March 17, 2001
You share your birthday with the light of distant galaxies that has been traveling for millions of years just to arrive here, now, alongside...
Astro-2 In Orbit
Birthday · March 17, 2001
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 March 17, 2001. Full image credits are on the original APOD entry below. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
Six years ago, a cluster of three ultraviolet telescopes flew into orbit on the Astro-2 mission aboard the space shuttle Endeavour. Seen here perched in Endeavour's payload bay about 350 kilometers above the Australian desert are the Hopkins Ultraviolet Telescope (HUT), the Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (UIT), and the Wisconsin Ultraviolet Photo-Polarimeter Experiment (WUPPE). HUT is in front of the other instruments with a silver, conical-shaped star tracker at the left of the telescope cluster. The ultraviolet region of the electromagnetic spectrum lies at wavelengths shorter than blue light and can not be seen by human eyes. Almost all ultraviolet light from the cosmos is impossible to detect at the Earth's surface because it is absorbed by atmospheric ozone. But cruising high above the clouds and protective atmosphere, these instruments could explore the universe at wavelengths beyond the blue.