Space

1104105106107109

Replies

  • yukfoo
    yukfoo Posts: 871 Member
    edited September 2019
    Space ...my sister took up a lot of it in high school
  • cee134
    cee134 Posts: 33,711 Member
    The orbiter has since spotted the lander on the surface of the Moon but scientists have not yet been able to establish contact with it.

    Chandrayaan 2: What may have gone wrong with India's Moon mission?
    https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-49632316

    saxcdo5z68gn.jpg
  • cee134
    cee134 Posts: 33,711 Member
    M31: The Andromeda Galaxy

    49tipqza1zuh.jpg

    How far can you see? The most distant object easily visible to the unaided eye is M31, the great Andromeda Galaxy, over two million light-years away. Without a telescope, even this immense spiral galaxy appears as an unremarkable, faint, nebulous cloud in the constellation Andromeda. But a bright yellow nucleus, dark winding dust lanes, luminous blue spiral arms, and bright red emission nebulas are recorded in this stunning six-hour telescopic digital mosaic of our closest major galactic neighbor.

    While even casual skygazers are now inspired by the knowledge that there are many distant galaxies like M31, astronomers seriously debated this fundamental concept only 100 years ago. Were these "spiral nebulae" simply outlying gas clouds in our own Milky Way Galaxy or were they "island universes" -- distant galaxies of stars comparable to the Milky Way itself? This question was central to the famous Shapley-Curtis debate of 1920, which was later resolved by observations favoring Andromeda being just like our Milky Way Galaxy -- a conclusion making the rest of the universe much more vast than many had ever imagined.
  • cee134
    cee134 Posts: 33,711 Member
    edited September 2019
    Pluto in True Color

    n4espgba5te7.jpg

    What color is Pluto, really? It took some effort to figure out. Even given all of the images sent back to Earth when the robotic New Horizons spacecraft sped past Pluto in 2015, processing these multi-spectral frames to approximate what the human eye would see was challenging.

    The result featured here, released three years after the raw data was acquired by New Horizons, is the highest resolution true color image of Pluto ever taken. Visible in the image is the light-colored, heart-shaped, Tombaugh Regio, with the unexpectedly smooth Sputnik Planitia, made of frozen nitrogen, filling its western lobe.

    New Horizons found the dwarf-planet to have a surprisingly complex surface composed of many regions having perceptibly different hues. In total, though, Pluto is mostly brown, with much of its muted color originating from small amounts of surface methane energized by ultraviolet light from the Sun.
  • cee134
    cee134 Posts: 33,711 Member
    IC 1805: The Heart Nebula

    twyuknuhuqaq.jpg

    What energizes the Heart Nebula? First, the large emission nebula dubbed IC 1805 looks, in whole, like a human heart. The nebula glows brightly in red light emitted by its most prominent element: hydrogen. The red glow and the larger shape are all powered by a small group of stars near the nebula's center.

    In the center of the Heart Nebula are young stars from the open star cluster Melotte 15 that are eroding away several picturesque dust pillars with their energetic light and winds. The open cluster of stars contains a few bright stars nearly 50 times the mass of our Sun, many dim stars only a fraction of the mass of our Sun, and an absent microquasar that was expelled millions of years ago.

    The Heart Nebula is located about 7,500 light years away toward the constellation of Cassiopeia. Coincidentally, a small meteor was captured in the foreground during imaging and is visible above the dust pillars. At the top right is the companion Fishhead Nebula.
  • cee134
    cee134 Posts: 33,711 Member
    The Iris Nebula in a Field of Dust

    f60yg9mfwkoj.jpg

    These cosmic dust clouds drift some 1,300 light-years away along the fertile starfields of the constellation Cepheus. The beautiful Iris Nebula, also known as NGC 7023, blossoms at the upper left. Not the only nebula in the sky to evoke the imagery of flowers, its pretty, symmetric form spans about 6 light-years.

    This nebula's dominant blue color is characteristic of the pervasive dust grains reflecting light from a nearby hot, bluish star. But darker, obscuring dust clouds cover most of the nearly 4 degree wide field of view. At the right is the LDN 1147/1158 complex of Lynds Dark Nebulae.

    Stars are forming there, still hidden within the dark cloud cores. A search through the sharp image can identify Herbig-Haro objects though, jets of shocked glowing gas emanating from recently formed stars.
  • cee134
    cee134 Posts: 33,711 Member
    Hubble Traces a Galaxy’s Outer Reaches

    6p64muufr247.jpg

    Believe it or not, this long, luminous streak, speckled with bright blisters and pockets of material, is a spiral galaxy like our Milky Way. But how could that be?
  • cee134
    cee134 Posts: 33,711 Member
    Hubble Sees 'Ghost Light' From Dead Galaxies

    p66y6ix7sma3.jpg

    NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has picked up the faint, ghostly glow of stars ejected from ancient galaxies that were gravitationally ripped apart several billion years ago. The mayhem happened 4 billion light-years away, inside an immense collection of nearly 500 galaxies nicknamed “Pandora’s Cluster,” also known as Abell 2744.

    The scattered stars are no longer bound to any one galaxy, and drift freely between galaxies in the cluster. By observing the light from the orphaned stars, Hubble astronomers have assembled forensic evidence that suggests as many as six galaxies were torn to pieces inside the cluster over a stretch of 6 billion years.
  • cee134
    cee134 Posts: 33,711 Member
    This is a funny pic to me:

    ISS Downlink with Actor Brad Pitt

    d9u7xt58m9do.jpg

    Actor Brad Pitt speaks with NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, Monday, Sept. 16, 2019 from the Space Operations Center at NASA Headquarters in Washington. Pitt, who stars as an astronaut in his latest film “Ad Astra,” spoke with NASA astronaut Nick Hague about what it’s like to live and work aboard the orbiting laboratory.
  • cee134
    cee134 Posts: 33,711 Member
    Chryse Chaos

    4jpdz9832k07.jpg

    This VIS image shows part of Chryse Chaos near the terminal end of the huge outflow channels draining from Valles Marineris into the Chyrse Basin. Chaos terrain is typified by regions of blocky, often steep sided, mesas interspersed with deep valleys.

    With time and erosion the valleys widen and the mesas become smaller. It has been proposed that a catastrophic outflow of subsurface water creates the chaos and provides the surface flow creating the channel. Chaos terrain is also found along the course of most of channels in this region and may occur where the channel flow fluid warms the subsurface ice creating additional release points for melted subsurface ice.

    The chaos terrain in this image still retain the classic steep sided large mesas.
  • cee134
    cee134 Posts: 33,711 Member
    Gigantic Jet Lightning over India

    exnd684rdxbn.jpg

    Yes, but can your lightning bolt do this? While flying from Munich to Singapore earlier this month, an industrious passenger took images of a passing lightning storm and caught something unexpected: gigantic jet lightning. The jet was captured on a single 3.2-second exposure above Bhadrak, India.

    Although the gigantic jet appears connected to the airplane's wing, it likely started in a more distant thundercloud, and can be seen extending upwards towards Earth's ionosphere. The nature of gigantic jets and their possible association with other types of Transient Luminous Events (TLEs) such as blue jets and red sprites remains an active topic of research.
  • cee134
    cee134 Posts: 33,711 Member
    edited September 2019
    The Seven Sisters

    a9243148e5p0.jpg

    The stars of the Pleiades cluster, also known by the name M45
  • s131951
    s131951 Posts: 3,776 Member
    cee134 wrote: »
    Gigantic Jet Lightning over India

    exnd684rdxbn.jpg

    Yes, but can your lightning bolt do this? While flying from Munich to Singapore earlier this month, an industrious passenger took images of a passing lightning storm and caught something unexpected: gigantic jet lightning. The jet was captured on a single 3.2-second exposure above Bhadrak, India.

    Although the gigantic jet appears connected to the airplane's wing, it likely started in a more distant thundercloud, and can be seen extending upwards towards Earth's ionosphere. The nature of gigantic jets and their possible association with other types of Transient Luminous Events (TLEs) such as blue jets and red sprites remains an active topic of research.

    Not quite space, but I think they are just as interesting. I would love to witness some jets or sprites. .
  • cee134
    cee134 Posts: 33,711 Member
    Along the Western Veil

    jh7nspi64b14.jpg

    Delicate in appearance, these filaments of shocked, glowing gas, are draped across planet Earth's sky toward the constellation of Cygnus. They form the western part of the Veil Nebula. The Veil Nebula itself is a large supernova remnant, an expanding cloud born of the death explosion of a massive star. Light from the original supernova explosion likely reached Earth over 5,000 years ago.

    Blasted out in the cataclysmic event, the interstellar shock wave plows through space sweeping up and exciting interstellar material. The glowing filaments are really more like long ripples in a sheet seen almost edge on, remarkably well separated into atomic hydrogen (red) and oxygen (blue-green) gas. Also known as the Cygnus Loop, the Veil Nebula now spans nearly 3 degrees or about 6 times the diameter of the full Moon.

    While that translates to over 70 light-years at its estimated distance of 1,500 light-years, this telescopic image of the western portion spans about half that distance. Brighter parts of the western Veil are recognized as separate nebulae, including The Witch's Broom (NGC 6960) along the top of this view and Pickering's Triangle (NGC 6979) below and left.
  • cee134
    cee134 Posts: 33,711 Member
    s131951 wrote: »
    cee134 wrote: »
    Gigantic Jet Lightning over India

    exnd684rdxbn.jpg

    Yes, but can your lightning bolt do this? While flying from Munich to Singapore earlier this month, an industrious passenger took images of a passing lightning storm and caught something unexpected: gigantic jet lightning. The jet was captured on a single 3.2-second exposure above Bhadrak, India.

    Although the gigantic jet appears connected to the airplane's wing, it likely started in a more distant thundercloud, and can be seen extending upwards towards Earth's ionosphere. The nature of gigantic jets and their possible association with other types of Transient Luminous Events (TLEs) such as blue jets and red sprites remains an active topic of research.

    Not quite space, but I think they are just as interesting. I would love to witness some jets or sprites. .

    It travels into the ionosphere.

    9zthr3dyskfq.jpg

  • cee134
    cee134 Posts: 33,711 Member
    Saturn at Night

    plkosfpvcl5k.jpg

    Still bright in planet Earth's night skies, good telescopic views of Saturn and its beautiful rings often make it a star at star parties. But this stunning view of Saturn's rings and night side just isn't possible from telescopes closer to the Sun than the outer planet. They can only bring Saturn's day into view. In fact, this image of Saturn's slender sunlit crescent with night's shadow cast across its broad and complex ring system was captured by the Cassini spacecraft.

    A robot spacecraft from planet Earth, Cassini called Saturn orbit home for 13 years before it was directed to dive into the atmosphere of the gas giant on September 15, 2017. This magnificent mosaic is composed of frames recorded by Cassini's wide-angle camera only two days before its grand final plunge. Saturn's night will not be seen again until another spaceship from Earth calls.

  • cee134
    cee134 Posts: 33,711 Member
    Equinox: The Sun from Solstice to Solstice

    fwmsnezgd6jy.jpg

    Today is an equinox, a date when day and night are equal. Tomorrow, and every day until the next equinox, the night will be longer than the day in Earth's northern hemisphere, and the day will be longer than the night in Earth's southern hemisphere. An equinox occurs midway between the two solstices, when the days and nights are the least equal. The featured picture is a composite of hourly images taken of the Sun above Bursa, Turkey on key days from solstice to equinox to solstice.

    The bottom Sun band was taken during the north's winter solstice in 2007 December, when the Sun could not rise very high in the sky nor stay above the horizon very long. This lack of Sun caused winter. The top Sun band was taken during the northern summer solstice in 2008 June, when the Sun rose highest in the sky and stayed above the horizon for more than 12 hours. This abundance of Sun caused summer. The middle band was taken during an equinox in 2008 March, but it is the same sun band that Earthlings see today, the day of the most recent equinox.
  • cee134
    cee134 Posts: 33,711 Member
    Dusty Space Cloud

    7vv58khzk14a.jpg

    This image shows the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy in infrared light as seen by ESA Herschel Space Observatory and NASA Spitzer Space Telescope. The brightest center-left region is called 30 Doradus, or the Tarantula Nebula.
  • cee134
    cee134 Posts: 33,711 Member
    Sand Dunes Thawing on Mars

    e0oghlbz9ajz.jpg

    What are these strange shapes on Mars? Defrosting sand dunes. As spring dawned on the Northern Hemisphere of Mars, dunes of sand near the pole, as pictured here in late May by ESA's ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, began to thaw. The carbon dioxide and water ice actually sublime in the thin atmosphere directly to gas.

    Thinner regions of ice typically defrost first revealing sand whose darkness soaks in sunlight and accelerates the thaw. The process might even involve sandy jets exploding through the thinning ice. By summer, spots will expand to encompass the entire dunes. The Martian North Pole is ringed by many similar fields of barchan sand dunes, whose strange, smooth arcs are shaped by persistent Martian winds.
  • cee134
    cee134 Posts: 33,711 Member
    Weighing in on the Dumbbell Nebula

    lvbsy47u7222.jpg

    The Dumbbell nebula, also known as Messier 27, pumps out infrared light in this image from NASA Spitzer Space Telescope. Planetary nebulae are now known to be the remains of stars that once looked a lot like our sun.