[{"copyright":"Don Goldman","date":"2009-01-30","explanation":"Colorful NGC 1579 resembles the better known Trifid Nebula, but lies much farther north in planet Earth's sky, in the heroic constellation Perseus. About 2,100 light-years away and 3 light-years across, NGC 1579 is, like the Trifid, a study in contrasting blue and red colors, with dark dust lanes prominent in the nebula's central regions. In both, dust reflects starlight to produce beautiful blue reflection nebulae. But unlike the Trifid, in NGC 1579 the reddish glow is not emission from clouds of glowing hydrogen gas excited by ultraviolet light from a nearby hot star. Instead, the dust in NGC 1579 drastically diminishes, reddens, and scatters the light from an embedded, extremely young, massive star, itself a strong emitter of the characteristic red hydrogen alpha light.","hdurl":"https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/0901/NGC1579WebF2_goldman.jpg","media_type":"image","service_version":"v1","title":"NGC 1579: Trifid of the North","url":"https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/0901/NGC1579WebF2_goldman_c800.jpg"},{"copyright":"Tamas Ladanyi","date":"2009-04-02","explanation":"Today, 100 Hours of Astronomy begins, a cornerstone project of the International Year of Astronomy 2009 celebrating the 400th anniversary of Galileo's original telescopic exploration of the sky. Running from April 2 through April 5, many different public programs are planned worldwide as part of the project, starting with today's opening event at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. Featuring one of Galileo's two remaining telescopes, the event will be webcast live. Of course, the sky examined by Galileo can still be appreciated today, with much more capable instruments that are widely available. But this skyward view from a private observatory in Veszprem, Hungary also includes objects Galileo did not see when he gazed into the night. Recorded on March 26, the image captures the paired trails of the International Space Station (the brighter trail) and the shuttle orbiter Discovery in low Earth orbit, as well as the streak of a passing airplane.","hdurl":"https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/0904/iss_castor_090326_ladanyi_v1.jpg","media_type":"image","service_version":"v1","title":"100 Hours of Astronomy Begins","url":"https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/0904/iss_castor_090326_ladanyi_v1c800.jpg"},{"copyright":"Walter Lyons \n(FMA Research), \nWeatherVideoHD.TV","date":"2013-05-22","explanation":"What's that in the sky? It is a rarely seen form of lightning confirmed only about 25 years ago: a red sprite. Recent research has shown that following a powerful positive cloud-to-ground lightning strike, red sprites may start as 100-meter balls of ionized air that shoot down from about 80-km high at 10 percent the speed of light and are quickly followed by a group of upward streaking ionized balls. The above image, taken a few days ago above central South Dakota, USA, captured a bright red sprite, and is a candidate for the first color image ever recorded of a sprite and aurora together. Distant storm clouds cross the bottom of the image, while streaks of colorful aurora are visible in the background. Red sprites take only a fraction of a second to occur and are best seen when powerful thunderstorms are visible from the side.","hdurl":"https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/1305/spriteaurora_lyons_1643.jpg","media_type":"image","service_version":"v1","title":"Red Sprite Lightning with Aurora","url":"https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/1305/spriteaurora_lyons_960.jpg"},{"copyright":"Phillip A Cruden","date":"2015-12-10","explanation":"Venus now appears as Earth's brilliant morning star, standing in a line-up of planets above the southeastern horizon before dawn. For most, the silvery celestial beacon rose predawn in a close pairing with an old crescent Moon on Monday, December 7. But also widely seen from locations in North and Central America, the lunar crescent actually occulted or passed in front of Venus during Monday's daylight hours. This time series follows the daytime approach of Moon and morning star in clear blue skies from Phoenix, Arizona. The progression of nine sharp telescopic snapshots, made between 9:30am and 9:35am local time, runs from lower left to upper right, when Venus winked out behind the bright lunar limb.","hdurl":"https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/1512/MoonVenus_Occultation2_Small.jpg","media_type":"image","service_version":"v1","title":"Daytime Moon Meets Morning Star","url":"https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/1512/MoonVenus_Occultation2_1024.jpg"},{"copyright":"Steve Crouch","date":"2024-02-15","explanation":"Shiny NGC 253 is one of the brightest spiral galaxies visible, and also one of the dustiest.  Some call it the Silver Coin Galaxy for its appearance in small telescopes, or just the Sculptor Galaxy for its location within the boundaries of the southern constellation Sculptor.  Discovered in 1783 by mathematician and astronomer Caroline Herschel, the dusty island universe lies a mere 10 million light-years away. About 70 thousand light-years across, NGC 253 is the largest member of the Sculptor Group of Galaxies, the nearest to our own Local Group of Galaxies.  In addition to its spiral dust lanes, tendrils of dust seem to be rising from its galactic disk laced with young star clusters and star forming regions in this colorful galaxy portrait. The high dust content accompanies frantic star formation, earning NGC 253 the designation of a starburst galaxy. NGC 253 is also known to be a strong source of high-energy x-rays and gamma rays, likely due to massive black holes near the galaxy's center.","hdurl":"https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2402/ngc253_STXL6303_RC14_LHaRGB_2023.jpg","media_type":"image","service_version":"v1","title":"NGC 253: Dusty Island Universe","url":"https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2402/ngc253_STXL6303_RC14_LHaRGB_2023_1024.jpg"}]