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Birthday · December 22, 2018

A Cold December Night

December 22, 2018

Your life began on a planet that never stops moving under a sky that never stops changing.

A Cold December Night

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APOD published December 22, 2018. Credit: Petr Horálek. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.

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A Cold December Night

Original APOD · December 22, 2018

They say Orion always comes up sideways, and he does seem to on this cold December night. The bright stars of the familiar northern winter constellation lie just above the snowy tree tops surrounding a cozy cottage near the town of Ustupky in the Czech Republic. But Gemini's meteors also seem to rain on the wintry landscape. The meteor streaks are captured in exposures made near last Friday's peak of the annual Geminid meteor shower. They stream away from the shower's radiant above the trees, near the two bright stars of the zodiacal constellation of the Twins. Comet Wirtanen, a visitor to planet Earth's skies, is visible too. Look for its telltale greenish coma near the stars of the seven sisters.

Image credit: Petr Horálek

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