APOD: 2021 December 31

Discover the universe! Each day a different image or photograph of our universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by an astronomer.

December 31, 2021.
See the explanation. Clicking on the picture will bring you to the download page.
The highest resolution version is available.

The road leads to L2.
Malcolm Park is a member of the North York Astronomical Association.

This timelapse shows the James Webb Space Telescope as it goes across the stars of the constellation of Orion on its journey to a destination beyond the Moon. The animation was created after 12 consecutive exposures each 10 minutes long were aligned and combined with a subsequent color image of the background stars. After its December 25 launch, the JWST climbed up the gravity ridge from Earth to reach a halo around L2, an Earth-Sun lag point. In space, lagrange points are convenient locations where the centripetal force needed to move along with one massive body is in balance with the gravity of the other. The smaller objects will tend to stay there. L2 is one of the 5 lagrange points and is located 1.5 million kilometers from Earth. After launch, the JWST will arrive at L2 on January 23. You can follow the progress of the James Webb Space Telescope online while relaxing in Earth's surface gravity.

The picture is in Moonstripes.

Robert Nemiroff is an author and Jerry Bonnell is an editor.
Phillip Newman has specific rights.
NASA has a privacy policy on the internet.
There is a service at NASA.
& Michigan Tech. U.

Page 2

Discover the universe! Each day a different image or photograph of our universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by an astronomer.

January 1 is 2022.
See the explanation. Clicking on the picture will bring you to the download page.
The highest resolution version is available.

The moon is full in 2021.
The image is copyrighted by Soumyadeep Mukherjee.

Every Full Moon of 2021, a year-long project, features a portrait of the familiar lunar nearside at each bright lunar phase. The year begins in stripes at the top. The stripes are from Full Moon images taken with the same camera and lens. The Full Moon's size changes throughout the year depending on its distance from India, but the stripes still looked odd. Each stripe has a full moon name, distance in kilometers, and angular size. The size is given in minutes of arcs. There is a Full Moon in May. The most distant Full Moon in December is the smallest. The full moons of May and November were also in the shadow of the Earth during the two lunar eclipses of 2021.

Tomorrow's picture is bright moon halos.

Robert Nemiroff is an author and Jerry Bonnell is an editor.
Phillip Newman has specific rights.
NASA has a privacy policy on the internet.
There is a service at NASA.
& Michigan Tech. U.