Starship Asterisk*

Considering that the light pillars I have seen are never as bright as flood lights and considering that you can even see hundreds of stars in the frame, I believe the intensity of the light in the single exposure wasn't taken just by a snap camera, but the exposure was for quite a lonng time. Maybe ...

The Carina Nebula is thought to be only 230 ly in diameter, and the two clusters are supposedly 600 ly apart (using the figures from that inerrant source Wikipedia). Correction. The wikipedia article states the size of the Carina Nebula is 230 ly radius. That means the diameter is 460 ly. Also its ...

Orin Stephanek wrote, Interesting that the sun goes into a 11 year cycle! Does this show the stability of the Sun? I suppose so. I would think though that a greater showing of stability of the Sun is that it has been around for some 4 billion years and in all that time it has remained stable enough ...

That's true there isn't 'an' astronomy picture today. It's actually a series of moving pictures! Sometimes called motion pictures, or more commonly we call a video. By the way, I think it was cool.

Ann wrote, "What was the Earth and the Sun six billion years ago? Nothing." I kinda disagree with that. Sure the sun and Earth hadn't been born yet, but the key atoms that make it up were still around somewhere. For instance physicists tell us that the heavy elements such as iron and gold ...

Wow, today's APOD at first glance is so eerie. Those dark tripod things in the foreground reminded me of the H.G. Wells / Orson Welles movie "The War of the Worlds". The Martian tripods actually looked like that and one is even firing a ray gun blaster that just happens to look like a mete...

"about 2 percent illuminated by sunlight" sounds somewhat strange to me - it is 100% illuminated by sunlight!! I presume you mean that about 2% of the sunlight that hits it is reflected... :) I would think (and I am not an expert) that if Venus is directly in line between the Earth and th...

I wondered why the Sun seemed to rise farthest to the left (north) in the seventh panel from the top, not in the sixth panel. The reason for this is that there are 13 panels in the APOD, as if there were 13 months in 2021. Ann I think the reason is that the top photograph was taken in December, 202...

I am thinking do they have a drought this/last year in India? Because to undertake such a project over an entire year with the same camera and location has to rely on pure luck. A full moon only lasts for some 10 to 12 hours in the night each month, and that it works out there is not any obscuring c...

Nice comet. Sort of off topic but nobody has mentioned it yet. The James Webb telescope was successfully launched this morning from French Guiana. It will take 12 to 14 days for it to unfurl its solar panels and sun shield so everybody at NASA and some 16 other countries involved are holding their b...

Neufer, that's a nice gift for a non astronomer like me, but who watches a lot of space shows on TV like Star Trek. Three of my favorite television actors appeared in that film. My favorite is Tom Selleck who in my opinion can do no wrong. Every performance he does is memorable. Followed by a close ...

A question pops up for me. In ancient times the year was considered to start on the vernal equinox when the Sun was in Pisces. Therefore it is said we are in the Age of Pisces and coming up is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius when the Sun moves over into that sign. However, in these modern times w...

Makes me wonder. Do fish's eyes really see the world like that? In a way it makes logical sense, since fish have things that want to eat them coming up from below as well as coming down from above!

Just curious. Would that glimmer of sunlight at the top of the disk be at the Sun's north pole? This is based on us northerners placing the north at the top of maps. Or since the picture was taken in Antarctica, and the constellations appear 'upside down', is that the Sun's south pole? But then it s...

Something puzzles me. In your second link, Comet Leonard (C/2021 A1) scrolling down to the bottom of their page there is an animation showing the comet approaching the Earth in a counterclockwise direction. The same direction as the planets orbit. However in the wikipedia page their animation shows ...

Re John D. A blood moon was written about even earlier than Emily Dickinson or Shakespeare.

Joel, Chapter 2 verse 31.

The Sun shall be turned into darkness and the Moon into BLOOD, before the great and the terrible day of the Lord come.

They missed one light in the sky that falls under - Is it moving? so quick you almost missed it. Their answer states it is a fireball, but I was thinking of a lightning bolt. Those aren't really ball shaped and they aren't made out of fire. Made out of electricity, which scientifically isn't fire, b...

Amazing to look at all those stars and to think there could be untold thousands of intelligent civilizations amongst them. All space-faring in those billions of years and fighting in "Star Wars." Am I right that since those stars are almost as old as the universe itself all those stars for...

Are these clusters visible to us with a telescope from earth? Yes. Even though the Hubble is a space telescope, Palomar 6 was first discovered on Earth by the Palomar Observatory. They might have used the Hale telescope back in the 1950s or another of their telescopes. Wiki wasn't clear which scope...

Number 15 is described as having young stars that formed 3 million years ago. Since M33 is coincidentally 3 million ly distant and hence 3 million years ago as we see it one might ask; What does the 3 million years ago reference to the age of the stars refer to? I believe scientific rigour demands ...

I don't mean to be a spoil sport, but if that is the American flag on the far left, the first flag planted on the Moon, I hate to say it, but I think they planted it upside down.

The comet's closest approach to Earth at 0.42 AU is at first kind of scary until I realize that the planet Venus closest approach to Earth is 0.28 AU. And the planet Venus is much, much bigger than the comet!

Something puzzles me about this robotic Galileo video. Most astronomy books state that the time that the Moon takes to orbit from a full moon to a new moon is about 14 days. Yet if you pay attention to the cloud formations as the Earth turns, it seems the Moon went from full moon to new moon in abou...

Oh wow. I had never realized before that the so called seas on the Moon would have a blue color! Kind of obvious though. Except for the Black Sea at top right. Being black.

What I think might be scientifically interesting is if you look at the hi res closeup of today's photo is that all the rocks and pebbles near the rover have sharp, jagged edges. In direct opposition to the rounded blueberry pebbles that the Opportunity Rover found. So what happened to the round weat...