Astronomy Picture of the Day

The Astronomy Picture of the Day

* duh duh duh duuuhhh*

This is a picture of the Rio "Morning Moonset".

Explanation: As the Sun rose, a nearly full Moon set in this serene seaside vista captured last Monday from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In the foreground, the reddened early morning sunlight illuminates a stretch of South Atlantic coastline. Looking toward the west, a scene that is a familiar one to Rio's Ipanema beach goers, the favela Vidigal is nestled below the twin peaks of Morro Dois Irmãos (Two Brothers Hill). This well-composed multiple-exposure image recorded the steady progress of the dramatic moonset with a 6.5 minute gap between each frame. Flying from their nests at the break of dawn, all the ocean birds appear only in the last single frame.


This picture and information is from a
NASA data base for "The Astronomy Picture of the Day".
Click here to see the archive of amazing pictures.