Friday, April 29, 2011

APOD 4.5 (Scintillating)

I picked this one because it shows how little difference there is between a planet and a star.  The planet Mars and the star Regulus both make the same apparent "path" through the sky when their photo is taken by a swinging camera, but since Mars' light scatters less before it arrives here and Regulus' light is less consistent, it makes Mars' path have a constant red color while Regulus' path appears to be rainbow-colored.

No comments:

Post a Comment