Astronomy Picture of the Day . Stars and the Solstice Sun . ... If you could turn off the atmosphere's ability to scatter overwhelming sunlight, today's daytime sky might look something like this ... with the Sun surrounded by the stars of the constellations Taurus and Gemini. Of course, today is the Solstice. ... Monitoring M2-9 . ... About 2,100 light-years away and over one light-year across, M2-9 is known as a twin jet or butterfly nebula in reference to its striking bipolar symmetry. ...