Astronomy Picture of the Day [1]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 September 27 [2]See Explanation. Clicking on the picture will download the highest resolution version available. A Rocket in the Sun Image Credit & [3]Copyright: [4]Pascal Fouquet Explanation: [5]On the morning of September 24 a rocket crosses the bright solar disk in this long range telescopic snapshot captured from Orlando, Florida. That's about 50 miles north of its Kennedy Space Center launch site. This rocket carried three new space weather missions to space. Signals have now been successfully acquired [6]from all three - NASA's Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe, NASA’s Carruthers [7]Geocorona Observatory, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Space Weather Follow-On Lagrange 1 (SWFO-L1) - as they begin their journey to L1, an Earth-Sun lagrange point. [8]L1 is about 1.5 million kilometers in the sunward direction from planet Earth. Appropriately, major space weather influencers, aka dark sunspots in active regions across the Sun, are posing with the transiting rocket. [9]In fact, large active region AR4225 is just right of the rocket's nose. Tomorrow's picture: spots on the rocks __________________________________________________________________ [10]< | [11]Archive | [12]Submissions | [13]Index | [14]Search | [15]Calendar | [16]RSS | [17]Education | [18]About APOD | [19]Discuss | [20]> __________________________________________________________________ Authors & editors: [21]Robert Nemiroff ([22]MTU) & [23]Jerry Bonnell ([24]UMCP) NASA Official: Amber Straughn [25]Specific rights apply. [26]NASA Web Privacy, [27]Accessibility, [28]Notices; A service of: [29]ASD at [30]NASA / [31]GSFC, [32]NASA Science Activation & [33]Michigan Tech. U. References 1. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html 2. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2509/IMAP-IG2-001.JPG 3. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/about_apod.html#srapply 4. https://www.instagram.com/pf.photography__/ 5. https://science.nasa.gov/blogs/imap/2025/09/24/liftoff-three-new-space-weather-spacecraft-soar-into-florida-sky/ 6. https://science.nasa.gov/blogs/imap/ 7. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap181028.html 8. https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/L1_the_first_Lagrangian_Point 9. https://earthsky.org/sun/sun-news-activity-solar-flare-cme-aurora-updates/ 10. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap250926.html 11. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html 12. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/apsubmit2015.html 13. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/aptree.html 14. https://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/apod/apod_search 15. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/calendar/allyears.html 16. https://apod.com/feed.rss 17. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/edlinks.html 18. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/about_apod.html 19. https://asterisk.apod.com/discuss_apod.php?date=250927 20. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap250928.html 21. http://www.phy.mtu.edu/faculty/Nemiroff.html 22. http://www.phy.mtu.edu/ 23. https://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/htmltest/jbonnell/www/bonnell.html 24. http://www.astro.umd.edu/ 25. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/about_apod.html#srapply 26. https://www.nasa.gov/about/highlights/HP_Privacy.html 27. https://www.nasa.gov/general/accessibility/ 28. https://www.nasa.gov/privacy/ 29. https://astrophysics.gsfc.nasa.gov/ 30. https://www.nasa.gov/ 31. https://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/ 32. https://science.nasa.gov/learners 33. http://www.mtu.edu/