Shows / NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day
NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day
These podcasts are my discussion of NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day. These are brief (3-5 minute) audio summaries of the picture posted on NASA's Picture of the Day website: APOD. Video versions of these are available on YouTube. I use these as the introduction to each of my introductory astronomy classes. Students will be able to access them here to review what was discussed in class. I appreciate any comments or suggestions which can be sent to: wagnerastronomy@gmail.com.
Episodes
- NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day
2023 November 11 - The SAR and the Milky Way
In today's image, we see our Milky Way galaxy and a SAR (Stable Auroral Red) arc in the sky. The SAR is associated with auroral activity but does occur much…
- NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day
2023 November 10 - UHZ1: Distant Galaxy and Black Hole
In today's image, we see an extremely distant galaxy and one of the most distant black holes yet discovered. At a distance of 13.2 billion light years, we see…
- NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day
2023 November 09 - M1: The Crab Nebula
In today's image, we see the Crab Nebula, the remnant of a star seen to explode here on Earth nearly a thousand years ago. The nebula is enriched in heavier…
- NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day
2023 November 08 - Perseus Galaxy Cluster from Euclid
In today's image, we see the Perseus Cluster of galaxies about 250 million light year distant. in addition, we see many other galaxies here go out to distances…
- NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day
2023 November 07 - A Martian Dust Devil Spins By
In today's image, we see a short video clip showing a dust devil on Mars as captured by the Perseverance Rover. Dust devils will occur on Mars just as they do…
- NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day
2023 November 06 - Red Aurora over Italy
In today's image, we see the aurora as seen over Italy just a day ago. This is because of a coronal mass ejection which sent a large number of particle in…
- NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day
2023 November 05 - Creature Aurora Over Norway
In today's image, we see an aurora in the sky over Norway from about a decade ago. The aurora will become more prominent with increased solar activity so we…
- NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day
2023 November 04 - Dinkinesh Moonrise
In today's image, we see the asteroid Dinkinesh which is the first of a dozen or so asteroids to be explored by the Lucy spacecraft which is exploring the…
- NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day
2023 November 03 - Jupiter by Moonlight
In today's image, we see our Moon and the planet Jupiter in the same image. Jupiter is currently at opposition which means that it is opposite to the Sun in…
- NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day
2023 November 02 - The Fornax Cluster of Galaxies
In today's image, we see one of the nearer galaxy clusters to our solar system which is known as the Fornax Cluster. The dominant galaxies in this cluster are…
- NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day
2023 November 01 - Annular Solar Eclipse over Utah
In today's image, we see the recent annular solar eclipse as seen from Utah, USA. An annular eclipse occurs when the Moon is a bit farther away and is not able…
- NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day
2023 October 31 - Halloween and the Wizard Nebula
In today's image, we see the Wizard Nebula which is a star forming region which consists of a large amount of gas and dust - some of which is still in the…
- NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day
2023 October 30 - Reflections of the Ghost Nebula
In today's image, we see the nebula known as the Ghost Nebula. Here we see a dusty area of space in the direction of the constellation of Cepheus. The darker…
- NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day
2023 October 29 - A Partial Lunar Eclipse
In today's image, we see a partial eclipse of the Moon that just occurred with the full moon. A lunar eclipse occurs when our Moon passes into Earth's shadow…
- NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day
2023 October 28 - Ghosts of Gamma Cas
In today's image, we see the region around the bright star Gamma Cas, one of the brighter stars in the constellation of Cassiopeia. The red glow in an emission…
- NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day
2023 October 27 - Encke and the Tadpoles
In today's image, we see Comet Encke - a periodic comet that returns to the inner solar system every 3.3 years and made its closest approach to the Sun just a…
- NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day
2023 October 26 - Orionids in Taurus
In today's image, we see two Orionid meteors in the sky. The Orionid meteor shower is one of two that occurs each year that is associated with debris left…
- NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day
2023 October 25 - Gone in 60 Seconds: A Green Flash Sunset
In today's image, we see a video watching the Sun set below the horizon. We will note the distortions around the limb of the Sun caused by Earth's atmosphere…
- NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day
2023 October 24 - Arp 87: Merging Galaxies from Hubble
In today's image, we see a pair of galaxies in the process of merging - a process which can take a billion years or more. Galaxy mergers are quire common and…
- NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day
2023 October 23 - Moon Io from Spacecraft Juno
In today's image, we see an image of the moon of Jupiter known as Io as taken recently by the Juno spacecraft orbiting Jupiter. Io is the most volcanically…
- NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day
2023 October 22 - Ghost Aurora over Canada
In today's image, we see an aurora over Northern Canada in this image taken a decade ago. Perhaps you will see the apparition of a ghostly figure in the aurora…
- NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day
2023 October 21 - Quarter Moons
In today's image, we see all of the quarter moon of the year 2022. These include both the first quarter moons and third quarter moons of the year. We can tell…
- NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day
2023 October 20 - Galaxies and a Comet
In today's image, we see a number of galaxies which are at varying distances from Earth. In addition, we see Comet Lemmon which was recently discovered and…
- NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day
2023 October 19 - A Sunrise at Sunset Point
In today's image, we see a sunrise image and, shortly thereafter, an eclipse of the Sun. We see multiple images of the Sun taken every two minutes to show the…
- NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day
2023 October 18 - Dust and the Western Veil Nebula
In today's image, we see a part of the Veil Nebula which is the remnant left behind by a star that would have been seen from Earth to have exploded 15,000…
- NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day
2023 October 17 - PDS 70: Disk, Planets, and Moons
In today's image, we see an image taken by the ALMA array of radio telescopes in Chile. The newly formed star at the center has a ring of planet forming…
- NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day
2023 October 16 - Eclipse Rings
In today's image, we see an image of the annular solar eclipse from this past Saturday with two people silhouetted in the foreground. The annular eclipse was…
- NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day
2023 October 15 - An Eclipse Tree
In today's image, we see multiple images of the Sun on the ground created by pinhole lenses from the leaves of a tree. Here we see the crescent shape of the…
- NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day
2023 October 14 - Circular Sun Halo
In today's image, we see a halo around the Sun which is caused by ice crystals in cirrus clouds in Earth's atmosphere. Also today will be an annular solar…