The Best Astronomy Pictures of 2005-2006*

Robert Nemiroff

What is APOD? Astronomy Picture of the Day

• Web site started at NASA in 1995• Written & edited w/ Jerry Bonnell (USRA/NASA)• Features a different astronomy image every day • Mirror sites now translate APOD into most major

languages daily• Hypertext is “best link”, leverages the full web• Archive is encyclopedic and searchable

– Need an astronomy image? Good chance APOD’s got it!

Top Five NASA Imagesof All Time*

*Before 2005 and Yes, it’s subjective!

STS-1: First Shuttle Launch

A Twisted Solar Eruptive Prominence

Apollo 17 Lunarscape: A Magnificent Desolation

M16: Stars from Eagle's EGGs

Earth Rise

Top Five APOD Imagesof all Time*

*Before 2005 andYes, it’s again subjective!

Inside the Eagle Nebula

The Big Corona

M31: The Andromeda Galaxy

Looking Back on an Eclipsed Earth

Earth at Night

Image Credits

• Top NASA: All NASA (no joke!)

• Top APOD: – Eagle Nebula: © AURA, NOAO, NSF– Andromeda Galaxy: © Robert Gendler– Big Corona: Fred Espenak– Eclipsed Earth: Mir 27 Crew, CNES– Earth at Night: DMSP Satellites

Just Wow Images

V838 Mon: Echoes from the Edge

WMAP Resolves the Universe

Top APOD Images of

2005-2006*

Barred Spiral Galaxy NGC 1300

Titan Landscape

Eight Kilometers Above Titan

Saturn's Iapetus: Moon with a Strange Surface

Persistent Saturnian Auroras

The Fox Fur Nebula

To Fly Free in Space

NGC 1316: After Galaxies Collide

Solar Eclipse in View

The Fairy of Eagle Nebula

M51: Cosmic Whirlpool

Cassini Spacecraft Crosses Saturn's Ring Plane

The Sombrero Galaxy in Infrared

Particle Sizes in Saturn's Rings

Sculpting the South Pillar

Titan's Cryovolcano

Tornado and Rainbow Over Kansas

Sunset Over Gusev Crater

The Giant Radio Lobes of Fornax A

Ring Around Fomalhaut

Thirteen Seconds After Impact

A Nearby Supernova in M51

Water Ice in a Martian Crater

Solar System Object Larger than Pluto Discovered

A Shuttle Back Flip at the Space Station

The International Space Station from Orbit

Globular Cluster 47 Tucanae from SALT

Fresh Tiger Stripes on Saturn's Enceladus

A Quadruple Sky Over Great Salt Lake

Saturn's Hyperion: A Moon with Odd Craters

Short Gamma-Ray Bursts Localized

A Soyuz Spacecraft Approaches the Space Station

Possible Pluto Moons

The Missing Craters of Asteroid Itokawa

SN 1006: Supernova Remnant in X-Rays

Infrared Helix

Stardust Capsule Returns to Earth

New Horizons Launches to Pluto

The N44 Superbubble

Wisps Surrounding the Horsehead Nebula

An Unusually Smooth Surface on Saturn's Telesto

Unexpected Comet Pojmanski Now Visible

Earth's Shrinking Antarctic Ice Sheet

Super-Earths May Circle Other Stars

Inflating the Universe

Image Credits and Copyrightsavailable on the APOD website

The best images from the first six years of APOD can be found here:

Postscripts

• The Astronomy Picture of the Day website is available online at http://apod.nasa.gov/.

• The Universe: 365 Days book is available at most bookstores including the AMNH museum bookstore.