保护地球，探索宇宙，发现文明
2021年9月13日 Night Sky Reflected Image Credit & Copyright: Egon Filter Explanation: What’s that in the mirror? In the featured image of the dark southern sky, the three brightest galaxies of the night are all relatively easy to identify. Starting from the left, these are the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), and part of...
2021年07月03日 Along the Milky Way Image Credit & Copyright: Rolf Weisenfeld Explanation: You can’t walk along the Milky Way. Still, under a dark sky you can explore it. To the eye the pale luminous trail of light arcing through the sky on a dark, moonless night does appear to be a path through the heavens. The glowing celestial band is the faint, co...
2021年05月27日 Mid-Eclipse and Milky Way Image Credit & Copyright: John Kraus Explanation: May’s perigee Full Moon slid through Earth’s shadow yesterday entertaining night skygazers in regions around the Pacific. Seen from western North America, it sinks toward the rugged Sierra Nevada mountain range in this time-lapse series of the total lunar...
2021年01月22日 The Milky Ring Image Credit & Copyright: Alvin Wu Explanation: An expanse of cosmic dust, stars and nebulae along the plane of our Milky Way galaxy form a beautiful ring in this projected all-sky view. The creative panorama covers the entire galaxy visible from planet Earth, an ambitious 360 degree mosaic that took two years to complete. Nor...
2021年01月13日 Arches Across an Arctic Sky Image Credit & Copyright: Giulio Cobianchi Explanation: What are these two giant arches across the sky? Perhaps the more familiar one, on the left, is the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy. This grand disk of stars and nebulas here appears to encircle much of the southern sky. Visible below the stellar arch is ...
2021年01月01日 Galaxies and the South Celestial Pole Image Credit & Copyright: Petr Horalek, Josef Kujal Explanation: The South Celestial Pole is easy to spot in star trail images of the southern sky. The extension of Earth’s axis of rotation to the south, it’s at the center of all the southern star trail arcs. In this starry panorama streching...
2020年11月17日 A Glowing STEVE and the Milky Way Image Credit: NASA, Krista Trinder Explanation: What’s creating these long glowing streaks in the sky? No one is sure. Known as Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancements (STEVEs), these luminous light-purple sky ribbons may resemble regular auroras, but recent research reveals significant differences. A...
2020年10月21日 A Night Sky Vista from Sardinia Image Credit & Copyright: Tomáš Slovinský Explanation: How many famous sky objects can you find in this image? The featured dark sky composite combines over 60 exposures spanning over 220 degrees to create a veritable menagerie of night sky wonders. Visible celestial icons include the Belt of Orion, the Orion ...
2020年8月17日 Perseids Around the Milky Way Image Credit & Copyright: Jingyi Zhang Explanation: Why would meteor trails appear curved? The arcing effect arises only because the image artificially compresses (nearly) the whole sky into a rectangle. The meteors are from the Perseid Meteor Shower that peaked last week. The featured multi-frame image combines n...
2020 July 2 The Galaxy, the Planet, and the Apple Tree Image Credit & Copyright: Kristine Richer Explanation: The Old Astronomer’s Milky Way arcs through this peaceful northern sky. Against faint, diffuse starlight you can follow dark rifts of interstellar dust clouds stretching from the galaxy’s core. They lead toward bright star Antares at...