                        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.

                               2023 August 31

                              The Crew-7 Nebula
                  Image Credit & Copyright: Michael Seeley

   Explanation: Not the James Webb Space Telescope's latest view of a
   distant galactic nebula, this illuminated cloud of gas and dust dazzled
   early morning spacecoast skygazers on August 26. The snapshot was taken
   about 2 minutes after the launch of of a Falcon 9 rocket on the SpaceX
   Crew-7 mission, the seventh commercial crew rotation mission for the
   International Space Station. It captures drifting plumes and exhaust
   from the separated first and second stage illuminated against the still
   dark skies. Near the center of the image, within the ragged blueish
   ring, are two bright points of light. The lower one is the second stage
   of the rocket carrying 4 humans to space in a Crew Dragon spacecraft.
   The bright point above is the Falcon 9 first stage booster orienting
   itself for the trip back to Landing Zone-1 at Cape Canaveral, planet
   Earth.

                  Tomorrow's picture: a great little patch
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       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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