                        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.

                                2025 July 18

                              ISS Meets Saturn
                    Image Credit & Copyright: A.J. Smadi

   Explanation: This month, bright planet Saturn rises in evening skies,
   its rings oriented nearly edge-on when viewed from planet Earth. And in
   the early morning hours on July 6, it posed very briefly with the
   International Space Station when viewed from a location in Federal Way,
   Washington, USA. This well-planned image, a stack of video frames,
   captures their momentary conjunction in the same telescopic field of
   view. With the ISS in low Earth orbit, space station and gas giant
   planet were separated by almost 1.4 billion kilometers. Their apparent
   sizes are comparable but the ISS was much brighter than Saturn and the
   ringed planet's brightness has been increased for visibility in the
   stacked image. Precise timing and an exact location were needed to
   capture the ISS/Saturn conjunction.

                      Tomorrow's picture: light-weekend
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       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
            NASA Official: Amber Straughn Specific rights apply.
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                             & Michigan Tech. U.

