iotman (3)in #science • 3 hours ago🌌 SpacePicture of a Day: Dueling Bands over the Atacama Desert 🪐What are these two bands in the sky? The more commonly seen band is on the left and is the central band of our Milky Way galaxy. Our Sun orbits in the disk of this spiral…iotman (3)in #science • yesterday🌌 SpacePicture of a Day: Saturn's Iapetus: Painted Moon 🪐What has happened to Saturn's moon Iapetus? Vast sections of this strange world are dark as coal, while others are as bright as snow. To help better understand this unusually…iotman (3)in #science • 2 days ago🌌 SpacePicture of a Day: Pathfinder on Mars 🪐On July 4th, 1997, using its own array of fireworks, a parachute, and a cocoon of airbags, the Mars Pathfinder spacecraft bounced like a giant beach ball at least 15 times before…iotman (3)in #science • 3 days ago🌌 SpacePicture of a Day: Three Galaxies in Pavo 🪐Some 190 million light-years away, far beyond the bright stars and nebulae of the Milky Way, these three galaxies are drawn together by gravity in a mesmerizing cosmic dance.…iotman (3)in #science • 4 days ago🌌 SpacePicture of a Day: Sibling Supernova Remnants 🪐What happens when one of the stars in a binary goes supernova? This image combines visible (yellow), ultraviolet (purple) and infrared light (cyan, red and orange) to show two…iotman (3)in #science • 6 days ago🌌 SpacePicture of a Day: Unusually Smooth Sections of Asteroid Itokawa 🪐Why are parts of this asteroid's surface so smooth? The answer seems likely to do with the dynamics of an asteroid that is a loose pile of rubble rather than a solid rock. The…iotman (3)in #science • 7 days ago🌌 SpacePicture of a Day: M82: Galaxy with a Supergalactic Wind 🪐Why is the Cigar Galaxy billowing red smoke? M82, as this starburst galaxy is also known, was stirred up by a recent pass near large spiral galaxy M81. This doesn't fully…iotman (3)in #science • 8 days ago🌌 SpacePicture of a Day: AR 4478: Giant Sunspot Group 🪐Right now, one of the largest sunspot groups in recent history is crossing the Sun. Active Region 4478 is not only big -- it's violent, showing tangled magnetic fields capable…iotman (3)in #science • 9 days ago🌌 SpacePicture of a Day: Mars Marathon by Perseverance 🪐In this recent HiRISE view from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the little green dot indicated on the surface of the big Red Planet is the Perseverance Mars rover. Recorded on…iotman (3)in #science • 11 days ago🌌 SpacePicture of a Day: Anticrepuscular Rays over Sicily 🪐The Sun has just set... in the opposite side of the sky. Pictured here are anticrepuscular rays apparently converging in the east in this image of the limestone plateau in the…iotman (3)in #science • last month🌌 SpacePicture of a Day: Saturn at Night 🪐Telescopic views of Saturn and its beautiful rings often make it the star of star parties. But this stunning view of the outer gas gaint planet's rings and night side just isn't…iotman (3)in #science • last month🌌 SpacePicture of a Day: Eagle Nebula Pillars in Infrared from Hubble 🪐Newborn stars are forming in the Eagle Nebula. They are gravitationally contracting in pillars of dense gas and dust. The intense radiation of these newly-formed bright stars…iotman (3)in #science • last month🌌 SpacePicture of a Day: Supermoon Versus Micromoon 🪐What is so micro about tonight's blue micromoon? Just after sunset, a full moon will appear slightly smaller and dimmer than usual. The reason is that the Moon's fully…iotman (3)in #science • last month🌌 SpacePicture of a Day: Messier 104 🪐A gorgeous spiral galaxy, Messier 104 is famous for its nearly edge-on profile featuring a broad ring of obscuring dust lanes. Seen in silhouette against an extensive central…iotman (3)in #science • last month🌌 SpacePicture of a Day: NGC 1514: The Crystal Ball Nebula 🪐What do you see in this crystal ball? The featured image shows NGC 1514, known as the Crystal Ball Nebula, observed by the Gemini North telescope on Maunakea, in Hawai'i. NGC…iotman (3)in #science • last month🌌 SpacePicture of a Day: NGC 3660 and Burçin's Galaxy 🪐The upper galaxy might be more photogenic, but the lower galaxy is more unusual. The galaxy up top is NGC 3660, a spiral galaxy similar to our own Milky Way galaxy in that it…iotman (3)in #science • last month🌌 SpacePicture of a Day: Thackeray's Globules 🪐What are these strange space globs? Situated in rich star fields and glowing hydrogen gas, these opaque clouds of interstellar dust and gas are so large they might be able to…iotman (3)in #science • last month🌌 SpacePicture of a Day: Messier 2 🪐After the Crab Nebula, this giant star cluster is the second entry in 18th century astronomer Charles Messier's famous list of things that are not comets. M2 is one of the…iotman (3)in #science • last month🌌 SpacePicture of a Day: The Nebulous Realm of WR 134 🪐This cosmic snapshot covers a field of view over twice as wide as the full Moon within the boundaries of the high-flying constellation Cygnus. Made using astronomical narrowband…iotman (3)in #science • 2 months ago🌌 SpacePicture of a Day: A Collision of Galaxy Clusters 🪐This big beautiful spiral shines in X-ray light. It is about 20 times larger than our Galaxy. It belongs to Abell 2029, a galaxy cluster one billion light-years away. (To see…
