Starship Asterisk*

So which phase of Venus appears brightest from Earth? Is it brighter when it is bigger or when it is closer? "Even though Venus exhibits the full suite of phases, its crescent phase near closest approach to Earth is when it’s at its brightest, but it’s only slightly fainter when it’s farthest a...

HAPPY PRIDE!!!

Two questions:

If this was a 'coordinated capture', why did they need to be 40 kilometers apart

How did the ISS change altitude from 435 kilometers away to 491 kilometers away in just 29 seconds

Fascinating how the shadow of the rings appears as a wavy line. A curved surface projected on another curved surface!

Anyone remember the Pacific storm that headed east and appeared fizzle out of the coast of California?

Some of the tracks seem more predominant than the background. Specifically the one at upper right that goes inside the orbit of Mercury and out past the hypothetical Mars. Just more of a unique, perhaps unstable orbit?

Turns out that Mars is populated by robots!

Maybe the rovers ran over and killed the methane producing life on Mars?

So much WOW here! I'd love to know the chemical/elevation/atmospheric characteristics that made for the different features - the wispy orange, the green dots, the blue smudges. I can't see an actual path for the rockets, the displays seem quite dispersed. Then there's the background green aurora/air...

I was surprised to see the moon moving right to left (south to north) as it rose. But I guess that makes sense, since it is the southern hemisphere and all. I guess those kiwis like to do things different.

<<“Rats and humans [diverged] maybe 100 million years ago,” [Michael] Brecht says. “But the phenomenon of ticklishness is remarkably similar.” The most telling observation was one he and [Shimpei] Ishiyama didn’t include in their [Science] paper: Rats, like humans, aren’t ticklish on their hands, b...

Was it just luck that DSCOVR was just in the right place to capture a 'full earth' during the eclipse?

Nice shot. But I will point out that lenticular clouds do not form where "eddies" of rising air. They are actually part of the main, laminar flow of mountain wave where large volumes of air rise and fall. The eddies in this process are called 'rotor' and pilots know that they can create vi...

The last link to the International Earth and Sky Photo Contest is a 8-minute video of dozens of fantastic contest winners and entries. Watch full screen!

Not so sure about this shot. From my perspective on the west coast USA, this arrangement took place last Friday, not two days later as described here. Plus while the foreground is nice, it would be nice to have a clear photo of these celestial objects, because it really was beautiful from my vantage...

What this displays is axial precession, which on Earth occurs on a 26,000 year cycle. Does this mean that the 23.4 degree tilt of earth axis changes as the planet wobbles? I believe this is in relation to the ecliptic, but the wobble would apply in relation to any fixed point. Would this also not ha...

It is pretty clear that the clouds are being affected by the mountain, specifically as the air passes over the peak creating eddies in a phenomenon known as mountain rotor.

Nitpicker wrote:Crux is just west of south in this pic. The lights could be from the big island of Hawaii, maybe Waimea, to the SSE. (10,000 feet is pretty high.)

Correct-a-mundo. Those are lights from the Big Island across the Maui Channel.

Somehow this looks like a composite of two photos - the sky and the ground, with the sky more distorted or 'compressed' than the ground. I may be wrong of course, and it's a great photo regardless. I was thinking that, but I believe that is a very typical cloud/sky pattern for the windward side of ...

I'm trying to figure out which direction this photo was taken. The Southern Cross on the right indicates that this was shot to the east. But there is very little development on the SE side of Maui to account for the city lights shining through the clouds in that direction.

Yeah, the sky is upside down. Orion's 'sword' is pointing up and the constellations are reversed.

Pomegrantes in Space!

OK, so how is gravity variable? I thought that gravity was constant to the mass of the entire body. Is this related to the specific densities of the various areas of the moon's crust?

Woah, my desktop image is rotated 90* from the APOD. Same when you click on it.

I see a fish...or a seahorse.