Space
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LIGO Detects Gravitational Waves From Another Neutron Star Merger
For just the second time, physicists working on the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) have caught the gravitational waves of two neutron stars colliding to form a black hole.
An artist’s illustration of two colliding neutron stars.
“I would assume that every observatory in the world is observing this now,” says astronomer Josh Simon of the Carnegie Observatories. “These two candidates (they’ve) found are relatively close to the equator, so they can be seen from both the Northern and Southern Hemisphere.”
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/2019/04/25/breaking-ligo-detects-another-neutron-star-merger/#.XMJAd5NKhTY1 -
Southern Cross to Eta Carinae
Tracking along the southern Milky Way this beautiful celestial mosaic was recorded under dark Brazilian skies. Spanning some 20 degrees it actually starts with the dark expanse of the Coalsack nebula at the lower left, tucked under an arm of the Southern Cross. That compact constellation is topped by bright yellowish Gamma Crucis, a cool giant star a mere 88 light-years distant.
A line from Gamma Crucis through the blue star at the bottom of the cross, Alpha Crucis, points toward the South Celestial Pole. Follow the Milky Way to the right and your gaze will sweep across IC 2948, popularly known as the Running Chicken nebula, before it reaches Eta Carinae and the Carina Nebula near the right edge of the frame. About 200 light-years across, the Carina Nebula is a star forming region much larger than the more northerly stellar nursery the Orion Nebula.
The Carina Nebula lies around 7,500 light-years from Earth along the plane of the Milky Way.1 -
Hubble Snaps a Crowded Cluster
This sparkling burst of stars is Messier 75. It is a globular cluster: a spherical collection of stars bound together by gravity. Clusters like this orbit around galaxies and typically reside in their outer and less-crowded areas, gathering to form dense communities in the galactic suburbs.
Messier 75 lies in our Milky Way galaxy in the constellation of Sagittarius (the Archer), around 67,000 light-years away from Earth. The majority of the cluster’s stars, about 400,000 in total, are found in its core; it is one of the most densely populated clusters ever found, with a phenomenal luminosity of some 180,000 times that of the Sun. No wonder it photographs so well!
Discovered in 1780 by Pierre Méchain, Messier 75 was also observed by Charles Messier and added to his catalog later that year. This image of Messier 75 was captured by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s Advanced Camera for Surveys.0 -
Opportunity's Final Traverse Map
This final traverse map for NASA's Opportunity rover shows where the rover was located within Perseverance Valley on June 10, 2018, the last date it made contact with its engineering team.
Visible in this map is a yellow traverse route beginning at Opportunity's landing site, Eagle Crater, and ranging 28.06 miles (45.16 kilometers) to its final resting spot on the rim of Endeavour Crater. The rover was descending down into the crater in Perseverance Valley when the dust storm ended its mission.0 -
Meteor Misses Galaxy
The galaxy was never in danger. For one thing, the Triangulum galaxy (M33), pictured, is much bigger than the tiny grain of rock at the head of the meteor. For another, the galaxy is much farther away -- in this instance 3 million light years as opposed to only about 0.0003 light seconds.
Even so, the meteor's path took it angularly below the galaxy. Also the wind high in Earth's atmosphere blew the meteor's glowing evaporative molecule train away from the galaxy, in angular projection. Still, the astrophotographer was quite lucky to capture both a meteor and a galaxy in a single exposure -- which was subsequently added to two other images of M33 to bring up the spiral galaxy's colors.
At the end, the meteor was gone in a second, but the galaxy will last billions of years.0 -
The Cat's Eye Nebula in Optical and X-ray
To some it looks like a cat's eye. To others, perhaps like a giant cosmic conch shell. It is actually one of brightest and most highly detailed planetary nebula known, composed of gas expelled in the brief yet glorious phase near the end of life of a Sun-like star. This nebula's dying central star may have produced the outer circular concentric shells by shrugging off outer layers in a series of regular convulsions.
The formation of the beautiful, complex-yet-symmetric inner structures, however, is not well understood. The featured image is a composite of a digitally sharpened Hubble Space Telescope image with X-ray light captured by the orbiting Chandra Observatory. The exquisite floating space statue spans over half a light-year across.
Of course, gazing into this Cat's Eye, humanity may well be seeing the fate of our sun, destined to enter its own planetary nebula phase of evolution ... in about 5 billion years.0 -
An electrical fault aboard the International Space Station (ISS) has forced NASA to delay SpaceX’s CRS-17 Cargo Dragon launch from May 1st to May 3rd, giving the station’s crew more time to fix the issues at hand.
MAY 3RD, 3:11:00AM (UTC) (May 2nd 11:11 PM EST)0 -
NGC 6188 and NGC 6164
Fantastic shapes lurk in clouds of glowing hydrogen gas in NGC 6188. The emission nebula is found near the edge of a large molecular cloud, unseen at visible wavelengths, in the southern constellation Ara, about 4,000 light-years away. Massive, young stars of the embedded Ara OB1 association were formed in that region only a few million years ago, sculpting the dark shapes and powering the nebular glow with stellar winds and intense ultraviolet radiation.
The recent star formation itself was likely triggered by winds and supernova explosions, from previous generations of massive stars, that swept up and compressed the molecular gas. Joining NGC 6188 on this cosmic canvas is rare emission nebula NGC 6164, also created by one of the region's massive O-type stars. Similar in appearance to many planetary nebulae, NGC 6164's striking, symmetric gaseous shroud and faint halo surround its bright central star at the upper right.
The field of view spans about two full Moons, corresponding to 70 light years at the estimated distance of NGC 6188.0 -
Clouds of the Large Magellanic Cloud
The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is an alluring sight in southern skies. But this deep and detailed telescopic view, over 10 months in the making, goes beyond what is visible to most circumnavigators of planet Earth. Spanning over 5 degrees or 10 full moons, the 4x4 panel mosaic was constructed from 3900 frames with a total of 1,060 hours of exposure time in both broadband and narrowband filters.
The narrowband filters are designed to transmit only light emitted by sulfur, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms. Ionized by energetic starlight, the atoms emit their characteristic light as electrons are recaptured and the atoms transition to a lower energy state. As a result, in this image the LMC seems covered with its own clouds of ionized gas surrounding its massive, young stars.
Sculpted by the strong stellar winds and ultraviolet radiation, the glowing clouds, dominated by emission from hydrogen, are known as H II (ionized hydrogen) regions. Itself composed of many overlapping H II regions, the Tarantula Nebula is the large star forming region at the left.
The largest satellite of our Milky Way Galaxy, the LMC is about 15,000 light-years across and lies a mere 160,000 light-years away toward the constellation Dorado.0 -
Hubble Spots Stunning Spiral Galaxy
Few of the universe’s residents are as iconic as the spiral galaxy. These limelight-hogging celestial objects combine whirling, pinwheeling arms with scatterings of sparkling stars, glowing bursts of gas, and dark, weaving lanes of cosmic dust, creating truly awesome scenes — especially when viewed through a telescope such as the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. In fact, this image from Hubble frames a perfect spiral specimen: the stunning NGC 2903.
NGC 2903 is located about 30 million light-years away in the constellation of Leo (the Lion), and was studied as part of a Hubble survey of the central regions of roughly 145 nearby disk galaxies. This study aimed to help astronomers better understand the relationship between the black holes that lurk at the cores of galaxies like these, and the rugby-ball-shaped bulge of stars, gas and dust at the galaxy’s center — such as that seen in this image.0 -
Liftoff of SpaceX's CRS-17 Dragon Cargo Craft
SpaceX's Dragon lifted off on a Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on Saturday, May 4, with more than 5,500 pounds of research, equipment, cargo and supplies that will support dozens of investigations aboard the International Space Station.
On Monday, May 6, while the station was traveling over the north Atlantic Ocean, astronauts David Saint-Jacques of the Canadian Space Agency and Nick Hague of NASA grappled Dragon at 7:01 a.m. EDT using the space station’s robotic arm, Canadarm2.0 -
The Great Nebula in Carina
What's happening in the center of the Carina Nebula? Stars are forming, dying, and leaving an impressive tapestry of dark dusty filaments. The entire Carina Nebula, cataloged as NGC 3372, spans over 300 light years and lies about 8,500 light-years away in the constellation of Carina.
The nebula is composed predominantly of hydrogen gas, which emits the pervasive red glow seen in this highly detailed featured image. The blue glow in the center is created by a trace amount of glowing oxygen. Young and massive stars located in the nebula's center expel dust when they explode in supernovae.
Eta Carinae, the most energetic star in the nebula's center, was one of the brightest stars in the sky in the 1830s, but then faded dramatically.0 -
JustReadTheInstructions wrote: ».... Could you imagine if that happened while it was attached to the ISS?...
Yeah, that'd be bad... the Crew Dragon has eight Super Draco engines, which is what they were testing on the stand. These SuperDracos use hypergolic fuels like a n RCS and have multi-run capabilities... I'm kinda assuming that this "test flight" went without those having fuel, but I'm not certain. Prior manned-flight solutions jettisoned the LAS, but the Crew Dragon has em incorporated into the capsule itself (this is a hover test of the Crew Dragon LAS):
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Mature Galaxy Mesmerizes in New Hubble View
This striking image was taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3), a powerful instrument installed on the telescope in 2009. WFC3 is responsible for many of Hubble’s most breathtaking and iconic photographs.
Shown here, NGC 7773 is a beautiful example of a barred spiral galaxy. A luminous bar-shaped structure cuts prominently through the galaxy's bright core, extending to the inner boundary of NGC 7773's sweeping, pinwheel-like spiral arms. Astronomers think that these bar structures emerge later in the lifetime of a galaxy, as star-forming material makes its way towards the galactic center — younger spirals do not feature barred structures as often as older spirals do, suggesting that bars are a sign of galactic maturity. They are also thought to act as stellar nurseries, as they gleam brightly with copious numbers of youthful stars.
Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is thought to be a barred spiral like NGC 7773. By studying galactic specimens such as NGC 7773 throughout the universe, researchers hope to learn more about the processes that have shaped — and continue to shape — our cosmic home.1 -
The Cave Nebula in Infrared from Spitzer
What's happening in and around the Cave Nebula? To help find out, NASA's orbiting Spitzer Space Telescope looked into this optically-dark star-forming region in four colors of infrared light. The Cave Nebula, cataloged as Sh2-155, is quite bright in infrared, revealing details not only of internal pillars of gas and dust, but of the illuminating star cluster too - all near the top of the image.
The red glow around the Cave's entrance is created by dust heated by bright young stars. To the right is Cepheus B, a star cluster that formed previously from the same cloud of gas and dust. Other interesting stars of Cepheus come to light in infrared as well, including those illuminating an even younger nebula toward the image bottom, and a runaway star pushing a bow shock, tinged in red near the image center.
This region spans about 50 light years and lies about 2,500 light years toward the constellation of the King of Aethiopia (Cepheus).1 -
I sure wish I knew about any rocket launches without having to look up the information..........1
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Spiral Galaxy M96 from Hubble
Dust lanes seem to swirl around the core of Messier 96 in this colorful, detailed portrait of the center of a beautiful island universe. Of course M96 is a spiral galaxy, and counting the faint arms extending beyond the brighter central region, it spans 100 thousand light-years or so, making it about the size of our own Milky Way.
M96, also known as NGC 3368, is known to be about 35 million light-years distant and a dominant member of the Leo I galaxy group. The featured image was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. The reason for M96's asymmetry is unclear -- it could have arisen from gravitational interactions with other Leo I group galaxies, but the lack of an intra-group diffuse glow seems to indicate few recent interactions.
Galaxies far in the background can be found by examining the edges of the picture.1 -
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JustReadTheInstructions wrote: »I sure wish I knew about any rocket launches without having to look up the information..........
Why there's one today my good friend! Unfortunately I'm going to have to force a meeting to end early to watch it. 10:17 EST!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8A2nJd9Urk8&feature=youtu.be
I assume AM but it could be PM because I don't know your life. You could be having meetings at night. It might not even be a work meeting but just a meeting, I don't like to make assumptions. Now I have many questions.Today’s flight is scheduled for takeoff at 10:17AM ET / 7:17AM PT out of Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. SpaceX has a short 13-minute launch window, so the Falcon 9 rocket can conceivably launch up until 10:30AM ET. SpaceX’s coverage of the launch will begin about 15 minutes before liftoff
Probably should of looked at your link first...
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JustReadTheInstructions wrote: »Lol sorry yeah I meant AM. I was too preoccupied with the time zone since it's in California.
The satellites will deploy 54 minutes after launch
And I missed it again....1 -
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JustReadTheInstructions wrote: »JustReadTheInstructions wrote: »Lol sorry yeah I meant AM. I was too preoccupied with the time zone since it's in California.
The satellites will deploy 54 minutes after launch
And I missed it again....
The launch or the deployment?
Yes, now.1 -
The Colors and Magnitudes of M13
M13 is modestly recognized as the Great Globular Star Cluster in Hercules. A ball of stars numbering in the hundreds of thousands crowded into a region 150 light years across, it lies some 25,000 light-years away. The sharp, color picture of M13 at upper left is familiar to many telescopic imagers. Still, M13's Color vs Magnitude Diagram in the panel below and right, made from the same image data, can offer a more telling view.
Also known as a Hertzsprung Russell (HR) diagram it plots the apparent brightness of individual cluster stars against color index. The color index is determined for each star by subtracting its brightness (in magnitudes) measured through a red filter from its brightness measured with a blue filter (B-R). Blue stars are hot and red stars are cool so that astronomical color index ranging from bluer to redder follows the relative stellar temperature scale from left (hot) to right (cool).
In M13's HR diagram, the stars clearly fall into distinct groups. The broad swath extending diagonally from the bottom right is the cluster's main sequence. A sharp turn toward the upper right hand corner follows the red giant branch while the blue giants are found grouped in the upper left. Formed at the same time, at first M13's stars were all located along the main sequence by mass, lower mass stars at the lower right.
Over time higher mass stars have evolved off the main sequence into red, then blue giants and beyond. In fact, the position of the turn-off from the main sequence to the red giant branch indicates the cluster's age at about 12 billion years.1 -
Atlas, Daphnis, and Pan
Atlas, Daphnis, and Pan are small, inner, ring moons of Saturn. They are shown at the same scale in this montage of images by the Cassini spacecraft that made its grand final orbit of the ringed planet in September 2017. In fact, Daphnis was discovered in Cassini images from 2005.
Atlas and Pan were first sighted in images from the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft. Flying saucer-shaped Atlas orbits near the outer edge of Saturn's bright A Ring while Daphnis orbits inside the A Ring's narrow Keeler Gap and Pan within the A Ring's larger Encke Gap. The curious equatorial ridges of the small ring moons could be built up by the accumulation of ring material over time. Even diminutive Daphnis makes waves in the ring material as it glides along the edge of the Keeler Gap.1 -
NGC 4676: The Mighty Mice
These two mighty galaxies are pulling each other apart. Known as The Mice because they have such long tails, each large spiral galaxy has actually passed through the other. Their long tails are drawn out by strong gravitational tides rather than collisions of their individual stars.
Because the distances are so large, the cosmic interaction takes place in slow motion -- over hundreds of millions of years. They will probably collide again and again over the next billion years until they coalesce to form a single galaxy. NGC 4676 lies about 300 million light-years away toward the constellation of Bernice's Hair (Coma Berenices) and are likely members of the Coma Cluster of Galaxies.
Not often imaged in small telescopes, this wide field of view catches the faint tidal tails several hundred thousand light-years long.1 -
Unusual Mountain Ahuna Mons on Asteroid Ceres
What created this unusual mountain? There is a new theory. Ahuna Mons is the largest mountain on the largest known asteroid in our Solar System, Ceres, which orbits our Sun in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Ahuna Mons, though, is like nothing that humanity has ever seen before. For one thing, its slopes are garnished not with old craters but young vertical streaks.
The new hypothesis, based on numerous gravity measurements, holds that a bubble of mud rose from deep within the dwarf planet and pushed through the icy surface at a weak point rich in reflective salt -- and then froze. The bright streaks are thought to be similar to other recently surfaced material such as visible in Ceres' famous bright spots. The featured double-height digital image was constructed from surface maps taken of Ceres in 2016 by the robotic Dawn mission. Successfully completing its mission in 2018, Dawn continues to orbit Ceres even though it has exhausted the fuel needed to keep its antennas pointed toward Earth.
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Storm Rages in Cosmic Teacup
Fancy a cup of cosmic tea? This one isn't as calming as the ones on Earth. In a galaxy hosting a structure nicknamed the "Teacup," a galactic storm is raging.
The source of the cosmic squall is a supermassive black hole buried at the center of the galaxy, officially known as SDSS 1430+1339. As matter in the central regions of the galaxy is pulled toward the black hole, it is energized by the strong gravity and magnetic fields near the black hole. The infalling material produces more radiation than all the stars in the host galaxy. This kind of actively growing black hole is known as a quasar.
Located about 1.1 billion light years from Earth, the Teacup's host galaxy was originally discovered in visible light images by citizen scientists in 2007 as part of the Galaxy Zoo project, using data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey.1
https://youtu.be/07Pm8ZY0XJI
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