APOD
Astronomy Picture of the Day
Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
Electric Night
Explanation: It may appear, at first, like the Galaxy is producing the lightning, but really it's the Earth. The featured nighttime landscape was taken from a southern tip of the Italian Island of Sardinia in early June. The foreground rocks and shrubs are near the famous Capo Spartivento Lighthouse , and the camera is pointed south toward Algeria in Africa . In the distance, across the Mediterranean Sea , a thunderstorm is threatening , with several electric lightning strokes caught together during this 25-second wide-angle exposure. Much farther in the distance, strewn about the sky , are hundreds of stars in the neighborhood of our Sun in the Milky Way Galaxy . Farthest away, and slanting down from the upper left, are billions of stars that together compose the central band of our Milky Way.
Free Lecture: APOD editor to speak in NYC on January 3
| Date | December 4, 2019 |
|---|---|
| Credit | Image Credit & Copyright: Ivan Pedretti |
| Authors & editors: | Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP) |
| A service of: |
ASD at NASA / GSFC, NASA Science Activation & Michigan Tech. U. |