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.

2022 March 22
The featured image depicts a bright aurora captured earlier this month over Östersund, Sweden.
To some, this coronal aurora may resemble a whale.
Please see the explanation for more detailed information.

A Whale of an Aurora over Swedish Forest
Image Credit & Copyright: Göran Strand

What is that in the sky? An animal. A cloud of fast- moving electrons, protons, and ion were thrown toward the Earth by a large mass ejection on the Sun earlier this month. Spectacular Auroras were seen at some high northern latitudes after part of the cloud impacted our Earth's magnetosphere. There is a beautiful view of the city ofstersund from a scenic perch above a forest in Sweden. Feel free to share what it looks like to you, even if it appears like a large whale to some. The Sun of the past few years has been very quiet. As our Sun gets closer to a solar maximum in its 11-year solar magnetic cycle, dramatic Auroras like this are sure to continue.

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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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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.

2022 March 23
The featured image depicts the Bubble Nebula as captured by the Hubble Space Telescope. Please see the explanation for more detailed information.

The Bubble Nebula from Hubble
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble; Processing & Copyright: Mehmet Hakan Özsaraç

Explanation: Massive stars can blow bubbles. The featured image shows perhaps the most famous of all star-bubbles, NGC 7635, also known simply as The Bubble Nebula. Although it looks delicate, the 7-light-year diameter bubble offers evidence of violent processes at work. Above and left of the Bubble's center is a hot, O-type star, several hundred thousand times more luminous and some 45-times more massive than the Sun. A fierce stellar wind and intense radiation from that star has blasted out the structure of glowing gas against denser material in a surrounding molecular cloud. The intriguing Bubble Nebula and associated cloud complex lie a mere 7,100 light-years away toward the boastful constellation Cassiopeia. This sharp, tantalizing view of the cosmic bubble is a reprocessed composite of previously acquired Hubble Space Telescope image data.

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< | Archive | Submissions | Index | Search | Calendar | RSS | Education | About APOD | Discuss | >

Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Phillip Newman Specific rights apply.
NASA Web Privacy Policy and Important Notices
A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.