May 20, 2020
On the day you were born, another consciousness opened inside the cosmos and began taking notes.
Moon, Mars, Saturn, Jupiter, Milky Way
Birthday · May 20, 2020
A little universe, just for you
Your date.
Ready to give.
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APOD published May 20, 2020. Credit: Mihail Minkov. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
It is not a coincidence that planets line up. That's because all of the planets orbit the Sun in (nearly) a single sheet called the plane of the ecliptic. When viewed from inside that plane -- as Earth dwellers are likely to do -- the planets all appear confined to a single band. It is a coincidence, though, when three of the brightest planets all appear in nearly the same direction. Such a coincidence was captured about a month ago. Featured above, Earth's Moon, Mars, Saturn, and Jupiter were all imaged together, just before sunrise, from the Black Sea coast of Bulgaria. A second band is visible diagonally across this image -- the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy. If you wake up early, you will find that these same planets remain visible in the morning sky this month, too. Astrophysicists: Browse 2,100+ codes in the Astrophysics Source Code Library
Image credit: Mihail Minkov