APOD: 2026 August 28 – The Sky Turns Above Paranal

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APOD: 2026 August 28 – The…

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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.

The Sky Turns Above Paranal

Explanation: At the latitude of ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile, about 25 degrees south, Earth’s rotation moves the planet’s surface eastward at over 1,500 kilometers per hour. And while that’s faster than the speed of sound at sea level, the motion is imperceptible. Still, that motion can be revealed in the apparent rotation of the night sky by photographing star trails. This star trail image was composed from a digital stack of 300 consecutive 25-second exposures made with a camera fixed to a tripod to trace the star trail arcs. The graceful arcs are concentric and centered at the south celestial pole, the southern hemisphere extension of Earth’s axis of rotation into space. One of the observatory’s operating 1.8 meter auxiliary telescopes, AT 3, appears beneath the south celestial pole, faintly illuminated in the foreground of this well-planned scene from a rotating planet.

APOD’s main NASA site is moving: From apod.nasa.gov to science.nasa.gov/apod

Tomorrow’s picture: pixels in space

Date

August 28, 2026

Credit & Copyright:

Osvaldo Castillo

Authors & editors:

Jerry Bonnell, Cecilia Chirenti, Robert Nemiroff, Keighley Rockcliffe

A service of:

ASD at NASA / GSFC,

NASA Science Activation & Michigan Tech. U.

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