Starship Asterisk*

It's hard to imagine the size of a storm system over twice that of Earth's diameter, and reaching down to over 300 K . I'm pretty sure that it originates from a heat source even deeper, yes somewhat like a mantle plume. Awesome animation, though you really don't grasp the true scale. I'm not sure ma...

There is no dark side of the Moon...as a matter of fact, it's all dark...

What is amazing is the scale of this storm. 8 thousand kilometers? The Earth could easily fit inside of it. And imagine how high those clouds must be - at least a hundred kilometers.

So how is it that Earth's moon was once close in, and is slowing moving out. And Phobos was further out, and is slowly moving in. ?? Earth's Moon came from the Earth itself when a titanic meteoric impact billions of years ago caused a large chunk to be cast off. In contrast, Phobos - and Deimos - p...

This small of a land feature is probably not caused directly by volcanic forces. Rather I see at least two types of structure here. The lower exhibits stratification which would suggest - billions of Earth years ago - water moving across this area which repeatedly deposited sediments which later sol...

You can almost hear that star going "ka-blooie!" Except in space no one can hear that...

Everything we see that happens on Jupiter is on a scale many hundredfold of what we'd have here on our dinky little planet. It's doubtful Mankind will be able to visit this place other than by remote observations.

I half expected to see ELVIS... What a spectacular image!!! Flaming and firing up the nebula..."Hunka, Hunka Burnin' LOVE...." :---[===]* I was wondering if anyone else was going to make the "Elvis" reference. Hm - with AE Aurigue's apparent velocity, perhaps one day it will hav...

Did they choose this picture for the election? It looks like an Democratic urban area surrounded by a rural Republican area. The Washington Post had some precinct-level voting maps showing this urban-vs-rural phenomenon the other day. Columbus Ohio looked just like this APOD. Hm - a part of the ins...

Right up there with the Orion Nebula, this is an iconic telescopic destination - and nicely presented here as well!

A virtual smorgasbord of galaxies here! You see fine examples of near-perfect spirals, irregulars, ring, ellipticals, you name it. Now I wonder what our Local Group would look like from that distance.

We are Stardust
We are golden
We are billion-year-old Carbon...

- Joni Mitchell, Woodstock

The earliest beginnings of Life on Earth were only complex protein chains. How stable they were in an aqueous environment (which at the time was probably quite toxic by today's standards) is not known. Nor is it known by exactly which process caused the protein chains to become self-replicative. Lot...

Can you imagine a human colony on the surface of this planet? Growing crops, to feed themselves ... somehow? With no water to speak of? Their energy sources being ... what? Not solar power, from a very very distant sun. No water on Mars? Au contraire... There's plenty to be found, but it's locked u...

Looks to me that Lady Liberty is giving the one-fingered salute to the rest of the Galaxy...

It gives you some sense of the scale of our Galaxy, for sure. Globular clusters are tremendously large, but microscopic in comparison.

I'm sure these seemingly random cloud patterns are created by warmer conditions below interacting with the frigidity the upper atmosphere. One thing to consider is though the clouds themselves are probably tens - or hundreds of kilometers deep. If Jupiter were the size of a basketball that layer wou...

Great image! It really looks deep and three-dimensional. I think I can see that the outermost dark rim is in the foreground, the dark "lagoon" dust lane is at an intermediate distance, and the Hourglass Nebula and the neighbouring bright star (9 Sagittarius?) are located at the bottom of ...

Next to Earth, Mars has to be my favorite planet in the Solar System. I never tire of seeing APOD entries about this fascinating world. If you haven't already, you can explore Mars yourself with a free smartphone app called Midnight Planets. Extremely interactive, you can rotate 360 for a panorama, ...

Why am I suddenly itchy all over?

It seems to me that after we have finished exploring our neighbours we plunge our devices into them. Could they not be programmed to explode somewhere in deep space or directed away from our planets and into deep stellar space. As stated before, Cassini is running low on fuel it uses for orbital ma...

Not exactly an astronomy subject matter here, but yes, quite a beautiful scene.

Do these clusters rotate? Consider what it would even mean for a cluster to rotate, given that it's not a solid body, but merely a collection of loosely bound stars. What would be happening around the poles? Would you have stars that weren't moving at all? Do they lack a central gravitational singu...

For gravity to be considered as a "weak" force, it sure has a profound affect on how we see the Universe...

Dark sand vis-à-vis the reddish color of the surrounding areas are due to their basaltic composition. Billions of Earth years ago when Mars was geologically (or is it areologically?) active, the materials for these dunes came spewing out of the numerous extinct volcanoes we are witness to today. Alo...