                        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.

                               2022 January 8

                          Quadrantids of the North
                     Image Credit & Copyright: Cheng Luo

   Explanation: Named for a forgotten constellation, the Quadrantid Meteor
   Shower puts on an annual show for planet Earth's northern hemisphere
   skygazers. The shower's radiant on the sky lies within the old,
   astronomically obsolete constellation Quadrans Muralis. That location
   is not far from the Big Dipper, at the boundaries of the modern
   constellations Bootes and Draco. In fact north star Polaris is just
   below center in this frame and the Big Dipper asterism (known to some
   as the Plough) is above it, with the meteor shower radiant to the
   right. Pointing back toward the radiant, Quadrantid meteors streak
   through the night in the panoramic skyscape, a composite of images
   taken in the hours around the shower's peak on January 4, 2022. Arrayed
   in the foreground are radio telescopes of the Chinese Spectral
   Radioheliograph, Mingantu Observing Station, Inner Mongolia, China. A
   likely source of the dust stream that produces Quadrantid meteors was
   identified in 2003 as an asteroid.

          Status Updates: Deploying the James Webb Space Telescope
                   Tomorrow's picture: shrinking red spot
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       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
            NASA Official: Phillip Newman Specific rights apply.
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                             & Michigan Tech. U.

