Dear Steemit community!

Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) is originated, written, coordinated, and edited since 1995 by Robert Nemiroff and Jerry Bonnell. They are publishing astronomical content on a daily basis, since more than 20 years! Indeed APOD celebrated its 22nd birthday on 16th of June 2017, and with the beginning of the 23rd year of publication we are delighted to announce the kickoff of the official mirror here on Steemit.

In real life, Bob and Jerry are two professional astronomers who spend most of their time researching the universe. Bob is a professor at Michigan Technological University in Houghton, Michigan, USA, while Jerry is a scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland USA. They are two married, mild and lazy guys who might appear relatively normal to an unsuspecting guest. Together, they have found new and unusual ways of annoying people such as staging astronomical debates. Most people are surprised to learn that they have developed the perfect random number generator.

APOD comes not only in pictures, but there are also often videos posted and explained.
We now want to give you and idea how an APOD looks. Copyrights of the pictures are still with the owners, but APOD has the right to use them. Eventual gains here on steemit will be distributed equally to everyone involved.

Thank you for welcoming us here.

Astronomy Picture of the Day

2017 June 17

Saturn near Opposition
Image Credit & Copyright: D. Peach, E. Kraaikamp, F. Colas, M. Delcroix, R. Hueso, G. Therin, C. Sprianu, S2P, IMCCE, OMP

Explanation: Saturn reached its 2017 opposition on June 16th. Of course, opposition means opposite the Sun in Earth's sky and near opposition Saturn is up all night, at its closest and brightest for the year. This remarkably sharp image of the ringed planet was taken only days before, on June 11, with a 1-meter telescope from the mountain top Pic du Midi observatory. North is at the top with the giant planet's north polar storm and curious hexagon clearly seen bathed in sunlight. But Saturn's spectacular ring system is also shown in stunning detail. The narrow Encke division is visible around the entire outer A ring, small ringlets can be traced within the fainter inner C ring, and Saturn's southern hemisphere can be glimpsed through the wider Cassini division. Near opposition Saturn's rings also appear exceptionally bright, known as the opposition surge or Seeliger Effect. Directly illuminated from Earth's perspective, the ring's icy particles cast no shadows and strongly backscatter sunlight creating the dramatic increase in brightness. Still, the the best viewsopposition
surge of the ringed planet are currently from the Saturn-orbiting Cassini spacecraft. Diving close, Cassini's Grand Finale orbit number 9 is in progress.

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