Space

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Our Galaxy's Magnetic Center



What's the magnetic field like in the center of our Milky Way Galaxy? To help find out, NASA's SOFIA -- an observatory flying in a modified 747 -- imaged the central region with an instrument known as HAWC+. HAWC+ maps magnetism by observing polarized infrared light emitted by elongated dust grains rotating in alignment with the local magnetic field.

Now at our Milky Way's center is a supermassive black hole with a hobby of absorbing gas from stars it has recently destroyed. Our galaxy's black hole, though, is relatively quiet compared to the absorption rate of the central black holes in active galaxies.

The featured image gives a clue as to why -- a surrounding magnetic field may either channel gas into the black hole -- which lights up its exterior, or forces gas into an accretion-disk holding pattern, causing it to be less active -- at least temporarily. Inspection of the featured image -- appearing perhaps like a surreal mashup of impasto art and gravitational astrophysics -- brings out this telling clue by detailing the magnetic field in and around a dusty ring surrounding Sagittarius A*, the black hole in our Milky Way's center.

cee134

A Look Inside the X-59 QueSST Cockpit



The pilot of NASA’s X-59 Quiet SuperSonic Technology, or QueSST, aircraft will navigate the skies in a cockpit unlike any other. There won’t be a forward-facing window. That’s right; it’s actually a 4K monitor that serves as the central window and allows the pilot to safely see traffic in his or her flight path, and provides additional visual aids for airport approaches, landings and takeoffs.

The 4K monitor, which is part of the aircraft’s eXternal Visibility System, or XVS, displays stitched images from two cameras outside the aircraft combined with terrain data from an advanced computing system. The two portals and traditional canopy are real windows however, and help the pilot see the horizon. The displays below the XVS will provide a variety of aircraft systems and trajectory data for the pilot to safely fly.

The XVS is one of several innovative solutions to help ensure the X-59’s design shape reduces a sonic boom to a gentle thump heard by people on the ground. Though not intended to ever carry passengers, the X-59 boom-suppressing technology and community response data could help lift current bans on supersonic flight over land and enable a new generation of quiet supersonic commercial aircraft.

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/lowboom/index.html

cee134

A View Toward M106



Big, bright, beautiful spiral, Messier 106 dominates this cosmic vista. The nearly two degree wide telescopic field of view looks toward the well-trained constellation Canes Venatici, near the handle of the Big Dipper. Also known as NGC 4258, M106 is about 80,000 light-years across and 23.5 million light-years away, the largest member of the Canes II galaxy group.

For a far away galaxy, the distance to M106 is well-known in part because it can be directly measured by tracking this galaxy's remarkable maser, or microwave laser emission. Very rare but naturally occurring, the maser emission is produced by water molecules in molecular clouds orbiting its active galactic nucleus. Another prominent spiral galaxy on the scene, viewed nearly edge-on, is NGC 4217 below and right of M106. The distance to NGC 4217 is much less well-known, estimated to be about 60 million light-years.

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cee134

RockSat-C: Launching Student Experiments to Space



At 5:30 a.m. EDT Thursday, June 20, 2019, a 40-foot tall rocket carrying 28 student experiments (measuring acceleration, humidity, pressure, temperature and radiation counts) launched from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. The launch is part of the RockOn! programs designed for students to learn and apply skills in building experiments for suborbital space flight. More than 200 university students from across the United States witnessed the launching of their experiments aboard a NASA suborbital sounding rocket.

Participants in RockOn! receive instruction on the basics required to develop a scientific payload for flight on a suborbital rocket. After learning the basics in RockOn!, students may then participate in RockSat-C, where during the school year they design and build a more complicated experiment.

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Sunset Analemma



Today, the solstice is at 15:54 Universal Time, the Sun reaching the northernmost declination in its yearly journey through planet Earth's sky. A June solstice marks the astronomical beginning of summer in the northern hemisphere and winter in the south. It also brings the north's longest day, the longest period between sunrise and sunset.

In fact the June solstice sun is near the top, at the most northern point in the analemma or figure 8 curve traced by the position of the Sun in this composite photo. The analemma was created (video) from images taken every 10 days at the same time from June 21, 2018 and June 7, 2019. The time was chosen to be the year's earliest sunset near the December solstice, so the analemma's lowest point just kisses the unobstructed sea horizon at the left.

Sunsets arranged along the horizon toward the right (north) are centered on the sunset at the September equinox and end with sunset at the June solstice.

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cee134

The View Toward M101



Big, beautiful spiral galaxy M101 is one of the last entries in Charles Messier's famous catalog, but definitely not one of the least. About 170,000 light-years across, this galaxy is enormous, almost twice the size of our own Milky Way galaxy. M101 was also one of the original spiral nebulae observed by Lord Rosse's large 19th century telescope, the Leviathan of Parsontown. M101 shares this modern telescopic field of view with spiky foreground stars within the Milky Way and a companion dwarf galaxy NGC 5474 (lower right).

The colors of the Milky Way stars can also be found in the starlight from the large island universe. Its core is dominated by light from cool yellowish stars. Along its grand design spiral arms are the blue colors of hotter, young stars mixed with obscuring dust lanes and pinkish star forming regions. Also known as the Pinwheel Galaxy, M101 lies within the boundaries of the northern constellation Ursa Major, about 23 million light-years away. NGC 5474 has likely been distorted by its past gravitational interactions with the dominant M101.

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25 Brightest Stars in the Night Sky



Do you know the names of some of the brightest stars? It's likely that you do, even though some bright stars have names so old they date back to near the beginning of written language. Many world cultures have their own names for the brightest stars, and it is culturally and historically important to remember them.

In the interest of clear global communication, however, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) has begun to designate standardized star names. Featured above in true color are the 25 brightest stars in the night sky, currently as seen by humans, coupled with their IAU-recognized names.

Some star names have interesting meanings, including Sirius ("the scorcher" in Latin), Vega ("falling" in Arabic), and Antares ("rival to Mars" in Greek). It's also likely that other of these bright star names are not familiar to you, even though familiar Polaris is too dim to make this list.

cee134

NGC 3293: A Bright Young Star Cluster



Hot blue stars shine brightly in this beautiful, recently formed galactic or "open" star cluster. Open cluster NGC 3293 is located in the constellation Carina, lies at a distance of about 8000 light years, and has a particularly high abundance of these young bright stars.

A study of NGC 3293 implies that the blue stars are only about 6 million years old, whereas the cluster's dimmer, redder stars appear to be about 20 million years old. If true, star formation in this open cluster took at least 15 million years. Even this amount of time is short, however, when compared with the billions of years stars like our Sun live, and the over-ten billion year lifetimes of many galaxies and our universe.

Pictured, NGC 3293 appears just in front of a dense dust lane and red glowing hydrogen gas emanating from the Carina Nebula.

cee134

The Longer Days



This persistent six month long exposure compresses the time from solstice to solstice (December 21, 2018 to June 16, 2019) into a single point of view. Dubbed a solargraph, the unconventional picture was recorded with a tall, tube-shaped pinhole camera using a piece of photographic paper.

Fixed to a single spot at Casarano, Italy for the entire exposure, the simple camera continuously records the Sun's daily path as a glowing trail burned into the photosensitive paper. Breaks and gaps in the trails are caused by cloud cover. At the end of the exposure, the paper was scanned to create the digital image.

Of course, starting in December the Sun trails peak lower in the sky, near the northern hemisphere's winter solstice. The trails trails climb higher as the days grow longer and the June 21st summer solstice approaches.

cee134

The Trifid Nebula in Stars and Dust



Unspeakable beauty and unimaginable bedlam can be found together in the Trifid Nebula. Also known as M20, this photogenic nebula is visible with good binoculars towards the constellation of Sagittarius. The energetic processes of star formation create not only the colors but the chaos.

The red-glowing gas results from high-energy starlight striking interstellar hydrogen gas. The dark dust filaments that lace M20 were created in the atmospheres of cool giant stars and in the debris from supernovae explosions. Which bright young stars light up the blue reflection nebula is still being investigated.

The light from M20 we see today left perhaps 3,000 years ago, although the exact distance remains unknown. Light takes about 50 years to cross M20.

leerena1973

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mattig89ch

sorry, couldn't help myself.

cee134

Earth's Glow, the Moon and a Starry Night



Imagine seeing the Earth, Moon and stars all in one view. Such a vision was captured by the crew of the International Space Station. They could see the Earth's atmospheric glow, highlighted by the Moon and a starry orbital nighttime background while orbiting 256 miles above the Pacific Ocean, southeast of the Hawaiian island chain.

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cee134

Crescent Saturn



Saturn never shows a crescent phase -- from Earth. But when viewed from beyond, the majestic giant planet can show an unfamiliar diminutive sliver. This image of crescent Saturn in natural color was taken by the robotic Cassini spacecraft in 2007.

The featured image captures Saturn's majestic rings from the side of the ring plane opposite the Sun -- the unilluminated side -- another vista not visible from Earth. Pictured are many of Saturn's photogenic wonders, including the subtle colors of cloud bands, the complex shadows of the rings on the planet, and the shadow of the planet on the rings.

A careful eye will find the moons Mimas (2 o'clock) and Janus (4 o'clock), but the real challenge is to find Pandora (8 o'clock). Saturn is now nearly opposite from the Sun in the Earth's sky and so can be seen in the evening starting just after sunset for the rest of the night.

cee134

4000 Exoplanets

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aiFD_LBx2nM

Over 4000 planets are now known to exist outside our Solar System. Known as exoplanets, this milestone was passed last month, as recorded by NASA's Exoplanet Archive. The featured video highlights these exoplanets in sound and light, starting chronologically from the first confirmed detection in 1992.

The entire night sky is first shown compressed with the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy making a giant U. Exoplanets detected by slight jiggles in their parents-star's colors (radial velocity) appear in pink, while those detected by slight dips in their parent star's brightness (transit) are shown in purple.

Further, those exoplanets imaged directly appear in orange, while those detected by gravitationally magnifying the light of a background star (microlensing) are shown in green. The faster a planet orbits its parent star, the higher the accompanying tone played.

The retired Kepler satellite has discovered about half of these first 4000 exoplanets in just one region of the sky, while the new TESS mission is on track to find even more, all over the sky, orbiting the brightest nearby stars.

Finding exoplanets not only helps humanity to better understand the potential prevalence of life elsewhere in the universe, but also how our Earth and Solar System were formed.

cee134

Magellanic Galaxy NGC 55



Irregular galaxy NGC 55 is thought to be similar to the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). But while the LMC is about 180,000 light-years away and a well-known satellite of our own Milky Way Galaxy, NGC 55 is more like 6 million light-years distant, a member of the Sculptor Galaxy Group.

Classified as an irregular galaxy, in deep exposures the LMC itself resembles a barred disk galaxy. Spanning about 50,000 light-years, NGC 55 is seen nearly edge-on though, presenting a flattened, narrow profile in contrast with our face-on view of the LMC. Just as large star forming regions create emission nebulae in the LMC, NGC 55 is also seen to be producing new stars.

This highly detailed galaxy portrait highlights a bright core crossed with dust clouds, telltale pinkish star forming regions, and young blue star clusters in NGC 55.

mattig89ch

From the Nasa RSS feeds.



Galactic Cherry Blossoms

cee134

The Space Station Crosses a Spotless Sun



That's no sunspot. It's the International Space Station (ISS) caught passing in front of the Sun. Sunspots, individually, have a dark central umbra, a lighter surrounding penumbra, and no solar panels. By contrast, the ISS is a complex and multi-spired mechanism, one of the largest and most sophisticated machines ever created by humanity.

Also, sunspots occur on the Sun, whereas the ISS orbits the Earth. Transiting the Sun is not very unusual for the ISS, which orbits the Earth about every 90 minutes, but getting one's timing and equipment just right for a great image is rare. Strangely, besides that fake spot, in this recent two-image composite, the Sun lacked any real sunspots. The featured picture combines two images -- one capturing the space station transiting the Sun -- and another taken consecutively capturing details of the Sun's surface.

Sunspots have been rare on the Sun since the dawn of the current Solar Minimum, a period of low solar activity. For reasons not yet fully understood, the number of sunspots occurring during both the previous and current solar minima have been unusually low.

cee134

NGC 1566: The Spanish Dancer Spiral Galaxy



If not perfect, then this spiral galaxy is at least one of the most photogenic. An island universe containing billions of stars and situated about 40 million light-years away toward the constellation of the Dolphinfish (Dorado), NGC 1566 presents a gorgeous face-on view.

Classified as a grand design spiral, NGC 1566's shows two prominent and graceful spiral arms that are traced by bright blue star clusters and dark cosmic dust lanes. Numerous Hubble Space Telescope images of NGC 1566 have been taken to study star formation, supernovas, and the spiral's unusually active center.

Some of these images, stored online in the Hubble Legacy Archive, were freely downloaded, combined, and digitally processed by an industrious amateur to create the featured image. NGC 1566's flaring center makes the spiral one of the closest and brightest Seyfert galaxies, likely housing a central supermassive black hole wreaking havoc on surrounding stars and gas.

honeybee__12

cee134 wrote: »

The Space Station Crosses a Spotless Sun



That's no sunspot. It's the International Space Station (ISS) caught passing in front of the Sun. Sunspots, individually, have a dark central umbra, a lighter surrounding penumbra, and no solar panels. By contrast, the ISS is a complex and multi-spired mechanism, one of the largest and most sophisticated machines ever created by humanity.

Also, sunspots occur on the Sun, whereas the ISS orbits the Earth. Transiting the Sun is not very unusual for the ISS, which orbits the Earth about every 90 minutes, but getting one's timing and equipment just right for a great image is rare. Strangely, besides that fake spot, in this recent two-image composite, the Sun lacked any real sunspots. The featured picture combines two images -- one capturing the space station transiting the Sun -- and another taken consecutively capturing details of the Sun's surface.

Sunspots have been rare on the Sun since the dawn of the current Solar Minimum, a period of low solar activity. For reasons not yet fully understood, the number of sunspots occurring during both the previous and current solar minima have been unusually low.

Amazing photo!

kevinflemming1982

I'm always fascinated by space and the sheer incomprehensible size of the known universe, let alone the rest of it we don't know about. Honestly blows my tiny little mind. Black holes, dark matter, the last bits of light coming from stars which died millions of years ago. It's a wonderful thing to be alive and have so much thirst for knowledge about everything that surrounds and penetrates us (there are neutrino particles passing through you right now!).

kevinflemming1982

Some people think it's a waste of time exploring beyond our own planet. But given that the chances of another intelligent species such as us, are extremely-slim (at least with our current knowledge) and the possibility that we might be the only species capable of observing, exploring, recording and being inquisitive enough to want to do these things, I think it's our duty to understand as much as we can before our brief existence ends.

By brief existence, I mean that in the big scale of things, humanity is but a blip on the overall timescale. The fact that we consider the universe to be roughly 14 billions years old, means that our 200,000 year existence (of modern humans) is practically nothing. Who is to say just how long we will last as a species, but I can't see it being very long with how things are progressing lol.

That sounds rather nihilistic, I know. It's really not. That just means we have to make the most of it. Chase your dreams, live a good life, be a decent person, leave something wonderful behind. So that if there are other intelligent species out there, they can one day find our remains and show that we tried to do something amazing.

kevinflemming1982

A little bit of space porn (not what you think lol).

This is NGC 5033, an inclined spiral galaxy, in the Canes Venatici constellation.


It's roughly 50 million light years away, and due to the size of it, can be seen using amateur telescopes.


It contains a Seyfert nucleus, which grants the galaxy incredible brightness and ion radiation, making it clearly visible compared to some. Plenty of warping of light in this galaxy leads us to believe that is has a super-massive black hole, the size of which could potentially be billions of times larger than our sun.

At some point during it's lifetime, it's believed that this galaxy merged with another, due to the nucleus location. It's not in the kinematic centre (the point where stars rotate around the galaxy itself), which is often evidence of other influences such as collision and displacement.

NCG 5033 shares it's location with another nearby galaxy, NGC 5005. The are considered a pair, and have minor gravitational influence on the other. Although, they are far away enough to not directly interfere.

cee134

Apollo 11 and Landing Site 2 in the Sea of Tranquility



This photographic illustration compares the size of Apollo 11 Landing Site 2 with that of the metropolitan New York City area. Site 2 was one of three Apollo 11 lunar landing sites. This was the planned site if Apollo 11 launched on July 16, 1969, as scheduled.

Apollo 11 did launch on schedule and landed on Site 2, which is located at 23 degrees 42 minutes 28 seconds east longitude and 0 degrees 42 minutes 50 seconds north latitude in southwestern Mare Tranquillitatis (Sea of Tranquility).

The white overlay is printed over a lunar surface photograph taken from Apollo 10 during its lunar orbit mission and is numbered AS10-31-4537.

cee134

HDR: Earth's Circular Shadow on the Moon



What could create such a large circular shadow on the Moon? The Earth. Last week's full Moon -- the Buck Moon -- was so full that it fell almost exactly in a line with the Sun and the Earth. When that happens the Earth casts its shadow onto the Moon.

The circularity of the Earth's shadow on the Moon was commented on by Aristotle and so has been noticed since at least the 4th century BC. What's new is humanity's ability to record this shadow with such high dynamic range (HDR).

The featured HDR composite of last week's partial lunar eclipse combines 15 images and include an exposure as short as 1/400th of a second -- so as not to overexpose the brightest part -- and an exposure that lasted five seconds -- to bring up the dimmest part.

This dimmest part -- inside Earth's umbra -- is not completely dark because some light is refracted through the Earth's atmosphere onto the Moon. A total lunar eclipse will occur next in 2021 May.

kevinflemming1982

That's such a nice picture of the Moon. I love that technology allows us to capture such high-resolution and detailed pictures now. Not only of close celestial bodies, but ones further away too.