Author Topic: NASA's Picture of the Day  (Read 11214 times)

injest

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NASA's Picture of the Day
« on: August 24, 2008, 10:49:43 pm »

injest

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Re: NASA's Picture of the Day
« Reply #1 on: August 25, 2008, 07:54:06 am »


NGC 7008: The Fetus Nebula

injest

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Re: NASA's Picture of the Day
« Reply #2 on: August 26, 2008, 07:26:45 pm »




47 Tuc: A Great Globular Cluster of Stars

injest

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Re: NASA's Picture of the Day
« Reply #3 on: August 27, 2008, 08:24:54 am »


IC 5146: The Cocoon Nebula
Credit & Copyright: Ken Crawford (Rancho Del Sol Observatory)
Explanation: Inside the Cocoon Nebula is a newly developing cluster of stars. Cataloged as IC 5146, the beautiful nebula is nearly 15 light-years wide, located some 4,000 light years away toward the northern constellation Cygnus. Like other star forming regions, it stands out in red, glowing, hydrogen gas excited by young, hot stars and blue, dust-reflected starlight at the edge of an otherwise invisible molecular cloud. In fact, the bright star near the center of this nebula is likely only a few hundred thousand years old, powering the nebular glow as it clears out a cavity in the molecular cloud's star forming dust and gas. This color view of the Cocoon Nebula traces remarkably subtle features within and surrounding the dusty stellar nursery.




injest

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Re: NASA's Picture of the Day
« Reply #4 on: August 28, 2008, 07:20:33 am »



Explanation: Launched on June 11 to explore the universe at extreme energies, the Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope has been officially renamed the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, in honor of Nobel Laureate Enrico Fermi (1901-1954), pioneer in high-energy physics. After testing, Fermi's two instruments, the Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM) and the Large Area Telescope (LAT), are now regularly returning data. Fermi's first map of the gamma-ray sky from the LAT is shown in this false-color image, an all-sky view that looks toward the center of our Milky Way Galaxy with the galactic plane projected across the middle. What shines in the gamma-ray sky? Along the galactic plane, energetic cosmic rays collide with gas and dust to produce the diffuse gamma-ray glow. Strong emission from spinning neutron stars or pulsars, and distant active galaxies known as blazars, can be identified by placing your cursor over the map. A prelude to future discoveries, the remarkable result combines only 4 days of observations, equivalent to a year of observations with the Compton Gamma-ray Observatory mission of the 1990s. In addition to the ability to monitor gamma-ray bursts, the greatly improved sensitivity will allow Fermi to look deeper into the high-energy Universe.




injest

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Re: NASA's Picture of the Day
« Reply #5 on: August 29, 2008, 08:42:01 pm »



Generations of Stars in W5

Credit Lori Allen, Xavier Koenig (Harvard-Smithsonian CfA) et al., JPL-Caltech, NASA

Explanation: Giant star forming region W5 is over 200 light-years across and about 6,500 light-years away in the constellation Cassiopeia. W5's sculpted clouds of cold gas and dust seem to form fantastic shapes in this impressive mosaic of infrared images from the Spitzer Space Telescope. In fact, the area on the right includes the structures previously dubbed the Mountains of Creation. New evidence indicates that successive generations of stars formed in the W5 region in an expanding pattern of triggered star formation. The older, earlier generations of stars seem to cluster near the middle of the enormous cavities, with younger stars seen near the rims. Winds and radiation from the older, central stars likely carve out and compress surrounding interstellar material, triggering the collapse that gave rise to younger, later generations of stars farther out. In the false-color image, heated dust still within the cavities appears red, while the youngest stars are forming in the whitish areas. W5 is also known as IC 1848, and together with IC 1805 it is part of a complex region popularly dubbed the Heart and Soul Nebulae.


injest

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Re: NASA's Picture of the Day
« Reply #6 on: August 30, 2008, 08:34:16 am »




The Matter of the Bullet Cluster
 
Composite Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/CfA/ M.Markevitch et al.;
Lensing Map: NASA/STScI; ESO WFI; Magellan/U.Arizona/ D.Clowe et al.
Optical: NASA/STScI; Magellan/U.Arizona/D.Clowe et al.

Explanation: The matter in galaxy cluster 1E 0657-56, fondly known as the "bullet cluster", is shown in this composite image. A mere 3.4 billion light-years away, the bullet cluster's individual galaxies are seen in the optical image data, but their total mass adds up to far less than the mass of the cluster's two clouds of hot x-ray emitting gas shown in red. Representing even more mass than the optical galaxies and x-ray gas combined, the blue hues show the distribution of dark matter in the cluster. Otherwise invisible to telescopic views, the dark matter was mapped by observations of gravitational lensing of background galaxies. In a text book example of a shock front, the bullet-shaped cloud of gas at the right was distorted during the titanic collision between two galaxy clusters that created the larger bullet cluster itself. But the dark matter present has not interacted with the cluster gas except by gravity. The clear separation of dark matter and gas clouds is considered direct evidence that dark matter exists.


injest

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Re: NASA's Picture of the Day
« Reply #7 on: August 31, 2008, 02:15:30 pm »


Active Galaxy NGC 1275

Credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble Heritage (STScI/AURA);
A. Fabian (IoA, Cambridge U.), L. Frattare (STScI), CXC, G. Taylor, NRAO,VLA

Explanation: Active galaxy NGC 1275 is the central, dominant member of the large and relatively nearby Perseus Cluster of Galaxies. A prodigious source of x-rays and radio emission, NGC 1275 accretes matter as entire galaxies fall into it, ultimately feeding a supermassive black hole at the galaxy's core. This stunning visible light image from the Hubble Space Telescope shows galactic debris and filaments of glowing gas, some up to 20,000 light-years long. The filaments persist in NGC 1275, even though the turmoil of galactic collisions should destroy them. What keeps the filaments together? Recent work indicates that the structures, pushed out from the galaxy's center by the black hole's activity, are held together by magnetic fields. To add x-ray data from the Chandra Observatory and radio data from the Very Large Array to the Hubble image, just slide your cursor over the picture. In the resulting composite, x-rays highlight the shells of hot gas surrounding the center of the galaxy, with radio emission filling giant bubble-shaped cavities. Also known as Perseus A, NGC 1275 spans over 100,000 light years and lies about 230 million light years away.

NOTE: This is the composite view of this picture showing the xray and radio data..Jess

Offline brokeplex

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Re: NASA's Picture of the Day
« Reply #8 on: August 31, 2008, 08:33:25 pm »
lovely pictures, thank you.

injest

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Re: NASA's Picture of the Day
« Reply #9 on: September 01, 2008, 10:10:47 am »


CG4: A Ruptured Cometary Globule

Credit & Copyright: Mike Sidonio

Explanation: Can a gas cloud grab a galaxy? It's not even close. The "claw" of this odd looking "creature" in the above photo is a gas cloud known as a cometary globule. This globule, however, has ruptured. Cometary globules are typically characterized by dusty heads and elongated tails. These features cause cometary globules to have visual similarities to comets, but in reality they are very much different. Globules are frequently the birthplaces of stars, and many show very young stars in their heads. The reason for the rupture in the head of this object is not completely known. The galaxy to the left of the globule is huge, very far in the distance, and only placed near CG4 by chance superposition.




injest

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Re: NASA's Picture of the Day
« Reply #10 on: September 01, 2008, 10:12:21 am »
lovely pictures, thank you.

your welcome. I have always been interested in astronomy.

injest

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Re: NASA's Picture of the Day
« Reply #11 on: September 02, 2008, 07:46:27 am »


NGC 1316: After Galaxies Collide

Credit & Copyright: Martin Pugh

Explanation: Astronomers turn detectives when trying to figure out the cause of startling sights like NGC 1316. Their investigation indicates that NGC 1316 is an enormous elliptical galaxy that started, about 100 million years ago, to devour a smaller spiral galaxy neighbor, NGC 1317, just above it. Supporting evidence includes the dark dust lanes characteristic of a spiral galaxy, and faint swirls of stars and gas visible in this wide and deep image. What remains unexplained are the unusually small globular star clusters, seen as faint dots on the image. Most elliptical galaxies have more and brighter globular clusters than NGC 1316. Yet the observed globulars are too old to have been created by the recent spiral collision. One hypothesis is that these globulars survive from an even earlier galaxy that was subsumed into NGC 1316.


injest

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Re: NASA's Picture of the Day
« Reply #12 on: September 02, 2008, 08:54:17 am »
I know that is happening over a million years but can you imagine if there are intelligent beings there with enough technology to see what is happening and knowing all that destruction is coming?

injest

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Re: NASA's Picture of the Day
« Reply #13 on: September 03, 2008, 08:18:51 am »


31 Million Miles from Planet Earth

Video Credit: Donald J. Lindler, Sigma Space Corporation, GSFC,
Univ. Maryland, EPOCh/DIXI Science Teams

Explanation: On July 4th, 2005, the Deep Impact spacecraft directed a probe to impact the nucleus of Comet Tempel 1. Still cruising through the solar system, earlier this year the robotic spacecraft looked back to record a series of images of its home world 31 million miles (50 million kilometers) away. In a sequence from top left to bottom right, these four frames from the video show a rotating Earth. They combine visible and near-infrared image data with enough resolution and contrast to see clouds, oceans, and continents. They also follow a remarkable transit of Earth by its large, natural satellite, the Moon. The Moon's orbital motion carries it across the field of view from left to right. Imaging the Earth from this distant perspective allows astronomers to connect overall variations in brightness at different wavelengths with planetary features. The observations will aid in the search for earth-like planets in other solar systems.


Offline Brokeback_Dev

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Re: NASA's Picture of the Day
« Reply #14 on: September 03, 2008, 12:05:34 pm »
Wow our Planet is beautiful

injest

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Re: NASA's Picture of the Day
« Reply #15 on: September 03, 2008, 08:03:27 pm »
Wow our Planet is beautiful

so is our lil moon!

injest

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Re: NASA's Picture of the Day
« Reply #16 on: September 04, 2008, 08:32:11 am »



Spokes in the Helix Nebula

Credit & Copyright: Don Goldman, Sierra Remote Observatories

Explanation: At first glance, the Helix Nebula (aka NGC 7293), looks simple and round. But this well-studied example of a planetary nebula, produced near the end of the life of a sun-like star, is now understood to have a surprisingly complex geometry. Its extended loops and comet-shaped features have been explored in Hubble Space Telescope images. Still, a 16-inch diameter telescope and camera with broad and narrow band filters was used to create this sharp view of the Helix. The color composite also reveals the nebula's intriguing details, including light-year long, bluegreen radial stripes or spokes that give it the appearance of a cosmic bicycle wheel. The spoke features seem to indicate that the Helix Nebula is itself an old and evolved planetary nebula. The Helix is a mere seven hundred light years from Earth, in the constellation Aquarius.



injest

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Re: NASA's Picture of the Day
« Reply #17 on: September 04, 2008, 08:33:09 am »
they say it looks like a bicycle wheel...to me it looks like an eye

Offline Brokeback_Dev

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Re: NASA's Picture of the Day
« Reply #18 on: September 04, 2008, 09:23:23 am »
Fascinating

injest

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Re: NASA's Picture of the Day
« Reply #19 on: September 05, 2008, 02:19:10 am »


NGC 6960: The Witch's Broom Nebula

Credit & Copyright: Adam Block, Mount Lemmon SkyCenter, Univ. Arizona

Explanation: Ten thousand years ago, before the dawn of recorded human history, a new light must suddenly have appeared in the night sky and faded after a few weeks. Today we know this light was an exploding star and record the colorful expanding cloud as the Veil Nebula. Pictured above is the west end of the Veil Nebula known technically as NGC 6960 but less formally as the Witch's Broom Nebula. The expanding debris cloud gains its colors by sweeping up and exciting existing nearby gas. The supernova remnant lies about 1400 light-years away towards the constellation of Cygnus. This Witch's Broom actually spans over three times the angular size of the full Moon. The bright star 52 Cygni is visible with the unaided eye from a dark location but unrelated to the ancient supernova

injest

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Re: NASA's Picture of the Day
« Reply #20 on: September 07, 2008, 02:21:05 am »


IC 4406: A Seemingly Square Nebula

Credit: C. R. O'Dell (Vanderbilt U.) et al., Hubble Heritage Team, NASA

Explanation: How can a round star make a square nebula? This conundrum comes to light when studying planetary nebulae like IC 4406. Evidence indicates that IC 4406 is likely a hollow cylinder, with its square appearance the result of our vantage point in viewing the cylinder from the side. Were IC 4406 viewed from the top, it would likely look similar to the Ring Nebula. This representative-color picture is a composite made by combining images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2001 and 2002. Hot gas flows out the ends of the cylinder, while filaments of dark dust and molecular gas lace the bounding walls. The star primarily responsible for this interstellar sculpture can be found in the planetary nebula's center. In a few million years, the only thing left visible in IC 4406 will be a fading white dwarf star.


injest

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Re: NASA's Picture of the Day
« Reply #21 on: September 08, 2008, 08:36:29 am »


Rosetta Spacecraft Passes Asteroid Steins

Credit & Copyright: Rosetta Team, ESA

Explanation: What's that diamond in the sky? Cruising though space, sometimes you'll come across an unusual object. Such was the case on Friday for ESA's Rosetta spacecraft on it's way to comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko in 2014. Robotic Rosetta buzzed right by the main belt asteroid 2867 Šteins, taking many pictures, some of which have been compiled into a short video. At first glance, Steins looked like a 5-kilometer wide diamond, but as Rosetta shot by, craters and a more extended shape become evident. In the above sequence of six images, a notable chain of craters is evident vertically on the asteroid's surface, most probably caused by a chance collision with a stream of meteors. Space scientists will now study the data taken by Rosetta of asteroid Steins in an effort to better understand its composition, origin, and why the asteroid reflects light so well. As the Earth-bound scientists toil, Rosetta itself will continue to zoom across our Solar System, next swooping again by the Earth in 2009 November, flying by asteroid 21 Lutetia in 2010 July, and finally landing on comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko in 2014 November.


(How cool this was just discovered Friday?)



injest

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Re: NASA's Picture of the Day
« Reply #22 on: September 09, 2008, 07:18:59 pm »



M110: Satellite of the Andromeda Galaxy

Credit & Copyright: Jean-Charles Cuillandre (CFHT) & Giovanni Anselmi (Coelum Astronomia), Hawaiian Starlight

Explanation: Our Milky Way Galaxy is not alone. It is part of a gathering of about 25 galaxies known as the Local Group. Members include the Great Andromeda Galaxy (M31), M32, M33, the Large Magellanic Cloud, the Small Magellanic Cloud, Dwingeloo 1, several small irregular galaxies, and many dwarf elliptical and dwarf spheroidal galaxies. Pictured on the lower right is one of the dwarf ellipticals: NGC 205. Like M32, NGC 205 is a companion to the large M31, and can sometimes be seen to the south of M31's center in photographs. The image shows NGC 205 to be unusual for an elliptical galaxy in that it contains at least two dust clouds (at 9 and 2 o'clock - they are visible but hard to spot) and signs of recent star formation. This galaxy is sometimes known as M110, although it was actually not part of Messier's original catalog.




injest

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Re: NASA's Picture of the Day
« Reply #23 on: September 10, 2008, 07:34:08 am »


The Anthe Arc around Saturn

Credit: Cassini Imaging Team, SSI, JPL, ESA, NASA

Explanation: What created this unusual partial ring around Saturn? Discovered last year, the arc was captured in clear detail only two months ago by the Saturn-orbiting Cassini spacecraft. Since the arc occupies the same orbit as the small moon Anthe, a leading hypothesis holds that the arc was created by, and is replenished by, meteor impacts on Anthe. Similar arcs have been previously discovered, including an arc associated with the small Saturnian moon Methone, one arc related to Saturn's G ring, and several arcs orbiting Neptune. Pictured above, Anthe, only two kilometers across, is seen as the bright point near the top of the Anthe arc. The Anthe arc was imaged by the robotic space probe as it swooped to within 1.5 million kilometers of the small moon.




injest

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Re: NASA's Picture of the Day
« Reply #24 on: September 11, 2008, 06:48:04 pm »



Mountain Top Meteors

Credit & Copyright: Alex Tudorica, Romanian Society for Meteors and Astronomy
Faculty of Physics, Bucharest University

Explanation: A mountain top above the clouds and light-polluted cities was a good place to go to watch this August's Perseid meteor shower. In fact, this composite picture from one of the highest points in Romania, the Omu summit (2,507 meters) in the Southern Carpathian Mountains, captures about 20 of the shower's bright streaks against a starry night sky. The cosmic debris stream that creates the shower is composed of dust particles moving along parallel paths, following the orbit of their parent comet Swift-Tuttle. Looking toward the shower's radiant point in the constellation Perseus, perspective causes the parallel meteor streaks to appear to diverge. But looking directly away from the radiant point, as in this view, perspective actually makes the Perseid meteors seem to be converging toward a point below the horizon.


injest

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Re: NASA's Picture of the Day
« Reply #25 on: September 12, 2008, 07:59:20 am »



Planets over Perth

Credit & Copyright: John Goldsmith, Celestial Visions exhibition, TWAN

Explanation: A bright trio of terrestrial planets were joined by a young Moon on September 1st, in planet Earth's early evening skies. In this view of the celestial gathering from Perth, Western Australia, the Moon's sunlit crescent is nearly horizontal at Perth's southern latitude of about 32 degrees. Venus, then Mercury, and finally Mars shine above colorful city lights on the far shore of the Swan River. The six unlit towers on the left surround a large cricket stadium. For now, the planetary trio still lingers low in the west just after sunset. But in the coming days Venus will move farther from the Sun, climbing higher after sunset, while Mercury and Mars will steadily sink into the glare along the western horizon.


injest

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Re: NASA's Picture of the Day
« Reply #26 on: September 14, 2008, 11:53:01 am »


The Heart and Soul Nebulas
 
Credit: Digitized Sky Survey, ESA/ESO/NASA FITS Liberator;
Color Composite: Davide De Martin (Skyfactory)

Explanation: Is the heart and soul of our Galaxy located in Cassiopeia? Possibly not, but that is where two bright emission nebulas nicknamed Heart and Soul can be found. The Heart Nebula, officially dubbed IC 1805 and visible in the above zoomable view on the right, has a shape reminiscent of a classical heart symbol. Both nebulas shine brightly in the red light of energized hydrogen. Several young open clusters of stars populate the image and are visible above in blue, including the nebula centers. Light takes about 6,000 years to reach us from these nebulas, which together span roughly 300 light years. Studies of stars and clusters like those found in the Heart and Soul Nebulas have focussed on how massive stars form and how they affect their environment.


injest

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Re: NASA's Picture of the Day
« Reply #27 on: September 15, 2008, 07:48:01 am »



SN 1006: A Supernova Ribbon from Hubble

Credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble Heritage (STScI/AURA); Acknowledgement: W. Blair et al. (JHU)

Explanation: What created this unusual space ribbon? Most assuredly, one of the most violent explosions ever witnessed by ancient humans. Back in the year 1006 AD, light reached Earth from a stellar explosion in the constellation of the Wolf (Lupus), creating a "guest star" in the sky that appeared brighter than Venus and lasted for over two years. The supernova, now cataloged at SN 1006, occurred about 7,000 light years away and has left a large remnant that continues to expand and fade today. Pictured above is a small part of that expanding supernova remnant dominated by a thin and outwardly moving shock front that heats and ionizes surrounding ambient gas. SN 1006 now has a diameter of nearly 60 light years. Within the past year, an even more powerful explosion occurred far across the universe that was visible to modern humans, without any optical aide, for a few seconds.


injest

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Re: NASA's Picture of the Day
« Reply #28 on: September 16, 2008, 11:22:23 pm »


W5: Pillars of Star Creation

Credit: Lori Allen, Xavier Koenig (Harvard-Smithsonian CfA) et al., JPL-Caltech, NASA

Explanation: How do stars form? A study of star forming region W5 by the sun-orbiting Spitzer Space Telescope provides clear clues by recording that massive stars near the center of empty cavities are older than stars near the edges. A likely reason for this is that the older stars in the center are actually triggering the formation of the younger edge stars. The triggered star formation occurs when hot outflowing gas compresses cooler gas into knots dense enough to gravitationally contract into stars. Spectacular pillars, left slowly evaporating from the hot outflowing gas, provide further visual clues. In the above scientifically-colored infrared image, red indicates heated dust, while white and green indicate particularly dense gas clouds. W5 is also known as IC 1848, and together with IC 1805 form a complex region of star formation popularly dubbed the Heart and Soul Nebulas. The above image highlights a part of W5 spanning about 2,000 light years that is rich in star forming pillars. W5 lies about 6,500 light years away toward the constellation of Cassiopeia

injest

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Re: NASA's Picture of the Day
« Reply #29 on: September 17, 2008, 08:14:07 am »


MACSJ0025: Two Giant Galaxy Clusters Collide

Credit: NASA, ESA, CXC, M. Bradac (UCSB) & S. Allen (Stanford)

Explanation: What happens when two of the largest objects in the universe collide? No one was quite sure, but the answer is giving clues to the nature of mysterious dark matter. In the case of MACSJ0025.4-1222, two huge clusters of galaxies have been found slowly colliding over hundreds of millions of years, and the result has been imaged by both the Hubble Space Telescope in visible light and the Chandra Space Telescope in X-ray light. Once the above visible image was recorded, the location and gravitational lens distortions of more distant galaxies by the newly combined galaxy cluster allowed astronomers to computationally determine what happened to the clusters' dark matter. The result indicates that this huge collision has caused the dark matter in the clusters to become partly separated from the normal matter, confirming earlier speculation. In the above combined image, dark matter is shown as the diffuse purple hue, while a smoothed depiction of the X-ray hot normal matter is shown in pink. MACSJ0025 contains hundreds of galaxies, spans about three million light years, and lies nearly six billion light years away (redshift 0.59) toward the constellation of Monster Whale (Cetus).


injest

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Re: NASA's Picture of the Day
« Reply #30 on: September 18, 2008, 08:51:39 am »


Exploring the Ring

Credit & Copyright: Astro-Cooperation - Stefan Heutz/Wolfgang Ries

Explanation: A familiar sight for northern hemisphere astronomers, the Ring Nebula (M57) is some 2,000 light-years away in the musical constellation Lyra. The central ring is about one light-year across, but this remarkably deep exposure - a collaborative effort combining data from two different telescopes - explores the looping filaments of glowing gas extending much farther from the nebula's central star. Of course, in this well-studied example of a planetary nebula, the glowing material does not come from planets. Instead, the gaseous shroud represents outer layers expelled from a dying, sun-like star. This composite image includes over 16 hours of narrow-band data intended to recorded the red emission from hydrogen atoms, but the pronounced blue/green color is due to emission from oxygen atoms at higher temperatures within the ring. The much more distant spiral galaxy IC 1296 is also visible at the upper right.




injest

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Re: NASA's Picture of the Day
« Reply #31 on: September 20, 2008, 12:27:22 pm »


Companion of a Young, Sun-like Star

Credit: Gemini Observatory, D. Lafreniere, R. Jayawardhana, M. van Kerkwijk (Univ. Toronto)

Explanation: Located just 500 light-years away toward the constellation Scorpius, this star is only slightly less massive and a little cooler than the Sun. But it is much younger, a few million years old compared to the middle-aged Sun's 5 billion years. This sharp infrared image shows the young star has a likely companion positioned above and left - a hot planet with about 8 times the mass of Jupiter, orbiting a whopping 330 times the Earth-Sun distance from its parent star. The young planetary companion is still hot and relatively bright in infrared light due to the heat generated during its formation by gravitational contraction. In fact, such newborn planets are easier to detect before they age and cool, becoming much fainter. Though over 300 extrasolar planets have been found using other techniques, this picture likely represents the first direct image of a planet belonging to a star similar to the Sun.


Offline gap134

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Re: NASA's Picture of the Day
« Reply #32 on: September 20, 2008, 01:09:33 pm »
I took astronomy in college as one of my general education requirements for my B.S. degree. M-57 is one of the most amazing things to see in the sky. It's like a giant doughnut.

I also got to tour Kitt Peak Observatory in Arizona http://www.noao.edu/kpno/ They have a room with a really large round table. On that table there is huge live picture of the sun. You can see solar flares coming off of it. Although the sun is suppose last many more years. It certainly does not look real stable when you see it up close.

injest

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Re: NASA's Picture of the Day
« Reply #33 on: September 20, 2008, 02:07:15 pm »
I took astronomy in college as one of my general education requirements for my B.S. degree. M-57 is one of the most amazing things to see in the sky. It's like a giant doughnut.

I also got to tour Kitt Peak Observatory in Arizona http://www.noao.edu/kpno/ They have a room with a really large round table. On that table there is huge live picture of the sun. You can see solar flares coming off of it. Although the sun is suppose last many more years. It certainly does not look real stable when you see it up close.

it really doesnt' does it?

astronomy makes me feel so fragile. I remember in the seventh grade, we were studying the planets and astronomy and there was a girl in there that was so upset to find there is no roof on the sky. She wasn't faking, she couldn't 'get' that only gravity held our atmosphere in place. I still remember how frightened she seemed.

Offline gap134

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Re: NASA's Picture of the Day
« Reply #34 on: September 20, 2008, 07:11:55 pm »
it really doesnt' does it?

astronomy makes me feel so fragile. I remember in the seventh grade, we were studying the planets and astronomy and there was a girl in there that was so upset to find there is no roof on the sky. She wasn't faking, she couldn't 'get' that only gravity held our atmosphere in place. I still remember how frightened she seemed.

They say the sun is about 4 billion years old and has another 4 billion years left, but that's just an educated guess by scientist. When it dies, it turns into a red giant and expands greatly, probably eating up the inner planets.

When I was at Kitt Peak Observatory, there was no consistent pattern to what the sun would do. It's just a giant burning ball. I was lucky enough to see a couple of random flares come off of it, and the first thing you think is, how stable can the sun possibly be.

injest

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Re: NASA's Picture of the Day
« Reply #35 on: September 21, 2008, 07:56:17 pm »


A Darkened Sky

Credit & Copyright: Miloslav Druckmuller (Brno University of Technology), Peter Aniol, Vojtech Rusin

Explanation: For a moment on August 1st, the daytime sky grew dark along the path of a total solar eclipse. While watching the geocentric celestial event from Mongolia, photographer Miloslav Druckmuller recorded multiple images with two separate cameras as the Moon blocked the bright solar disk and darkened the sky. This final composition consists of 55 frames ranging in exposure time from 1/125 to 8 seconds. It spans nearly 12 degrees, with the relative position of the Moon and Sun corresponding to mid-eclipse. On the left is bright planet Mercury, but many stars are also visible, including the Praesepe star cluster (also known as M44 or the Beehive cluster) in Cancer, above and to the right of the silhouetted Moon. Remarkably, the nearly perfect conditions and wide range in individual exposures allow the composite picture to register the lunar surface and follow the delicate solar corona out to a distance of nearly 20 times the radius of the Sun. In fact, the composite presents a range in brightness beyond what the eye could see during the eclipse.