2019 December 22 Solstice Illuminated: A Year of Sky Video Credit & Copyright: Ken Murphy (MurphLab); Music: Ariel (Moby) Explanation: Can you find which day is the winter solstice? Each panel shows one day. With 360 movie panels, the sky over (almost) an entire year is shown in time lapse forma […]
2019 December 21 Solstice to Solstice Solargraph Timelapse Image Credit & Copyright: Sam Cornwell Explanation: The 2019 December Solstice, on the first day of winter in planet Earth’s northern hemisphere and summer in the south, is at 4:19 Universal Time December 22. That’s December
2019 December 20 Late Afternoon on Mars Image Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, Marco Di Lorenzo Explanation: Shadows grow long near sunset in this wide panoramic view from the Curiosity rover on Mars. Made with Curiosity’s navcam, the scene covers about 200 degrees from north through east to south (
2019 December 19 Apollo 17’s Moonship Image Credit: Apollo 17, NASA, (Image Reprocessing: Andy Saunders) Explanation: Awkward and angular looking, Apollo 17’s lunar module Challenger was designed for flight in the near vacuum of space. Digitally enhanced and reprocessed, this picture tak
2019 December 18 A Hotspot Map of Neutron Star J0030’s Surface Image Credit: NASA, NICER, GSFC’s CI Lab Explanation: What do neutron stars look like? Previously these city-sized stars were too small and too far away to resolve. Recently, however, the first maps of the locations and sizes
2019 December 17 The Horsehead Nebula Image Credit & Copyright: Mark Hanson & Martin Pugh, SSRO, PROMPT, CTIO, NSF Explanation: Sculpted by stellar winds and radiation, a magnificent interstellar dust cloud by chance has assumed this recognizable shape. Fittingly named the Horsehead Nebula,
2019 December 16 The Magnetic Fields of Spiral Galaxy M77 Image Credit: NASA, SOFIA, HAWC+; JPL-Caltech, Roma Tre. U.; ESA, Hubble, NuSTAR, SDSS Explanation: Can magnetic fields help tell us how spiral galaxies form and evolve? To find out, the HAWC+ instrument on NASA’s airborne (747) SOFIA o
2019 December 15 Mammatus Clouds over Nebraska Image Credit & Copyright: Jorn Olsen Photography Explanation: When do cloud bottoms appear like bubbles? Normally, cloud bottoms are flat. This is because moist warm air that rises and cools will condense into water droplets at a specific temperatu
2019 December 14 Interstellar Comet 2I/Borisov Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and D. Jewitt (UCLA) et al. Explanation: From somewhere else in the Milky Way galaxy, Comet 2I/Borisov is just visiting the Solar System. Discovered by Crimean amateur astronomer Gennady Borisov on August 30, 2019, the first kno
2019 December 13 Full Moon Geminids Image Credit & Copyright: Juan Carlos Casado (TWAN) Explanation: The dependable annual Geminid meteor shower will be near its peak tonight (December 13/14) and before tomorrow’s dawn. As Earth crosses through the dusty trail of active asteroid 3200 Phaet
