April 9, 2010
Somewhere in the sky tonight, a star is being born in a cloud of gas and dust, beginning a journey that will last billions of years.
Discovery's Dawn
Birthday · April 9, 2010
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APOD published April 9, 2010. Credit: rocket engine plumes. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
On April 5, visitors to Kennedy Space Center saw these colorful clouds, twisting and drifting through dawn skies. Of course, the clouds were rocket engine plumes from the predawn launch of the space shuttle Discovery on the STS-131 mission to the International Space Station. Their layered colors are created as they reflect the reddened light from the still rising Sun. Fittingly, denizens of the space center's rocket garden are lit in the foreground. At the far left is a 1960s vintage multistage Atlas-Agena rocket. Together on the right, are Mercury-Redstone and Mercury-Atlas rockets.
Image credit: rocket engine plumes