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Image of the Day Archives
Credit: NASA, ESA and Orsola De Marco (Macquarie University)
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New England Sky
Credit: Scott MacNeill
Monday, June 3, 2013: Astrophotographer Scott MacNeill sent in a photo of the Milky Way, Summer Triangle and the Coat Hanger cluster rising beyond Frosty Drew Observatory in Charlestown, RI. Photo undated.
— Tom Chao
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Get Close
Credit: ESO/Y. Beletsky
Tuesday, June 4, 2013: Syzygy occurs when three or more celestial bodies nearly align themselves in the sky, and one has been occurring recently. Since the celestial bodies involved lie at similar ecliptic longitude currently, this event is also known as a triple near-conjunction. Planets appear over ESO's La Silla Observatory in northern Chile on May 26, 2013. Above the round domes of the telescopes, three of our solar system neighbors appear after sunset: Jupiter (top), Venus (lower left), and Mercury (lower right). An alignment like this happens infrequently. The last one took place in May 2011, and the next one will not occur until October 2015..
— Tom Chao
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Rays of the Sun
Credit: NASA
Wednesday, June 5, 2013: The sun glints over Earth's horizon as photographed by one of the Expedition 36 crew members aboard the International Space Station while floating above southwestern Minnesota on May 21, 2013.
— Tom Chao
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Penetrate the Evening
Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls
Thursday, June 6, 2013: A 30-second exposure shows a Soyuz rocket after it was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to the International Space Station, May 29, 2013 (Kazakh time). The rocket carried Soyuz Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos), with Flight Engineers Luca Parmitano of the European Space Agency and Karen Nyberg of NASA. Yurchikhin, Nyberg and Parmitano will remain aboard the station until mid-November.
— Tom Chao
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A Hole in the Sun
Credit: NASA/SDO/AIA
Friday, June 7, 2013: An extensive coronal hole on the sun rotated towards the Earth during the week of May 28-31, 2013. The massive coronal area represents one of the largest in a year or more. Coronal holes produce strong solar wind gusts that carry solar particles out to the Earth’s magnetosphere and beyond. These holes appear darker in extreme ultraviolet light images (as in this photo, which combines three wavelengths of UV light) because less matter exists at the temperatures observed. The coronal hole may generate some auroral displays on Earth.
— Tom Chao
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Sunset Trail
Credit: ESA/S. Corvaja
Monday, June 10, 2013: An Ariane 5 VA213 rocket lifted off from Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana with ESA's fourth Automated Transfer Vehicle, Albert Einstein, sending cargo to the International Space Station on June 5, 2013. ATV Albert Einstein carried 44,000 lbs. (20,190 kg), the most weight of any spacecraft ever launched by Ariane, beating predecessor ATV Edoardo Amaldi by 330 lbs. (150 kg.).
— Tom Chao
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Ultra Vivid Scene
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA
Tuesday, June 11, 2013: This contorted object, IRAS 22491-1808, also goes by the name of the South America Galaxy. It represents an ultraluminous infrared galaxy (ULIRG) that emits a huge amount of light at infrared wavelengths. The intense infrared emission stems from an episode of strong star formation activity, set off by a collision between two interacting galaxies. In the central, disturbed region, scientists have distinguished two nuclei, remains of two different galaxies currently colliding to form a new one.
— Tom Chao
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Hair, Flow It, Show It
Credit: NASA (via Flickr as NASA: 2Explore)
Wednesday, June 12, 2013: Karen Nyberg, Expedition 36 flight engineer, takes a floating break in the Unity node aboard the International Space Station, on June 3, 2013.
— Tom Chao
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Simple Twist of Fate
Credit: Adam Block/Mount Lemmon SkyCenter/University of Arizona
Thursday, June 13, 2013: Astronomer Adam Block of the Mount Lemmon SkyCenter (University of Arizona) sent in a photo of spiral galaxy NGC 5529, which appears edgewise to observers on Earth. He writes that NGC 5529 is: “significantly larger than our galaxy (perhaps twice as large), and displays a bit of a warped disk towards its wings.” He adds, “What adds to this vista are the numerous galaxies that float both near and far in this field.”
— Tom Chao
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Brother Sun, Sister Moon
Credit: NASA/SDO/LRO/GSFC
Friday, June 14, 2013: Two or three times a year, NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory spacecraft observes the moon traveling across the sun. On this SDO image from Oct. 7, 2010, NASA visualizers have added a 3-dimensional model of the moon, using Lunar Reconnaissance Observatory data, over the outline of the moon in the original image. The visualizers had to carefully match data from the correct time and viewpoint for the two separate instruments to create the composite image.
— Tom Chao
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Take Out the Papers and the Trash
Credit: NASA (via Flickr as NASA: 2Explore)
Monday, June 17, 2013: The Russian Progress 51 cargo spacecraft, now filled with trash, separated from the aft-end port of the Zvezda service module of the International Space Station on June 11, 2013. The Progress 51 will orbit Earth for a few days while controllers in Moscow perform engineering tests. Then, the cargo craft will re-enter the atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean, and burn up.
— Tom Chao
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Show Me Your Face
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA; Acknowledgements: G. Chapdelaine, L. Limatola, and R. Gendler
Tuesday, June 18, 2013: Nearby spiral galaxy Messier 61 (NGC 4303) faces Earth, as it glows 55 million light-years away. The galaxy has a diameter of around 100,000 light years, making it about the size of the Milky Way. Notably, six observed supernovae exist within Messier 61, placing it in a group of galaxies which includes Messier 83, also with six supernovae observed, and NGC 6946, having nine observed supernovae. Messier 61 makes up part of the Virgo Galaxy Cluster, a massive group of galaxies in the constellation of Virgo (the Virgin).
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The Night Visitors
Credit: Declan O'Doherty
Wednesday, June 19, 2013: Astrophotographer Declan O'Doherty sent in a photo of noctilucent clouds (NLC) taken in County Derry, N. Ireland, on the evening of June 5-6, 2013.
— Tom Chao
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Draw the Lines
Credit: Solar Dynamics Observatory
Thursday, June 20, 2013: Different images of the sun taken about the same time on June 7, 2013, reveal the underlying magnetic structure of the sun and its appearance above the surface. A magnetic image of the sun contains darker and lighter tones indicating the stronger north and south polarity of active regions. An extreme ultraviolet image shows arcs of magnetic field lines rising out of and returning to the same active regions. Further, scientists illustrate the magnetic field lines, providing a visual lesson in solar magnetism.
— Tom Chao
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Like a Bolt Out of the Blue
Credit: ESO/G. Hüdepohl
Friday, June 21, 2013: A thunderstorm discharges rare lightning over Cerro Paranal in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile. The vast lightning bolts dwarf the four VLT Unit Telescopes, despite each one standing as tall as an eight-story building. Where normally the entire southern sky shines with stars at night, here only one star peeks out (at left), Procyon, a bright binary star in the constellation of Canis Minor (The Lesser Dog). Clouds over ESO’s Paranal Observatory rarely appear, as on average, the site experiences 330 clear days every year. Lightning flashes even more rarely, as the observatory is located in one of the driest places in the world. At 8500 feet (2600 meters) above sea level, if clouds form, the observatory stands above them most of the time.
— Tom Chao
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Further Out There Is the Milky Way
Credit: Scott Hoggard
Monday, June 24, 2013: Astrophotographer Scott Hoggard sent in a photo of the Milky Way over route 404 on Maryland's Eastern Shore in Queen Anne County, taken June 16, 2013.
— Tom Chao
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Days Change to Night
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
Tuesday, June 25, 2013: Dione rotates, bringing terrain from day into night. However, no sense of urgency grips the moon, as its rotation period is 66 hours. Saturn's fourth-largest moon, Dione, stretches 698 miles (1,123 kilometers) across. The Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera took the image in visible light on March 30, 2013.
— Tom Chao
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The Cloud Minders
Credit: A. Fitzsimmons/ESO
Wednesday, June 26, 2013: ESO’s longest-serving observatory, La Silla, floats high above the clouds in northern Chile, just after sunset. Light from a moon that lies outside the frame bathes the observatory and reflects from the clouds below. The very faint band of golden light above the clouds still illuminated by the sunset represents zodiacal light. This phenomenon occurs when sunlight strikes dust particles between the sun and the planets. Image released June 24, 2013.
— Tom Chao
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It's Easy as 123
Credit: Adam Block/Mount Lemmon SkyCenter/University of Arizona
Thursday, June 27, 2013: vdB 123 shines in a photo from the Mt. Lemmon SkyCenter acquired in June 2013. vdB 123 is one of 158 reflection nebulas catalogued by Canadian astronomer Sidney van den Bergh. It is labeled M for moderate brightness.
— Tom Chao
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The Edge
Credit: Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope/Coelum
Friday, June 28, 2013: Large spiral galaxy NGC 5907 lies edgewise to observers on Earth. A thin layer of brownish insterstellar dust lies within the galactic disk. Bluish areas in that disk show where massive stars form. The orange color of the central bulge indicates an old stellar population.
— Tom Chao
