APOD 4.8

     Recently I was looking at the APOD titled "Two Worlds One Sun". This is amazing because the picture on the left shows the sunset from Earth while the picture on the right shows the sunset from Mars. Just by looking at it one can tell that the sun looks smaller from mars. However this is expected because Mars is 50% further away from the sun than Earth. Something surprising in the picture is the fact that the martian sunset appears blue. Although no one is entirely sure why this happens many speculate that it has to do with the Martian Dust. The rover Curiosity captured the sunset at Mars about a month ago near the Gale crater.

APOD 4.7

     This picture titled "Moonrise Through Mauna Kea's Shadow" makes it look like the moon is rising through a volcano. This is impossible actually and this picture was able to be taken because the moon is rising through the shadow of a volcano. This picture is taken in Hawaii and its location is arguably the best observing spot in the world. The refraction of the moonlight from earths atmosphere makes the moon appear slightly oval in shape. In this picture you can also see cinder cones from old volcanic eruptions near the ground.

APOD 4.6

     This week I was looking at the APOD titled "Massive Nearby Spiral Galaxy NGC 2841". This is a massive galaxy which is only about 46 light-years away. It is found in the constellation Ursa Major. This is called the island nebula and shows a bunch of star forming regions in its spiral arms. This galaxy is about 150,000 light-years long making it even bigger than the milky way galaxy. This picture is a composite taken by the Hubble Space telescope and the Subaru Telescope. The halo around the galaxy is the result of winds and stellar explosions that caused a gas to form near the outside.