Astronomy Picture of the Day - May 15th, 2022 - Colors of the Moon (Narrated by Brian) What color is the Moon? It depends on the night. Outside of the Earth's atmosphere, the dark Moon, which shines by reflected sunlight, appears a magnificently brown-tinged gray. Viewed from inside the Earth's atmosphere, though, the moon can appear quite different. The featured image highlights a collection of apparent colors of the full moon documented by one astrophotographer over 10 years from different locations across Italy. A red or yellow colored moon usually indicates a moon seen near the horizon. There, some of the blue light has been scattered away by a long path through the Earth's atmosphere, sometimes laden with fine dust. A blue-colored moon is more rare and can indicate a moon seen through an atmosphere carrying larger dust particles. What created the purple moon is unclear -- it may be a combination of several effects. The last image captures the total lunar eclipse of 2018 July -- where the moon, in Earth's shadow, appeared a faint red -- due to light refracted through air around the Earth. Today there is not only another full moon but a total lunar eclipse visible to observers in North and South America -- an occurrence that may lead to some unexpected lunar colorings. Image Credit & Copyright: Marcella Giulia Pace Source: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap220515.html This video was auto generated using data from NASA Open API. ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRzS0qEZ-mM

Astronomy Picture of the Day - April 12th, 2022 - N11: Star Clouds of the LMC (Narrated by Amy) Massive stars, abrasive winds, mountains of dust, and energetic light sculpt one of the largest and most picturesque regions of star formation in the Local Group of Galaxies. Known as N11, the region is visible on the upper right of many images of its home galaxy, the Milky Way neighbor known as the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). The featured image was taken for scientific purposes by the Hubble Space Telescope and reprocessed for artistry. Although the section imaged above is known as NGC 1763, the entire N11 emission nebula is second in LMC size only to the Tarantula Nebula. Compact globules of dark dust housing emerging young stars are also visible around the image. A recent study of variable stars in the LMC with Hubble has helped to recalibrate the distance scale of the observable universe, but resulted in a slightly different scale than found using the pervasive cosmic microwave background. Astrophysicists: Browse 2,700+ codes in the Astrophysics Source Code Library Source: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap220412.html This video was auto generated using data from NASA Open API. ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7YLDlYCJEY

Wikipedia Picture of the Day - February 28th, 2022 - Elliot See (Narrated by Brian) Elliot See (July 23, 1927 – February 28, 1966) was an American engineer, United States Naval Aviator, test pilot, and NASA astronaut. Selected as part of NASA Astronaut Group 2 in 1962, See was the prime command pilot for what would have been his first space flight, Gemini 9. He was killed in 1966, along with his Gemini 9 crewmate Charles Bassett, when their jet aircraft crashed at the McDonnell Aircraft plant in St. Louis, where they were about to undergo two weeks of space-rendezvous simulator training. This photograph depicts See participating in water-egress training in 1965 as a backup crew member for Gemini 5. Photograph credit: NASA Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:POTD/2022-02-28 This video was auto generated using data and media from Wikipedia. ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkXSwOSmhYo

Astronomy Picture of the Day - January 16th, 2023 - Moon Enhanced (Narrated by Emma) Our Moon doesn't really look like this. Earth's Moon, Luna, doesn't naturally show this rich texture, and its colors are more subtle. But this digital creation is based on reality. The featured image is a composite of multiple images and enhanced to bring up real surface features. The enhancements, for example, show more clearly craters that illustrate the tremendous bombardment our Moon has been through during its 4.6-billion-year history. The dark areas, called maria, have fewer craters and were once seas of molten lava. Additionally, the image colors, although based on the moon's real composition, are changed and exaggerated. Here, a blue hue indicates a region that is iron rich, while orange indicates a slight excess of aluminum. Although the Moon has shown the same side to the Earth for billions of years, modern technology is allowing humanity to learn much more about it -- and how it affects the Earth. Image Credit & Copyright: Darya Kawa Mirza Source: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230116.html This video was auto generated using data from NASA Open API. ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7Sq1cKDubM