June 10, 1996
On the day you were born, the universe was already ancient beyond measure — and yet, in all those billions of years, it had never once...
Ultraviolet Earth
Birthday · June 10, 1996
A little universe, just for you
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APOD published June 10, 1996. Full image credits are on the original APOD entry below. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
Here's a switch: the above picture is of the Earth taken from a lunar observatory! This false color picture shows how the Earth glows in ultraviolet (UV) light. UV light is so blue humans can't see it. Very little UV light is transmitted through the Earth's atmosphere but what sunlight does make it through can cause a sunburn. The Far UV Camera / Spectrograph deployed and left on the Moon by the crew of Apollo 16 took the above picture. The part of the Earth facing the Sun reflects much UV light, but perhaps more interesting is the side facing away from the Sun. Here bands of UV emission are also apparent. These bands are the result of aurora and are caused by charged particles expelled by the Sun spiraling to Earth along magnetic field lines.