In today's image, we see a fireball visible in the sky over Iceland, near the Arctic Circle. A fireball is a meteor formed by a larger piece of material being vaporized in Earth's upper atmosphere. In the second image, we can see the trail left behind after the fireball itself disappeared.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below the image to select the photo corresponding to the date of this podcast.

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In today's image, we see an image taken from an airplane on a flight to Mexico City. We see the active volcano off in the distance. And, up in the sky, we see the thin crescent moon as well as the planet Venus.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below the image to select the photo corresponding to the date of this podcast.

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In today's image, we see the spiral galaxy known as NGC 7331. this galaxy is about 50 million light years from Earth. Beyond it we see several other galaxies in the distance - since these galaxies appear about 1/10 the size of NGC 7331, we can estimate that they are 10x more distant. (This does assume that the galaxies are about the same diameter!)

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below the image to select the photo corresponding to the date of this podcast.

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In today's image, we see the spiral galaxy known as NGC 4632. The galaxy has a recently discovered polar ring - the ring of material is essentially perpendicular to the plane of the galaxy itself. Further studies and models are ongoing to help us better understand these objects.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below the image to select the photo corresponding to the date of this podcast.

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In today's image, we see the galaxy cluster known as Abell 370. The arcs in the photo are distorted images of distant galaxies beyond the cluster that have be affected by gravitational lensing. When light passes through a region of large mass, its path is changed because of the way the mass distorts the spacetime around it. This was a prediction of Einstein's Theory of General Relativity from over 100 years ago.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below the image to select the photo corresponding to the date of this podcast.

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In today's image, we see both Comet Nishimura and the planet Venus in the morning sky just before sunrise. Comet Nishimura will make its closest approach to Earth tomorrow and then closest to our Sun in about a week before heading back to the outer solar system where it will remain until in next ventures in to the inner solar system about 400 years from now.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below the image to select the photo corresponding to the date of this podcast.

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In today's image, we see an annular solar eclipse from 2012 in New Mexico. Another such Eclipse will occur for parts of North and South America on October 14 of this year. An annular eclipse occurs when the Moon is farther from us in its orbit and does not appear quite large enough to completely block out our Sun. This leaves a ring (or annulus) of material still visible around the limb of the Moon.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below the image to select the photo corresponding to the date of this podcast.

I welcome comments and suggestions about these podcasts. I can be reached here: [email protected]

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

In today's image, we see the recently discovered Comet Nishimura. The comet will make its closest approach to Earth this coming week and the following week will make its closest approach to the Sun. That means that it may brighten enough to be seen without a telescope and is currently visible in the western sky just after sunset.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below the image to select the photo corresponding to the date of this podcast.

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In today's image, we see the nebula known as Messier 17. This is an example of a star forming region where stars are still forming in the dark, dense, dusty pockets. The stars that have formed emit ultraviolet light which energizes the rest of the nebula causing it to glow.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below the image to select the photo corresponding to the date of this podcast.

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In today's image, we see the Large Magellanic Cloud - A satellite galaxy of our larger Milky Way Galaxy. This galaxy contains SN 1987A - The closest supernova to have been seen since the advent of the telescope and the Tarantula Nebula - a massive star forming region much larger than the Orion region which we often study.

My podcasts are available in video form through this YouTube Channel.

This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below the image to select the photo corresponding to the date of this podcast.

I welcome comments and suggestions about these podcasts. I can be reached here: [email protected]

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.