                        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.

                                2020 April 3

                            The Traffic in Taurus
                   Image Credit & Copyright: Lionel Majzik

   Explanation: There's a traffic jam in Taurus lately. On April 1, this
   celestial frame from slightly hazy skies over Tapiobicske, Hungary
   recorded an impressive pile up toward the zodiacal constellation of the
   Bull and the Solar System's ecliptic plane. Streaking right to left the
   International Space Station speeds across the bottom of the telescopic
   field of view. Wandering about as far from the Sun in planet Earth's
   skies as it can get, inner planet Venus is bright and approaching much
   slower, overexposed at the right. Bystanding at the upper left are the
   sister stars of the Pleiades. No one has been injured in the close
   encounter though, because it really isn't very close. Continuously
   occupied since November 2000, the space station orbits some 400
   kilometers above the planet's surface. Venus, currently the brilliant
   evening star, is almost 2/3 of an astronomical unit away. A more
   permanent resident of Taurus, the Pleiades star cluster is 400
   light-years distant.

                     Tomorrow's picture: pixels in space
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