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StumbledUpon this cool little site from NASA that updates every day (and has been doing so since 1995 :shock:) with a single astronomy-related picture and explanation. I know there are a lot of people here with a soft spot for the wonders of space, so I just thought I'd share. :)
Astronomy Picture of the Day
Nice find! ;) :thumbup:
Thanks a lot, there goes my afternoon :P...
Oh, and the earliest pictures are really funny to look at.
Yeah awesome site, some of the images on there just blow my mind. Check this one out for example:
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap040309.html
To think nearly every spot of light on that image is an entire galaxy, with possibly 100's of billions of stars...
Yup, I check it everyday. :D
Huh, today's is the ISS expanding again. Lemme see...
*looks*
:holycrap: Whoa. That is sweet. You get a good view of the mountains from up there.
*bookmarks*
Thanks for this link Oneironaut, yes. This one is excellent. Now I can add this one to my daily auto-web notification. :goodjob:
good post. i can look through pictures like this for hours. we're so fucking small, man.
Glad you guys enjoy the site. I gotta say that this was the first pic that I saw, which led me to the site, and I think it's incredible.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...swedish_c1.jpg
Quote:
The Sharpest View of the Sun
Credit: SST, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
Explanation: This stunning image shows remarkable and mysterious details near the dark central region of a planet-sized sunspot in one of the sharpest views ever of the surface of the Sun. Just released, the picture was made using the Swedish Solar Telescope now in its first year of operation on the Canary Island of La Palma. Along with features described as hairs and canals are dark cores visible within the bright filaments that extend into the sunspot, representing previously unknown and unexplored solar phenomena. The filaments' newly revealed dark cores are seen to be thousands of kilometers long but only about 100 kilometers wide. Resolving features 100 kilometers wide or less is a milestone in solar astronomy and has been achieved here using sophisticated adaptive optics, digital image stacking, and processing techniques to counter the blurring effect of Earth's atmosphere. At optical wavelengths, these images are sharper than even current space-based solar observatories can produce. Recorded on 15 July 2002, the sunspot shown is the largest of the group of sunspots cataloged as solar active region AR 10030.