February 12, 2014
The light from the farthest visible stars set out on its journey long before your first birthday.
Rocket, Meteor, and Milky Way over Thailand
Birthday · February 12, 2014
A little universe, just for you
Your date.
Ready to give.
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APOD published February 12, 2014. Credit: Matipon Tangmatitham. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
Can the night sky appear both serene and surreal? Perhaps classifiable as serene in the above panoramic image taken last Friday are the faint lights of small towns glowing across a dark foreground landscape of Doi Inthanon National Park in Thailand, as well as the numerous stars glowing across a dark background starscape. Also visible are the planet Venus and a band of zodiacal light on the image left. Unusual events are also captured, however. First, the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy, while usually a common sight, appears here to hover surreally above the ground. Next, a fortuitous streak of a meteor was captured on the image right. Perhaps the most unusual component is the bright spot just to the left of the meteor. That spot is the plume of a rising Ariane 5 rocket, launched a few minutes before from Kourou, French Guiana. How lucky was the astrophotographer to capture the rocket launch in his image? Pretty lucky -- the image was not timed to capture the rocket. Also lucky was how photogenic -- and perhaps surreal -- the rest of the sky turned out to be.
Image credit: Matipon Tangmatitham