2020 July 1 Our Rotating Earth Video Credit & Copyright: Bartosz Wojczyński Explanation: Has your world ever turned upside-down? It would happen every day if you stay fixed to the stars. Most time-lapse videos of the night sky show the stars and sky moving above a steady Earth. Here, however, t […]
2020 June 30 Bright Planetary Nebula NGC 7027 from Hubble Image Credit: NASA, ESA, Joel Kastner (RIT) et al.; Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI) Explanation: What created this unusual planetary nebula? NGC 7027 is one of the smallest, brightest, and most unusually shaped planetary nebulas known. Given
2020 June 29 Dark Sky Reflections Image Credit & Copyright: Will Godward Explanation: When the lake calmed down, many wonders of the land and sky appeared twice. Perhaps the most dramatic from the dark sky was the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy, visible as a diagonal band. Toward the righ
2020 June 28 Europa and Jupiter from Voyager 1 Image Credit: NASA, Voyager 1, JPL, Caltech; Processing & License: Alexis Tranchandon / Solaris Explanation: What are those spots on Jupiter? Largest and furthest, just right of center, is the Great Red Spot — a huge storm system that has bee
2020 June 27 Eclipse under the ISS Image Credit: NASA ISS Expedition 63 Explanation: The dark shadow of the New Moon reached out and touched planet Earth on June 21. A high definition camera outside the International Space Station captured its passing in this snapshot from low Earth orbit near the b
2020 June 26 Eclipse under the Bamboo Image Credit & Copyright: Somak Raychaudhury (Inter-University Centre for Astronomy & Astrophysics) Explanation: Want to watch a solar eclipse safely? Try looking down instead of up, though you might discover you have a plethora of images to choose fro
On June 21, 2020, as the International Space Station orbited over Kazakhstan and into China, an external high-definition camera captured this picture of the solar eclipse shadowing a portion of the Asian continent. The eclipse was visible across broad sections of Africa, the Middle East and Asia. In
2020 June 25 Eclipse Street, Hong Kong Image Credit & Copyright: Gary Chan Explanation: On June 21 an annular solar eclipse came soon after the solstice and our fair planet’s northernmost sunset for 2020. At maximum eclipse, the New Moon in silhouette created a ring of fire visible along
2020 June 24 Inverted City Beneath Clouds Image Credit & Copyright: Mark Hersch Explanation: How could that city be upside-down? The city, Chicago, was actually perfectly right-side up. The long shadows it projected onto nearby Lake Michigan near sunset, however, when seen in reflection, made t
2020 June 23 The X-Ray Sky from eROSITA Image Credit & Copyright: J. Sanders, H. Brunner, A. Merloni & eSASS Team (MPE); E. Churazov, M. Gilfanov, R. Sunyaev (IKI) Explanation: What if you could see X-rays? The night sky would seem a strange and unfamiliar place. X-rays are about 1,000 tim
