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Friday, October 9, 2009

Next APOD: 2009 October 10 - LCROSS Centaur Impact Flash

APOD Next the Coming NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day

APOD: 2009 October 10 - LCROSS Centaur Impact Flash [link]

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LCROSS Centaur Impact Flash
Credit: NASA, LCROSS Mission Team

Explanation: This mid-infrared image was taken in the last minutes of the LCROSS flight mission to the Moon. The small white spot (enlarged in the insets) seen within the dark shadow of lunar crater walls is the initial flash created by the impact of a spent Centaur upper stage rocket. Traveling at 1.5 miles per second, the Centaur rocket hit the lunar surface yesterday at 4:31am UT, followed a few minutes later by the shepherding LCROSS spacecraft. Earthbound observatories have reported capturing both impacts. But before crashing into the lunar surface itself, the LCROSS spacecraft's instrumentation successfully recorded close-up the details of the rocket stage impact, the resulting crater, and debris cloud. In the coming weeks, data from the challenging mission will be used to search for signs of water in the lunar material blasted from the surface.

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    Next APOD: 2009 October 9 - Starburst Galaxy IC 10

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    APOD: 2009 October 9 - Starburst Galaxy IC 10 [link]

     ap091009_html

    Starburst Galaxy IC 10
    Credit & Copyright: Mike Siniscalchi

    Explanation: Lurking behind dust and stars near the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy, IC 10 is a mere 2.3 million light-years distant. Its light dimmed by the intervening dust, the irregular dwarf galaxy still shows off vigorous star-forming regions that shine with a telltale reddish glow in this colorful skyscape. In fact, also a member of the Local Group of galaxies, IC 10 is the closest known starburst galaxy. Compared to other Local Group galaxies, IC 10 has a large population of newly formed stars that are massive and intrinsically very bright, including a luminous X-ray binary star system thought to contain a black hole. Located within the boundaries of the northern constellation Cassiopeia, IC 10 is about 5,000 light-years across.

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