June 11, 2009
Long before your first heartbeat, stars were busy forging the elements you would one day call your own.
Pyrenees Paraselene
Birthday · June 11, 2009
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APOD published June 11, 2009. Credit: Patrick Lécureuil. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
A sea of clouds laps at rugged mountain peaks of the French Pyrenees in this serene view from Pic du Midi Observatory. The time exposure was recorded on June 4, with the constellations Sagittarius and Scorpius shining in the starry night. At the top right lies a faint, but colorful moondog or paraselene. Analogous to a sundog or parhelion, the paraselene is produced by moonlight shining through thin, hexagonal-shaped ice crystals in high cirrus clouds. As determined by the ice crystal geometry, a bright gibbous Moon illuminates the scene from beyond the picture's right edge, 22 degrees from the lovely paraselene.
Image credit: Patrick Lécureuil