Snippets

My name is Sergio and I am a full-stack developer based in London.

This site is a small collection of entries from the NASA Astronomy Pictures Of Day API. Reference to the original entries and image credits are listed below. The source code for this website up on github.

Reach out via twitter, linkedIn or email. I am open for freelance work!

Credits

Stars over an Erupting Volcano:
- original entry
- Images (from top to bottom as they appear on the page):
Io Eclipse Shadow on Jupiter from Juno:
- original entry
- Images
Equinox: The Sun from Solstice to Solstice:
- original entry
- Images
Asteroid Ryugu from Hayabusa2:
- original entry
- Images
NGC 7023: The Iris Nebula:
- original entry
- Images

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Asteroid Ryugu from Hayabusa2

This big space diamond has an estimated value of over 80 billion dollars. It's only diamond in shape, though -- asteroid 162173 Ryugu is thought to be composed of mostly nickel and iron. Asteroids like Ryugu are interesting for several reasons,

perhaps foremost because they are near the Earth and might, one day in the far future, pose an impact threat. In the nearer term, Ryugu is interesting because it may be possible to send future spacecraft there to mine it, thus providing humanity with a new source of valuable metals.

Scientifically, Ryugu is interesting because it carries information about how our Solar System formed billions of years ago, and why its orbit takes it so close to Earth.

Japan's robotic spacecraft Hayabusa2 arrived at this one-kilometer wide asteroid in late June of 2018. The featured images show surface structures unknown before spacecraft Hayabusa2's arrival, including rock fields and craters.

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Io Eclipse Shadow on Jupiter from Juno

What's that dark spot on Jupiter? It's the shadow of Jupiter's most volcanic moon Io. Since Jupiter shines predominantly by reflected sunlight, anything that blocks that light leaves a shadow. If you could somehow be in that shadow, you would see a total eclipse of the Sun by Io.

Io's shadow is about 3600 kilometers across, roughly the same size as Io itself -- and only slightly larger than Earth's Moon. Images of the shadow were taken by NASA's robotic Juno spacecraft currently orbiting Jupiter.

About every two months, Juno swoops close by Jupiter, takes a lot of data and snaps a series of images -- some of which are made into a video. Among many other things, Juno has been measuring Jupiter's gravitational field,

finding surprising evidence that Jupiter may be mostly a liquid. Under unexpectedly thick clouds, the Jovian giant may house a massive liquid hydrogen region that extends all the way to the center.

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NGC 7023: The Iris Nebula

These cosmic clouds have blossomed 1,300 light-years away, in the fertile starfields of the constellation Cepheus. Called the Iris Nebula, NGC 7023 is not the only nebula to evoke the imagery of flowers, though. Still, this deep telescopic image shows off the Iris Nebula's range of colors and symmetries, embedded in surrounding fields of interstellar dust.

Within the Iris itself, dusty nebular material surrounds a hot, young star. The dominant color of the brighter reflection nebula is blue, characteristic of dust grains reflecting starlight. Central filaments of the reflection nebula glow with a faint reddish photoluminesence as some dust grains effectively convert the star's invisible ultraviolet radiation to visible red light.

Infrared observations indicate that this nebula contains complex carbon molecules known as PAHs. The pretty blue petals of the Iris Nebula span about six light-years. The colorful field-of-view stretches almost five Full Moons across the sky.

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Stars over an Erupting Volcano

Mt. Etna has been erupting for hundreds of thousands of years. Located in Sicily, Italy, the volcano produces lava fountains over one kilometer high. Mt. Etna is not only one of the most active volcanoes on Earth,

it is one of the largest, measuring over 50 kilometers at its base and rising nearly 3 kilometers high. Pictured erupting last month, a lava plume shoots upwards, while hot lava flows down the volcano's exterior.

Likely satellite trails appear above, while ancient stars dot the sky far in the distance. This volcanic eruption was so strong that nearby airports were closed to keep planes from flying through the dangerous plume.

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Equinox: The Sun from Solstice to Solstice

September 22, 2012, was an equinox, a date when day and night are equal. That day, and every day until the next equinox, the night would be longer than the day in Earth's northern hemisphere, and the day would be longer than the night in Earth's southern hemisphere.

An equinox occurs midway between the two solstices, when the days and nights are the least equal. The first picture is a composite of hourly images taken of the Sun above Bursa, Turkey on key days from solstice to equinox to solstice.

The bottom Sun band was taken during the winter solstice in 2007 December, when the Sun could not rise very high in the sky nor stay above the horizon very long. This lack of Sun caused winter. The top Sun band was taken during the summer solstice in 2008 June,

when the Sun rose highest in the sky and stayed above the horizon for more than 12 hours. This abundance of Sun caused summer. The middle band was taken during the Vernal Equinox in 2008 March, but it is the same sun band that Earthlings saw yesterday, the day of the Autumnal Equinox.