April 12, 2012
Light takes eight minutes to travel from the Sun to the Earth. It took the universe 13.8 billion years to make you.
Yuri's Planet
Birthday · April 12, 2012
A little universe, just for you
Your date.
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APOD published April 12, 2012. Full image credits are on the original APOD entry below. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
On another April 12th, in 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Alexseyevich Gagarin became the first human to see planet Earth from space. Commenting on his view from orbit he reported, "The sky is very dark; the Earth is bluish. Everything is seen very clearly". To celebrate, consider this recent image from the orbiting International Space Station. A stunning view of the planet at night from an altitude of 240 miles, it was recorded on March 28. The lights of Moscow, Russia are near picture center and one of the station's solar panel arrays is on the left. Aurora and the glare of sunlight lie along the planet's gently curving horizon. Stars above the horizon include the compact Pleiades star cluster, immersed in the auroral glow.