Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
      fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
                    written by a professional astronomer.

                                 2020 July 1

                             Our Rotating Earth
                Video Credit & Copyright: Bartosz Wojczynski

   Explanation: Has your world ever turned upside-down? It would happen
   every day if you stay fixed to the stars. Most time-lapse videos of the
   night sky show the stars and sky moving above a steady Earth. Here,
   however, the camera has been forced to rotate so that the stars remain
   fixed, and the Earth rotates around them. The movie, with each hour is
   compressed to a second, dramatically demonstrates the daily rotation of
   the Earth, called diurnal motion. The video begins by showing an open
   field in Namibia, Africa, on a clear day, last year. Shadows shift as
   the Earth turns, the shadow of the Earth rises into the sky, the Belt
   of Venus momentarily appears, and then day turns into night. The
   majestic band of our Milky Way Galaxy stretches across the night sky,
   while sunlight-reflecting, Earth-orbiting satellites zoom by. In the
   night sky, you can even spot the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds. The
   video shows a sky visible from Earth's Southern Hemisphere, but a
   similar video could be made for every middle latitude on our blue
   planet.

                  Almost Hyperspace: Random APOD Generator
                       Tomorrow's picture: open space
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       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
            NASA Official: Phillip Newman Specific rights apply.
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                      A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC
                             & Michigan Tech. U.

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