May 24, 2004
On your birthday, photons that left distant stars before humans walked the Earth finally completed their journey. You began yours.
Planets Over Easter Island
Birthday · May 24, 2004
A little universe, just for you
Your date.
Ready to give.
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APOD published May 24, 2004. Credit: Magnus Galfalk (Stockholm Observatory). A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
It isn't every day that planets line up behind a stone giant. For one thing, it helps to have a good planet line-up, such as occurred in the sky just last month. For another, it helps to be on Easter Island, where over 800 large stone statues exist. The Easter Island statues, stand, on the average, over twice as tall as a person and have over 200 times as much mass. Few specifics are known about the history or meaning of the unusual statues, but many believe that they were created about 500 years ago in the images of local leaders of a lost civilization. Pictured above, the Moon, Venus, and Mars can be seen behind Ahu Tahai, a famous Easter Island statue. The bright star Aldebaran is also visible.
Image credit: Magnus Galfalk (Stockholm Observatory)