May 5, 2025
Light takes eight minutes to travel from the Sun to the Earth. It took the universe 13.8 billion years to make you.
Planet Lines Across Water
Birthday · May 5, 2025
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APOD published May 5, 2025. Credit: Jose Antonio Hervas. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
What’s causing those lines? Objects in the sky sometimes appear reflected as lines across water — but why? If the water’s surface is smooth, then reflected objects would appear similarly -- as spots. But if the water is choppy, then there are many places where light from the object can reflect off the water and still come to you -- and so together form, typically, a line. The same effect is frequently seen for the Sun just before sunset and just after sunrise. Pictured about 10 days ago in Ibiza, Spain, images of the rising Moon, Venus (top), and Saturn (right, faint) were captured both directly and in line-reflected forms from the Mediterranean Sea. The other bright object on the right with a water-reflected line is a beacon on a rock to warn passing boats. Explore Your Universe: Random APOD Generator
Image credit: Jose Antonio Hervas