Space

Wax_on_wax_off

I took this pic last night.

honeybee__12

honeybee__12 wrote: »

This Chandra X-Ray Observatory image of the young star cluster NGC 346 highlights a heart-shaped cloud of 8 million-degree Celsius gas in the central region.
Evidence from radio, optical and ultraviolet telescopes suggests that the hot cloud, which is about 100 light years across, is the remnant of a supernova explosion that occurred thousands of years ago.

I completely flubbed up the first post of this, added a whole other post, sorry.

cee134

Hubble Captures the Ghost of Cassiopeia



Powerful gushers of energy from seething stars can sculpt eerie-looking figures with long, flowing veils of gas and dust. One striking example is "the Ghost of Cassiopeia," officially known as IC 63, located 550 light-years away in the constellation Cassiopeia the Queen.

The nebula’s ethereal glow might remind people of apparitions such as those reported by paranormal investigators. In reality, it's simply hydrogen that is being bombarded with ultraviolet radiation from the nearby, blue-giant star Gamma Cassiopeiae (not seen here), causing it to glow in red light. The blue color is from light reflected off of the nebula’s dust.

The IC 63 nebula is not the only object under the influence of the blinding star, which unleashes as much energy as 34,000 suns. The Ghost Nebula is part of a much larger nebulous region surrounding Gamma Cassiopeiae that measures approximately two degrees on the sky — roughly four times as wide as the full Moon.

The constellation Cassiopeia is visible every clear night from mid-northern and higher latitudes. Its distinctive "W" asterism, which forms the queen's throne, is best seen high in the sky on autumn and winter evenings. Gamma Cassiopeiae, the middle star in the W, is visible to the unaided eye, but a large telescope is needed to see IC 63.

Hubble photographed IC 63 in August 2016.

The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA (European Space Agency). NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland, conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, in Washington, D.C.

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Shells of Stars in Elliptical Galaxy PGC 42871



How do galaxies grow? To help find out, the Hubble Space Telescope was deployed to image the unusual elliptical galaxy PGC 42871. How this galaxy came to be surrounded by numerous shells of stars may give clues about how it evolved. Embedded in the diffuse shells are massive globular clusters of stars -- stars which analyses show were born during three different epochs.

This and other data indicate that PGC 42871 has been in at least two galactic collisions, at least one of which might have been with a former spiral galaxy. The remaining spiral galaxy on the far left is at the same distance as PGC 42871 and may have been involved in some of the collisions. PGC 42871 spans about 20 thousand light years and lies about 270 million light years away toward the constellation of Centaurus.

cee134

Orionids Meteors over Inner Mongolia



Meteors have been shooting out from the constellation of Orion. This was expected, as October is the time of year for the Orionids Meteor Shower. Pictured here, over two dozen meteors were caught in successively added exposures last October over Wulan Hada volcano in Inner Mongolia, China.

The featured image shows multiple meteor streaks that can all be connected to a single small region on the sky called the radiant, here visible just above and to the left of the belt of Orion, The Orionids meteors started as sand sized bits expelled from Comet Halley during one of its trips to the inner Solar System.

Comet Halley is actually responsible for two known meteor showers, the other known as the Eta Aquarids and visible every May. An Orionids image featured on APOD one year ago today from the same location shows the same car. Next month, the Leonids Meteor Shower from Comet Tempel-Tuttle should also result in some bright meteor streaks.

honeybee__12

Total Solar eclipse in 2017,
You can see Mars on the right and the star Regulus on the left.

cee134

R Leporis: A Vampire's Star



Better known as Hind's Crimson Star, R Leporis is a rare star in planet Earth's night sky. It's also a shocking shade of red. The star's discoverer, 19th century English astronomer John Russell Hind, reported that it appeared in a telescope "... like a drop of blood on a black field." Located 1,360 light-years away in the constellation Lepus the star is a Mira-type variable, changing its brightness over a period of about 14 months. R Leporis is now recognized as a carbon star, a very cool and highly evolved red giant with an extreme abundance of carbon.

Extra carbon in carbon stars is created by helium fusion near the dying stellar core and dredged up into the stars' outer layers. The dredge-up results in an overabundance of simple carbon molecules, like CO, CH, CN, and C2. While it's true that cool stars radiate most of their energy in red and infrared light, the carbon molecules strongly absorb what little blue light is left and give carbon stars an exceptionally deep red color.

R Leporis is losing its carbon-rich atmosphere into the surrounding interstellar material through a strong stellar wind though, and could be near the transition to a planetary nebula. Oh, and Happy Halloween from the folks at APOD.

cee134

A Lonely Neutron Star



How massive can a star get without imploding into a black hole? These limits are being tested by the discovery of a lone neutron star in space. Observations by the Hubble Space Telescope released Wednesday, have been combined with previous observations by the X-ray ROSAT observatory and ultraviolet EUVE observatory for the isolated star at the location of the arrow.

Astronomers are able to directly infer the star's size from measurements of its unblended brightness, temperature, and an upper limit on the distance. Assuming that the object is a neutron star of typical mass, some previous theories of neutron star structure would have predicted an implosion that would have created a black hole. That this neutron star even exists therefore allows a window to the extreme conditions that exist in the interiors of neutron stars.

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Cygnus Shell Supernova Remnant W63



The ghost of a long-dead star, the W63 supernova remnant shines like a faint cosmic smoke-ring along the plane of the Milky Way galaxy toward the northern constellation Cygnus the swan. Its wraithlike appearance is traced against the region's rich complex of interstellar clouds and dust by an eerie blue glow. Spanning over four full moons on the sky, the beautiful image is a telescopic mosaic in twelve panels that combines 100 hours of exposure time using narrow band filters.

It shows characteristic light from ionized atoms of sulfur, hydrogen and oxygen in red, green, and blue hues. Likely over 5,000 light-years away, the visible part of the still expanding shell supernova remnant is around 150 light-years in diameter. So far no source has been identified as with the remains of W63's original star. Light from the star's supernova explosion would have reached Earth over 15,000 years ago.

honeybee__12

Before Mars became a forbiddingly cold and dry world, water once came and went smoothly on the planet's surface, just as it does here on Earth.
Now, scientists have identified the traces of three different sets of these ancient lakes — some nearly 50 miles (77 kilometers) across.
Those three sets of water bodies on Mars were likely each formed differently, the scientists behind the new research wrote.
One class was formed directly by precipitation, one was fed by water moving through the Martian soil, and one was fed by rivers transporting water across the surface.
All the studied lake beds are located in a region dubbed Hellas Planitia, the basin left behind by an ancient, massive impact.

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IC 4592: The Blue Horsehead Reflection Nebula



Do you see the horse's head? What you are seeing is not the famous Horsehead nebula toward Orion but rather a fainter nebula that only takes on a familiar form with deeper imaging. The main part of the here imaged molecular cloud complex is a reflection nebula cataloged as IC 4592. Reflection nebulas are actually made up of very fine dust that normally appears dark but can look quite blue when reflecting the light of energetic nearby stars.

In this case, the source of much of the reflected light is a star at the eye of the horse. That star is part of Nu Scorpii, one of the brighter star systems toward the constellation of the Scorpion (Scorpius). A second reflection nebula dubbed IC 4601 is visible surrounding two stars to the right of the image center.

Chael2dot0

RIP Kepler.

Chael2dot0

cee134

NGC 1499: The California Nebula



There's even a California in space. Drifting through the Orion Arm of the spiral Milky Way Galaxy, this cosmic cloud by chance echoes the outline of California on the west coast of the United States. Our own Sun also lies within the Milky Way's Orion Arm, only about 1,500 light-years from the California Nebula. Also known as NGC 1499, the classic emission nebula is around 100 light-years long.

On the featured image, the most prominent glow of the California Nebula is the red light characteristic of hydrogen atoms recombining with long lost electrons, stripped away (ionized) by energetic starlight. The star most likely providing the energetic starlight that ionizes much of the nebular gas is the bright, hot, bluish Xi Persei just to the right of the nebula. A regular target for astrophotographers, the California Nebula can be spotted with a wide-field telescope under a dark sky toward the constellation of Perseus, not far from the Pleiades.

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Earth Enveloped in Airglow



On October 7, 2018, an astronaut aboard the International Space Station (ISS) shot this photograph while orbiting at an altitude of more than 250 miles over Australia.

The orange hue enveloping Earth is known as airglow—diffuse bands of light that stretch 50 to 400 miles into our atmosphere. The phenomenon typically occurs when molecules (mostly nitrogen and oxygen) are energized by ultraviolet (UV) radiation from sunlight. To release that energy, atoms in the lower atmosphere bump into each other and lose energy in the collision. The result is colorful airglow.

Airglow reveals some of the workings of the upper reaches of our atmosphere. It can help scientists learn about the movement of particles near the interface of Earth and space, including the connections between space weather and Earth weather. Satellites offer one way to study this dynamic zone. NASA’s Ionospheric Connection Explorer (ICON) satellite will help scientists understand the physical processes at work where Earth’s atmosphere interacts with near-Earth space.

honeybee__12

* Location: Open water around the USS John P Murtha
* Photographer: NASA/Tony Gray
At sunset, a test version of the Orion capsule floats in the Pacific Ocean on Nov. 1, 2018, during Underway Recovery Test-7 (URT-7). Nearby is the USS John P. Murtha. Orion will be towed into the ship's well deck. URT-7 is one in a series of tests that the Exploration Ground Systems Recovery Team, along with the U.S. Navy, are conducting to verify and validate procedures and hardware that will be used to recover the Orion spacecraft after it splashes down in the Pacific Ocean following deep space exploration missions.
Orion will have emergency abort capability, sustain the crew during space travel and provide safe re-entry from deep space return velocities.

cee134

honeybee__12 wrote: »

* Location: Open water around the USS John P Murtha
* Photographer: NASA/Tony Gray
At sunset, a test version of the Orion capsule floats in the Pacific Ocean on Nov. 1, 2018, during Underway Recovery Test-7 (URT-7). Nearby is the USS John P. Murtha. Orion will be towed into the ship's well deck. URT-7 is one in a series of tests that the Exploration Ground Systems Recovery Team, along with the U.S. Navy, are conducting to verify and validate procedures and hardware that will be used to recover the Orion spacecraft after it splashes down in the Pacific Ocean following deep space exploration missions.
Orion will have emergency abort capability, sustain the crew during space travel and provide safe re-entry from deep space return velocities.

cee134

Mars in the Loop



This composite of images spaced some 5 to 9 days apart, from late April (bottom right) through November 5 (top left), traces the retrograde motion of ruddy-colored Mars through planet Earth's night sky. To connect the dots and dates in this 2018 Mars retrograde loop, just slide your cursor over the picture (and check out this animation). But Mars didn't actually reverse the direction of its orbit. Instead, the apparent backwards motion with respect to the background stars is a reflection of the motion of the Earth itself.

Retrograde motion can be seen each time Earth overtakes and laps planets orbiting farther from the Sun, the Earth moving more rapidly through its own relatively close-in orbit. On July 27, Mars was near its favorable 2018 parihelic opposition, when Mars was closest to the Sun in its orbit while also opposite the Sun in Earth's sky.

For that date, the frame used in this composite was taken during the total lunar eclipse.

cee134

Little Planet Lookout




This little planet projection looks confusing, but it's actually just a digitally warped and stitched, nadir centered mosaic of images that covers nearly 360x180 degrees. The images were taken on the night of October 31 from a 30 meter tall hill-top lookout tower near Tatabanya, Hungary, planet Earth.

The laticed lookout tower construction was converted from a local mine elevator. Since planet Earth is rotating, the 126 frames of 75 second long exposures also show warped, concentric star trails with the north celestial pole at the left. Of course at this location the south celestial pole is just right of center but below the the little planet's horizon.

honeybee__12

After visits with Vesta and Ceres, asteroid-exploring Dawn spacecraft goes dark.

Nov. 1, 2018 , 2:05 PM
*Update, 1 November, 1:55 p.m.: After several missed attempts to communicate with Dawn over the past 2 days, NASA declared that the spacecraft had run out of hydrazine and reached the end of its mission.

honeybee__12

“Welcome back!” to Comet McNaught, which caused a sensation in 1744.
When astronomers first observed it overhead in the 18th century, McNaught confounded them because it had not one, but six tails spread out across the sky.
As it swung around Earth again in 2007, the comet put on an even bigger show.
It had something to do with McNaught’s interactions with the solar wind, and new image processing from University College London now has brought in focus the effects of flowing particles from the Sun on comet dust.
Comets draw out astronerds unlike anything except free beer, because these voyagers are time capsules of the solar system’s early days. When they fly past Earth, it’s an opportunity for researchers to look at the building blocks left over from our formation 4.6 billion years ago.

honeybee__12

Strange elongated cloud sweeping across the Martian equator.

cee134

The Lagoon Nebula is Stars, Gas, and Dust



The majestic Lagoon Nebula is filled with hot gas and the home for many young stars. Spanning 100 light years across while lying only about 5000 light years distant, the Lagoon Nebula is so big and bright that it can be seen without a telescope toward the constellation of the Archer (Sagittarius). Many bright stars are visible from NGC 6530, an open cluster that formed in the nebula only several million years ago.

The greater nebula, also known as M8 and NGC 6523, is named "Lagoon" for the band of dust seen to the left of the open cluster's center. The featured image was taken in three colors with details are brought out by light emitted by Hydrogen. Star formation continues in the Lagoon Nebula as witnessed by the many dark dust-laden globules that exist there.

cee134

Rocket Lab's launch in New Zealand brings quick space access, undercuts SpaceX



Late on Sunday afternoon in New Zealand, Rocket Lab successfully launched its third rocket.

https://www.afr.com/news/world/oceania/rocket-labs-launch-in-new-zealand-brings-quick-space-access-undercuts-spacex-20181111-h17s1t

cee134

The Cave Nebula in Hydrogen, Oxygen, and Sulfur



What's inside this cosmic cave? A stellar nursery 10 light-years deep. The featured skyscape is dominated by dusty Sh2-155, the Cave Nebula. In the telescopic image, data taken through a narrowband filters tracks the nebular glow of hydrogen, oxygen, and sulfur, colors that together form the Hubble Palette. About 2,400 light-years away, the scene lies along the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy toward the royal northern constellation of Cepheus.

Astronomical explorations of the region reveal that it has formed at the boundary of the massive Cepheus B molecular cloud and the hot, young stars of the Cepheus OB 3 association. The bright rim of ionized hydrogen gas is energized by radiation from the hot stars, dominated by the bright star just to the left of the cave entrance. Radiation driven ionization fronts are likely triggering collapsing cores and new star formation within.

cee134

Comet 46P/Wirtanen



Periodic Comet 46P/Wirtanen is now the brightest comet in the night sky, but too faint to be seen by eye. From dark sky sites it could just become naked-eye visible though, as it's 5.4 year long looping orbit takes it closest to Earth and the Sun in mid December. Fluorescing in sunlight, its spherical coma is about half the angular size of a full moon in this southern hemisphere telescopic view from November 7.

Then the comet was about 2 light-minutes away or 35 million kilometers from Earth-bound telescopes, so the pretty greenish coma seen here is around 150,000 kilometers across. That makes it about the size of Jupiter. The stack of digital images also reveals a very faint tail extending toward 4 o'clock with a distant background galaxy notable at the upper left. As a regular visitor to the inner Solar System, comet 46P/Wirtanen was once the favored rendezvous target for ESA's comet exploring Rosetta mission.

cee134

The Tarantula Nebula



The Tarantula Nebula, also known as 30 Doradus, is more than a thousand light-years in diameter, a giant star forming region within nearby satellite galaxy the Large Magellanic Cloud. About 180 thousand light-years away, it's the largest, most violent star forming region known in the whole Local Group of galaxies. The cosmic arachnid sprawls across this spectacular view, composed with narrowband filter data centered on emission from ionized hydrogen atoms.

Within the Tarantula (NGC 2070), intense radiation, stellar winds and supernova shocks from the central young cluster of massive stars, cataloged as R136, energize the nebular glow and shape the spidery filaments. Around the Tarantula are other star forming regions with young star clusters, filaments, and blown-out bubble-shaped clouds. In fact, the frame includes the site of the closest supernova in modern times, SN 1987A, left of center.

The rich field of view spans about 1 degree or 2 full moons, in the southern constellation Dorado. But were the Tarantula Nebula closer, say 1,500 light-years distant like the local star forming Orion Nebula, it would take up half the sky.

honeybee__12

Dust Devil on Mars as seen by the rover Opportunity.

Chael2dot0

https://youtu.be/ouBfzCgXHgk

cee134

Exploding Stars Make Key Ingredient Found in Glass



We are all, quite literally, made of star dust. Many of the chemicals that compose our planet and our bodies were formed directly by stars. Now, a new study using observations by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope reports for the first time that silica — one of the most common minerals found on Earth — is formed when massive stars explode.

Look around you right now and there's a good chance you will see silica (silicon dioxide, SiO2) in some form. A major component of many types of rocks on Earth, silica is used in industrial sand-and-gravel mixtures to make concrete for sidewalks, roads and buildings. One form of silica, quartz, is a major component of sand found on beaches along the U.S. coasts. Silica is a key ingredient in glass, including plate glass for windows, as well as fiberglass. Most of the silicon used in electronic devices comes from silica.