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Astronomy Picture Of the Day (APOD)
The Perseus Cluster of Galaxies
26.04.1997
Here is one of the largest objects that anyone will ever see on the sky. Each of the fuzzy blobs in the above picture is a galaxy, together making up the Perseus Cluster, one of the closest clusters of galaxies.
Hale-Bopp Polarized
25.04.1997
Light polarization is familiar to many outdoor enthusiasts who use polarizing sunglasses to cut the glare of reflected light. These two views of comet Hale-Bopp also demonstrate the effect of polarization. At left...
The Frothy Milky Way
24.04.1997
Astronomers have recently discovered that looking at dust along the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy is a bit like looking into a frothy glass of beer. The dust between stars in our galaxy...
Antlia: A New Galactic Neighbor
23.04.1997
Meet Antlia, a newly discovered neighbor of our Milky Way Galaxy. Announced just last week, this faint member of our Local Group of Galaxies has only about one million stars. It is late in being noticed because it is so hard to see against a bright sky.
Historic Optical Flash Fades
22.04.1997
The largest telescopes in the world have scrambled to point toward this faint, fading object. Why? Because it may well be the first active optical counterpart ever found for a gamma-ray burst, and could hold the clue to the distance scale to this most enigmatic class of astronomical objects.
Big Sky Comet
21.04.1997
On April 17th, "Big Sky" country sure lived up to its name. The dark skies over the US states of Wyoming, Montana and the Dakotas were quite busy, as shown by this photograph featuring Comet Hale-Bopp. In the foreground is the Absaroka Mountain Range in Wyoming, lit by reflected moonlight.
Moon Robot: Lunokhod 1
20.04.1997
On November 17, 1970 the Soviet Luna 17 spacecraft landed the first roving remote-controlled robot on the Moon. Known as Lunokhod 1, it weighed just under 2,000 pounds and was designed to operate for 90 days guided by a 5-person team at the Deep Space Center near Moscow, USSR, Planet Earth.
Spiral Galaxy M83
19.04.1997
The long winding arms of this nearby spiral galaxy define it as the "Southern Pinwheel." But M83 is quite a typical spiral - much like our own Milky Way Galaxy. Spiral galaxies contains many billions of stars, the youngest of which inhabit the spiral arms and glow strongly in blue light.
Solar Storm Causes X-Ray Aurora
18.04.1997
On April 7, the SOHO spacecraft spotted a Solar Storm ejecting a cloud of energetic particles toward planet Earth. The plasma cloud's center missed Earth, but high energy particles swept up by Earth's magnetosphere still created a geomagnetic storm!
Pwyll: Icy Crater of Europa
17.04.1997
The impact crater Pwyll (a name from Celtic Mythology) is thought to represent one of the youngest features on the surface of Jupiter's moon Europa. A combination of color and high resolution black...
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