{
  "title": "Messiers and Mars",
  "explanation": "A telescopic tour of the constellation Sagittarius offers the many bright clusters and nebulae of dimensioned space in a starscape surrounding the galactic center. This gorgeous color deep-sky photograph visits two such lovely sights, cataloged by the 18th century cosmic tourist <NAME> as M8 and M20. M20 (upper left), the Trifid Nebula, presents a striking contrast in red/blue colors and dark dust lanes. Just below and to the right is the expansive, alluring red glow of M8, the Lagoon Nebula. Both nebulae are a few thousand light-years distant but at the far right, the dominant celestial beacon is a \"local\" source, the planet Mars. Just passing through Sagittarius and strongly overexposed in this picture, the Red Planet was a short 4 light-minutes away. Now headed for its closest approach to planet Earth in recorded history, Mars rises in the east southeast by midnight shining brightly at about -1.4 magnitude. Urban imager <NAME> recorded this photograph at 3:00 AM on May 20th, 2001 in clear skies over Camp Hancock, Oregon, USA.",
  "date": "2003-06-28",
  "hdurl": "https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/0306/m8m20mars_cole_big.jpg",
  "service_version": "v1",
  "copyright": "<NAME>",
  "media_type": "image",
  "url": "https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/0306/m8m20mars_cole.jpg"
}