National Geographic Photo of the Day: June 14th of 2016

June 14, 2016

A Maze of Grass

Photograph by Gaston Piccinetti, National Geographic Your Shot

A herd of elephants makes its way through Botswana’s Okavango Delta. “These animals move through the shallow waters of the delta easily, leaving behind water channels which, seen from the air, form a large mosaic of green mazes,” writes photographer Gaston Piccinetti, who submitted this image to Your Shot.

Astronomy Picture of the Day: June 14th of 2016

The North America and Pelican Nebulas
Image Credit & Copyright: Ezequiel Etcheverry Explanation: Here lie familiar shapes in unfamiliar locations. On the left is an emission nebula cataloged as NGC 7000, famous partly because it resembles our fair planet's continent of North America. The emission region to the right of the North America Nebula is IC 5070, also known for its suggestive outlines as the Pelican Nebula. Separated by a dark cloud of obscuring dust, the two bright nebulae are about 1,500 light-years away. At that distance, the 4 degree wide field of view spans 100 light-years. This spectacular cosmic portrait combines narrow band images to highlight bright ionization fronts with fine details of dark, dusty forms in silhouette. Emission from atomic hydrogen, sulfur, and oxygen is captured in the narrow band image in scientifically assigned colors. These nebulae can be seen with binoculars from a dark location.

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National Geographic Photo of the Day: June 13th of 2016

June 13, 2016

Crackling Cold

Photograph by Anton Petrus, National Geographic Your Shot

The icy surface of Russia’s Lake Baikal cracks around the rocky outcropping of Elenka Island. Photographer Anton Petrus braved winter temperatures to capture this sunset image.

Astronomy Picture of the Day: June 13th of 2016

Unexplained Dimmings in KIC 8462852
Illustration Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech
Explanation: Why does star KIC 8462852 keep wavering? Nobody knows. A star somewhat similar to our Sun, KIC 8462852 was one of many distant stars being monitored by NASA's robotic Kepler satellite to see if it had planets. Citizen scientists voluntarily co-inspecting the data along with computers found this unusual case where a star's brightness dropped at unexpected times by as much as 20 percent for as long as months -- but then recovered. Common reasons for dimming -- such as eclipses by orbiting planets or stellar companions -- don't match the non-repetitive nature of the dimmings. A currently debated theory is dimming by a cloud of comets or the remnants of a shattered planet, but these would not explain data indicating that the star itself has become slightly dimmer over the past 125 years. Nevertheless, featured here is an artist's illustration of a planet breaking up, drawn to depict NGC 2547-ID8, a different system that shows infrared evidence of such a collision. Recent observations of KIC 8462852 did not detect the infrared glow of a closely orbiting dust disk, but gave a hint that the system might have such a disk farther out. Future observations are encouraged and creative origin speculations are sure to continue.