保护地球，探索宇宙，发现文明
This bright, somewhat blob-like object — seen in this image taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope — is a galaxy named NGC 1803. It is about 200 million light-years away, in the southern constellation of Pictor (the Painter’s Easel). NGC 1803 was discovered in 1834 by astronomer John Herschel. Herschel is a big name in astronomy; John, his father Willi...
2020 January 20 Quadrantid Meteors through Orion Image Credit & Copyright: Petr Horálek Explanation: Why are these meteor trails nearly parallel? Because they were all shed by the same space rock and so can be traced back to the same direction on the sky: the radiant of the Quadrantid Meteor Shower. This direction used to be toward the old constellation ...
In the northern Mexican state of Cohuilla lies the Cuatro Cienegas Basin. Dotting the landscape are small pools, formed by natural springs, in which are found live stromatolites. These stony layered structures are formed by colonies of cyanobacteria that trap sedimentary grains. Their major presence in the fossil record of several billion years ago is eviden...
NASA astronauts Nick Hague and Anne McClain talk about their experiences onboard the International Space Station with Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum curator Jennifer Levasseu, Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020, at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington. Hague most recently spent 203 days living and working onboard the station as part of ...
2020 January 19 M1: The Incredible Expanding Crab Nebula Video Credit & Copyright: Detlef Hartmann Explanation: Are your eyes good enough to see the Crab Nebula expand? The Crab Nebula is cataloged as M1, the first on Charles Messier’s famous list of things which are not comets. In fact, the Crab is now known to be a supernova remnant, an expanding...
2020 January 18 An Almost Eclipse of the Moon Image Credit & Copyright: Gyorgy Soponyai Explanation: This composited series of images follows the Moon on January 10, the first Full Moon of 2020, in Hungarian skies. The lunar disk is in mid-eclipse at the center of the sequence though. It looks only slightly darker there as it passes through the light out...
2020 January 17 Apollo 17: A Stereo View from Lunar Orbit Gene Cernan, Apollo 17, NASA; Anaglyph by Patrick Vantuyne Explanation: Get out your red/blue glasses and check out this awesome stereo view of another world. The scene was recorded by Apollo 17 mission commander Eugene Cernan on December 11, 1972, one orbit before descending to land on the Moon. The ...
2020 January 16 NGC 247 and Friends Image Credit & Copyright: Acquisition – Eric Benson, Processing – Dietmar Hager Explanation: About 70,000 light-years across, NGC 247 is a spiral galaxy smaller than our Milky Way. Measured to be only 11 million light-years distant it is nearby though. Tilted nearly edge-on as seen from our perspective, it ...
A multitude of swirling clouds in Jupiter’s dynamic North North Temperate Belt is captured in this image from NASA’s Juno spacecraft. Appearing in the scene are several bright-white “pop-up” clouds as well as an anticyclonic storm, known as a white oval. This color-enhanced image was taken at 4:58 p.m. EDT on Oct. 29, 2018, as the spacecraft perf...
2020 January 15 Iridescent Clouds over Sweden Image Credit & Copyright: Goran Strand Explanation: Why would these clouds multi-colored? A relatively rare phenomenon in clouds known as iridescence can bring up unusual colors vividly or even a whole spectrum of colors simultaneously. These polar stratospheric clouds clouds, also known as nacreous and mothe...