια που η NASA λειτουργεί. Οι εικόνες που εμφανίζονται καλύπτουν μια ευρεία γκάμα από θέματα, συμπεριλαμβανομένων των αστερισμών, των γαλαξιών, των πλανητικών συστημάτων, των κομητών, των αστρικών σωμάτων και των παρατηρητηρίων. Κάθε εικόνα συνοδεύεται από μια σύντομη εξήγηση και πληροφορίες σχετικά με το τι παρατηρείται στην εικόνα.