Four Planet Sunset

This mesmerizing sunset photo was taken from the summit of volcanic Mount Lawu, 3,265 meters above sea level, on July 21. The view looks west, toward the city lights of Surakarta (aka Solo), Central Java, Indonesia. Two other volcanic peaks, sharp Merapi (left) and Merbabu lie along the colorful horizon. Four planets shine in the twilight sky above them. Spread out near the plane of the

Eclipse on the Beach

As the New Moon's shadow slid across the southern Pacific on July 11, people gathered along the white, sandy Anakena Beach on the north side of Easter Island to watch a total solar eclipse. The experience was captured in this tantalizing composite image, constructed from a sequence of 50 consecutive exposures. At their center is the totally eclipsed Sun surrounded by a shimmering solar

Sunset, Shadowrise

From central Australia, this serene 360 degree panorama follows a clear horizon as twilight began on May 28. At left, a bright western sky is still illuminated by the setting Sun. But sweeping right, toward a view centered on the countryside's dominating sandstone formation called Uluru or Ayers Rock, the sky takes on progressively darker hues and subtle colors. Behind Uluru is the shadow

The Trifid Nebula is Stars and Dust

Unspeakable beauty and unimaginable bedlam can be found together in the Trifid Nebula. Also known as M20, this photogenic nebula is visible with good binoculars towards the constellation of Sagittarius. The energetic processes of star formation create not only the colors but the chaos. The red-glowing gas results from high-energy starlight striking interstellar hydrogen gas. The dark dust

The Milky Way Over Bryce Canyon

 

What are those strange rock structures? They are towers and walls of sedimentary rock that are particularly plentiful in Bryce Canyon in Utah, USA. The rock columns may rise higher than 50 meters and are called hoodoos. On the far left is Thor's Hammer, perhaps the most famous hoodoo. The tall rock columns were carved, most typically, when a unusually dense cap of rock provided a layer

Lutetia: The Largest Asteroid Yet Visited

As humans explore the universe, the record for largest asteroid visited by a spacecraft has increased yet again. Earlier this month, ESA's robotic Rosetta spacecraft zipped past the asteroid 21 Lutetia taking data and snapping images in an effort to better determine the history of the asteroid and the origin of its unusual colors. Although of unknown composition, Lutetia is not massive

Happy People Dancing on Planet Earth

What are these humans doing? Dancing. Many humans on Earth exhibit periods of happiness, and one method of displaying happiness is dancing. Happiness and dancing transcend political boundaries and occur in practically every human society. Above, Matt Harding traveled through many nations on Earth, started dancing, and filmed the result. The video is perhaps a dramatic example that

Diamond Ring and Shadow Bands

As the total phase of July 11's solar eclipse came to an end, sunlight streaming past the edge of the Moon's silhouette created the fleeting appearance of a glistening diamond ring in the sky. Seen through a thin cloud layer from the French Polynesian atoll of Hao it also produced remarkable shadow bands, flickering across the dramatic scene. Projected onto the cloud layer, the shadow bands

Messier 76

"Nebula at the right foot of Andromeda ... " begins the description for the 76th object in Charles Messier's 18th century Catalog of Nebulae and Star Clusters. In fact, M76 is one of the fainter objects on the Messier list and is also known by the popular name of the "Little Dumbbell Nebula". Like its brighter namesake M27 (the Dumbbell Nebula), M76 is recognized as a planetary nebula - a

The Meteor of 1860

Frederic Church (1826-1900), American landscape painter of the Hudson River School, painted what he saw in nature. And on July 20th, 1860, he saw a spectacular string of fireball meteors cross the Catskill evening sky, an extremely rare Earth-grazing meteor procession. From New York City, poet Walt Whitman (1819-1892) also wrote of the "... strange huge meteor procession, dazzling and clear,

The Crown of the Sun

During a total solar eclipse, the Sun's extensive outer atmosphere, or corona, is an inspirational sight. Subtle shades and shimmering features that engage the eye span a brightness range of over 10,000 to 1, making them notoriously difficult to capture in a single photograph. But this composite of 7 consecutive digital images over a range of exposure times comes close to revealing the crown

Lightning Over Athens

Have you ever watched a lightning storm in awe? Join the crowd. Oddly, nobody knows exactly how lightning is produced. What is known is that charges slowly separate in some clouds causing rapid electrical discharges (lightning), but how electrical charges get separated in clouds remains a topic of much research. Lightning usually takes a jagged course, rapidly heating a thin column

Dark River, Wide Field

A Dark River of dust seems to run from our Galactic Center, then pool into a starfield containing photogenic sky wonders. Scrolling right will reveal many of these objects including (can you find?) the bright orange star Antares, a blue(-eyed) horsehead nebula, the white globular star cluster M4, the bright blue star system Rho Ophiuchi, the dark brown Pipe nebula, the red Lagoon

The Antennae Galaxies in Collision

Two galaxies are squaring off in Corvus and here are the latest pictures. But when two galaxies collide, the stars that compose them usually do not. That's because galaxies are mostly empty space and, however bright, stars only take up only a small amount of that space. During the slow, hundred million year collision, one galaxy can still rip the other apart gravitationally, and dust

Galaxies in the River

 Large galaxies grow by eating small ones. Even our own galaxy practices galactic cannibalism, absorbing small galaxies that get too close and are captured by the Milky Way's gravity. In fact, the practice is common in the universe and illustrated by this striking pair of interacting galaxies from the banks of the southern constellation Eridanus (The River). Located over 50 million light

Shaping NGC 6188

Dark shapes with bright edges winging their way through dusty NGC 6188 are tens of light-years long. The emission nebula is found near the edge of an otherwise dark large molecular cloud in the southern constellation Ara, about 4,000 light-years away. Formed in that region only a few million years ago, the massive young stars of the embedded Ara OB1 association sculpt the fantastic shapes

Andes Sunset Eclipse

On July 11, after a long trek eastward across the southern Pacific Ocean, the Moon's shadow reached landfall in South America. In a total solar eclipse close to sunset, silhouetted Moon and Sun hugged the western horizon, seen here above the Andes mountains near the continent's southern tip. To enjoy a good vantage point, the photographer hiked to a windy spot about 400 meters above a lake

Functional/integration testing tool/frameworks for Flex/Flash based Rich Internet Applications.

Given the emergence of Web 2.0, developers are pushing the limits of what browsers can do.  The original intent of a web browser was to deliver documents to end-users, not applications and thus, protocols and standards to meet this need where designed as such.  Request-Response patterns have moved from full-up page refresh models to incremental interactions similar to thick-client applications. 

Easter Island Eclipse

Makemake, a god in Easter Island mythology, may have smiled for a moment as clouds parted long enough to reveal this glimpse of July 11's total solar eclipse to skygazers. In the foreground of the dramatic scene, the island's famous large, monolithic statues (Moai) share a beachside view of the shimmering solar corona and the darkened daytime sky. Other opportunities to see the total phase

Mosaic: Welcome to Planet Earth

Welcome to Planet Earth, the third planet from a star named the Sun. The Earth is shaped like a sphere and composed mostly of rock. Over 70 percent of the Earth's surface is water. The planet has a relatively thin atmosphere composed mostly of nitrogen and oxygen. This picture of Earth, dubbed Blue Marble, was taken from Apollo 17 in 1972 and features Africa and Antarctica. It is

Moons Beyond the Rings of Saturn

What's happened to that moon of Saturn? Nothing -- Saturn's moon Rhea is just partly hidden behind Saturn's rings. In April, the robotic Cassini spacecraft now orbiting Saturn took this narrow-angle view looking across the Solar System's most famous rings. Rings visible in the foreground include the thin F ring on the outside and the much wider A and B rings just interior to it.

Warped Sky: Star Trails Panorama

What's happened to the sky? A time warp, of sorts, and a digital space warp too. The time warp occurs because this image captured in a single frame a four hour exposure of the night sky. As a result, prominent star trails are visible. The space warp occurs because the picture is actually a full 360 degree panorama, horizontally compressed to fit your browser. As the Earth

Ecliptic New Zealand

Four bright celestial beacons and a faint triangle of light follow the plane of the ecliptic as it arcs high through this southern hemisphere night skyscape. Seen on a July winter night from Lake Taupo on New Zealand's North Island, the line-up features Venus, Regulus (alpha star of Leo), Mars, and Saturn from lower left to upper right. Just put your cursor over the picture to identify the