August 21, 1995
Light takes eight minutes to travel from the Sun to the Earth. It took the universe 13.8 billion years to make you.
An Orbiting Iceberg
Birthday · August 21, 1995
A little universe, just for you
Your date.
Ready to give.
Free PNG · 1080 × 1350 · No account needed
Image rights and credit requirements apply when sharing or reusing imagery.
Date & occasion only
Change the year
APOD published August 21, 1995. Full image credits are on the original APOD entry below. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
August 21, 1995 An Orbiting Iceberg Credit: European Space Agency, Giotto Camera Team. Explanation: A comet nucleus, formed from the primordial stuff of the solar system, resembles a very dirty iceberg. Orbiting far from our Sun, it can remain frozen, preserved for billions of years. Occasionally, a chance gravitational encounter will alter this distant orbit and send the nucleus plummeting towards the inner solar system. In 1986, the European spacecraft Giotto visited the nucleus of Halley's comet as it approached the sun. Data from Giotto's cameras were used to produce this enhanced image which shows surface features on the dark nucleus against the bright background of clouds of gasses produced as the icy material was vaporized by the Sun's heat. The potato shaped nucleus measures about 10 miles across.