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.

2010 April 12

Mercury and Venus Over Paris Credit & Copyright: Josselin Desmars

Explanation: Go outside tonight and see one of the more interesting planetary conjunctions of recent years. Just after sunset, the planets Mercury and Venus are visible quite near each other. Now Venus, being commonlydiscernible as one of the brightest objects in the sky, is frequently mistaken for an airplane. (Venus will set quite slowly, though.) Mercury, however, is dimmer and usually harder to find. Recently, though, Mercury can befound just to the right of Venus, appearing increasingly below the brighter planet over the next week. Pictured above, Venus and Mercury were imaged next to the famous Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France. A careful inspection of the image will further reveal that the bright object nearly below Venus is iconic Eiffel Tower.

Japan going to send robots to the moon

It is a grand plan no doubt. And since this  is Japan, robots are getting involved in the plan to “colonize” the moon. By 2020, Japan’s Strategic Headquarters for Space Development is planning to send robots to the moon followed by a joint mission involving astronauts and robots. This is part of Japan’s space strategy. Though there are no specifics on what kind of robots will be used or developed, Akihabara seems to have its mind made up on the kind of robots it wants on the moon. Here it is and pretty sexy too.