APOD 2.5 (Anticrepuscular Rays Over Colorado)

November 28

While this might look like a strange set of lights caused by either a shiny UFO or a new downtown attraction, it is actually just a common phenomenon involving the sun and some low-hanging clouds.  If you ever go outside during a "cloudy sun shower" (where the sky is partially cloudy, it is raining, and the sun is still brightly shining through, you will probably notice strange lines of light that exactly mimic the openings in the clouds.  Now just place that phenomenon at the right point below the horizon so that everything but the trails is hidden by the Earth's horizon, and you have anticrepuscular rays.

APOD 2.4 (Stephan's Quintet)

November 20

I chose this photo because it shows five of the galaxies that surround our world on every side, all in one small shot via the Hubble telescope.  While one galaxy is obviously not interacting with the others (far off to one side) and another only appears to be part of the group (blue galaxy is actually much closer than the others), the fact that, for the most part, the individual stars in each galaxy are invisible to even one of our most powerful telescopes makes you really think about our significance, since our planet is just one small grain of dust compared to our star, which is microscopic compared to our galaxy at large, so this many galaxies in such a small portion of the sky means our chances of finding a good alternative to Earth before our resources run out look very slim.

APOD 2.3 (Multiverse)

What if there were entire universes parallel to ours on an unseen plane, each one unique from all the rest?  In some, people would just look different because they inherited different genes but made the same choices.  In others, people would make different choices in life, creating a cascade effect that slowly changes the overall layout of that world.  In the most extreme cases, the laws of physics would be different, changing everything that happens, making that universe incompatible with this universe.  However, some multiverse theories even suggest that our universe is constantly being influenced by these unseen worlds (like in some scientific experiments, where even single particles of light tend to follow a wave pattern through a hole in a wall).

At the same time, there are many people who not only don't believe in any of the multiverse theories, but also say that it would be so difficult to prove them that they can never be considered scientific fact.

APOD 2.2 (Spicules)

Almost everyone knows what a solar flare is (a large emission of solar radiation that quickly travels away from the Sun), but only a few know what spicules are.  Basically, it is a lot like the "plop" of water that comes up when you drop something circular in from a great height, at which point a circular area of water moves upward with a force equal to that of the object the moment it hit the water, creating a tubular structure that holds it shape until it runs out of energy to rise upward, and it comes crashing down in the exact opposite way it came up.  Now that the image is fresh in your mind, swap out the water for molten-hot magma gas, and you have the image of a spicule.

APOD 2.1 (A Bucket Wheel Excavator on Earth)

I chose this picture for three reasons.  The first reason is that the NASA crawler that transports the Space Shuttle is dwarfed by this, making it bigger than the largest astronomy-based vehicle ever made.  The second reason is that this could be extremely helpful if we ever need to terraform an extra-terrestrial planet in order to make it inhabitable (example: planet has perfect atmosphere and gravity, but there are so many mountains that farming is nearly impossible).  The third reason is that it is very nice to look at, as are most of the other pictures I have chosen.