Astronomy Picture of the Day

Explanation: Moonlight illuminates the landscape and lends a painterly quality to this beautiful photograph of the Absaroka mountain range, located along the Montana-Wyoming border near the USA's Yellowstone National Park. In the foreground lies the North Fork of the Shoshone River. The snow-covered peak rising 10,500 feet on the left is Jim Mountain, while Comet Hale-Bopp graces the western sky. Inspired by painters of the American West, like Fredric Remington, Charles Russell, and George "Dee" Smith, photographer Dewey Vanderhoff of Cody, Wyoming has taken advantage of the double blessings of a bright Moon and a bright comet to produce this breathtaking image.