What's in the sky tonight?
July 29, 2012
-Before and during dawn Monday morning, Jupiter is closest to Aldebaran. They're 4.7° apart, with Aldebaran to Jupiter's lower right.
-Mars and Saturn (magnitudes +1.1 and +0.8, respectively) are low in the west-southwest at dusk. Saturn stands 4½° above similarly-bright Spica. Mars is approaching closer to them every day and will pass between them on August 13th and 14th.
Astro Picture of the Day:
July 29, 2012
Source:
In the center of star-forming region 30 Doradus lies a huge cluster of the largest, hottest, most massive stars known. These stars, known collectively as star cluster R136, were captured above in visible light by the newly installed Wide Field Camera peering though the recently refurbished Hubble Space Telescope. Gas and dust clouds in 30 Doradus, also known as the Tarantula Nebula, have been sculpted into elongated shapes by powerful winds and ultraviolet radiation from these hot cluster stars. The 30 Doradus Nebula lies within a neighboring galaxy known as the Large Magellanic Cloud and is located a mere 170,000 light-years away.