Astronomy is a study of outer space. It’s important science, but for many people an enjoyable hobby. That’s why when a web site or magazine offers an astronomy picture of the day it’s likely to garner a great deal of attention. They’re all over the place.
NASA is a great source to find and astronomy picture of the day. Their web site, nasa.gov, presents a new photo every day. The multimedia section shows both images and videos. This could be used to create your own image site. Saturn’s moon Enceladus was featured on November 5, 2008. It was taken by the Cassini space craft as it passed about 1,700 kilometers from the surface. It gets down to details the size of the bus. One interesting feature of the ice on Enceladus is that it reflects 99% of the light that falls onto it. Wear sunglasses. Cassini is scheduled for more flybys during its mission.
NASA’s images of the day go all the way back to June 16, 1995. It was a what if image of the Earth posing as a neutron star. Of course the image is a computer simulation. One interesting element is that the constellation Orion in his visible twice. The reason is that a Neutron star is so dense that light, even from behind the star, is visible as it is pulled around by the intense gravity. That’s why some objects are seen twice.
September 8, 1995 brought a very interesting image of the central part of our own Milky Way galaxy from the NASA COBE Satellite. This area is normally invisible because of the dust obscuring it. But COBE scans in infrared, so produced the amazing image of our very symmetrical galaxy.
The astronomy picture of the day was the same on January 1, 2000 and January 1, 2001. The reason both dates shared this image is that most people considered the year 2000 as the first year of the third millennium. But in reality the new millennium started on January 1, 2001. Instead of arguing NASA used both dates. The image found at http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap010101.html shows the progression of our picture of the universe from orbs that rotate around the Earth all the way to the big bang event creating an ever expanding cosmos.
NASA has a lot more days with their own astronomy picture of the day. Visit the web site, NASA.gov, to see them.