3.8 Apod

I chose for my last APOD blog of the quarter a photograph entitled "Phobos from Mars Express". This is because I would love to eat a mars bar right now. Anyways, the picture is pretty cool and looks like a huge rock with holes all over. It is one of Mars's two moons, the other being "deimos". The origin of this moon is unknown, and has an irregular shape as well as numerous strange grooves. Within the next twenty million years, due to Phobos's orbit being so close to mars, the moon will break up into a ring and surround Mars. Cool!

3.7 Apod

I chose the APOD blog from today. It is a photograph of the sun as it's coming off of what is described as an unusually quiet Solar Minimum. It doesn't look like what photographs of the sun look like, however the summary explains that the color of the surface is being emitted by hydrogen. The prominences coming off the sun are interesting, resembling smoke. Aparentally they usually appear dark because they have a cooler surface than the sun. Usually these prominences will last for a month.

3.7 APOD blog

Eta Carina is one of our constellations of the week from two weeks ago, so I thought it would be appropriate to chose the photograph "Chasing Carina". The photo capture the constellation Carina's nebula, "Eta Carina". It can also be referred to as "The Great Carina", and it spans over three hundred light years.This is one of the largest active star forming regions and contains a star that is over one hundred times the mass of the sun. The photo was taken by Dieter Willasch.