Astronomy Picture of the Day
The sky is filled with breathtaking pictures, many of which are available
on the World Wide Web. Each day we feature a different picture of some
part of our fascinating universe, along with a brief explanation written by
a professional astronomer.
Today's Picture:
Explanation:
If the Earth could somehow be transformed to the ultra-high density of a
neutron star ,
it might appear as it does in the above computer generated
figure. Due to the very strong gravitational field, the neutron star
distorts light from the background sky greatly. If you look closely, two
images of the constellation Orion are visible. The gravity of this
particular neutron star is so great that no part of the neutron star is
blocked from view - light is pulled around by gravity even from the back of
the neutron star.
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Astronomy Picture of the Day is brought to you by
Robert Nemiroff
and
Jerry Bonnell
.
Original material on this page is copyrighted to Robert Nemiroff and
Jerry Bonnell.