APOD 4.5

This weeks APOD is the enormous galaxy cluster ACT-CL J0102-4915, more colloquially known as El Gordo. This name, which means "the big one" in spanish, accurately reflects the nature of the object, as it is thought to possibly be one of the largest celestial objects known. It spans over 7 million lightyears, and contains mass equal to over a million billion suns. This particular image is a composite image that is comprised of several images taken in different wavelengths. The different colors represent different gasses, with the exception of the blue. The blue, interestingly enough, represents what scientists believe to be concentrations of dark matter.

APOD 4.4

Known as the Elephants Trunk Nebula, this dark and menacing dust nebula resides in IC 1396. Many of the stars shown in the picture are bright, and young. Many of them exude a great deal of energy, so much so in fact that the dark cloud is slowly being dispersed. Waves of energy and particles streaming off of these stars is slowly blasting away all the dust that makes up the nebula. This particular cloud is part of a much larger nebula, that faintly spans nearly 10 full moons in the night sky.

APOD 4.3

The picture shown above is easily identifiable as Mars, the red planet made famous by it's rusty red appearance. Mars just past it's exact point of opposition 3 days ago on April 8th, when this picture was taken. What is interesting about Mars is that due to the elliptic nature of it's orbit, it's point of closest approach with the Earth is actually 3 more days from now, on the 14th. This night is also significant because the moon will be going through a complete lunar eclipse, which will make for a fantastic night of stargazing.