Space

mattig89ch

Celebrating Spitzer's Sweet Sixteen



Sixteen years ago, NASA launched its Spitzer Space Telescope into orbit around the Sun on Aug. 25, 2003. Since then, the observatory has been lifting the veil on the wonders of the cosmos, from our own solar system to faraway galaxies, using infrared light. Spitzer's primary mission lasted five-and-a-half years and ended when it ran out of the liquid helium coolant necessary to operate two of its three instruments. But its passive-cooling design has allowed part of its third instrument to continue operating for more than 10 additional years. The mission is scheduled to end on Jan. 30, 2020.

This Spitzer image shows the giant star Zeta Ophiuchi and the bow shock, or shock wave, in front of it. Visible only in infrared light, the bow shock is created by winds that flow from the star, making ripples in the surrounding dust. Located roughly 370 light-years from Earth, Zeta Ophiuchi dwarfs our Sun: It is about six times hotter, eight times wider, 20 times more massive and about 80,000 times as bright. Even at its great distance, it would be one of the brightest stars in the sky were it not largely obscured by dust clouds.

cee134

NGC 7129 and NGC 7142



This wide-field telescopic image looks toward the constellation Cepheus and an intriguing visual pairing of dusty reflection nebula NGC 7129 (right) and open star cluster NGC 7142. The two appear separated by only half a degree on the sky, but they actually lie at quite different distances. In the foreground, dusty nebula NGC 7129 is about 3,000 light-years distant, while open cluster NGC 7142 is likely over 6,000 light-years away.

In fact, pervasive and clumpy foreground dust clouds in this region redden the light from NGC 7142, complicating astronomical explorations of the cluster. Still, NGC 7142 is thought to be an older open star cluster, while the bright stars embedded in NGC 7129 are perhaps a few million years young. The telltale reddish crescent shapes around NGC 7129 are associated with energetic jets streaming away from newborn stars.

cee134

Hubble Views Final Stages of a Star’s Life



This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows NGC 5307, a planetary nebula that lies about 10,000 light-years from Earth. It can be seen in the constellation Centaurus (the Centaur), which can be seen primarily in the southern hemisphere. A planetary nebula is the final stage of a Sun-like star. As such, planetary nebulas allow us a glimpse into the future of our own solar system. A star like our Sun will, at the end of its life, transform into a red giant. Stars are sustained by the nuclear fusion that occurs in their core, which creates energy. The nuclear fusion processes constantly try to rip the star apart. Only the gravity of the star prevents this from happening.

At the end of the red giant phase of a star, these forces become unbalanced. Without enough energy created by fusion, the core of the star collapses in on itself, while the surface layers are ejected outward. After that, all that remains of the star is what we see here: glowing outer layers surrounding a white dwarf star, the remnants of the red giant star’s core.

This isn’t the end of this star’s evolution though — those outer layers are still moving and cooling. In just a few thousand years they will have dissipated, and all that will be left to see is the dimly glowing white dwarf.

geraldaltman

I have been calling it a pilgrimage to my "Mecca". Last month, I took a road trip to Ohio that included a day and night in Wapokaneta, the birthplace of the late Neil Armstrong. I visited the Air And Space Museum that bears his name there. I have never felt more a part of a visit than I did there there. I credit that to all the reading I have done about him and the 1960' space programs! I became interested in space at age 6 when Alan Shepard became the first American in space; I was 10 when Ed White became the first American to walk in space and almost 12 when he died tragically along with Gus Grissom and Roger Chaffee in that horrible launch pad fire. I was 13 when Apollo 8 went to the moon and 14 when Neil Armstrong took that "First Step" 50 years ago. I was a high school senior when Gene Cernan became the last to step off of the moon. If luck and the stars are with me, I will almost 70 if/when America stays on track and returns to the moon in 2024 and the first woman steps onto it (something I frankly believe should have been possible 50 years ago!). I look forward to watching that and perhaps contributing to this topic.

geraldaltman

geraldaltman wrote: »

I have been calling it a pilgrimage to my "Mecca". Last month, I took a road trip to Ohio that included a day and night in Wapokaneta, the birthplace of the late Neil Armstrong. I visited the Air And Space Museum that bears his name there. I have never felt more a part of a visit than I did there there. I credit that to all the reading I have done about him and the 1960' space programs! I became interested in space at age 6 when Alan Shepard became the first American in space; I was 10 when Ed White became the first American to walk in space and almost 12 when he died tragically along with Gus Grissom and Roger Chaffee in that horrible launch pad fire. I was 13 when Apollo 8 went to the moon and 14 when Neil Armstrong took that "First Step" 50 years ago. I was a high school senior when Gene Cernan became the last to step off of the moon. If luck and the stars are with me, I will almost 70 if/when America stays on track and returns to the moon in 2024 and the first woman steps onto it (something I frankly believe should have been possible 50 years ago!). I look forward to watching that and perhaps contributing to this topic.

I forgot to mentioning driving by and looking at his boyhood home. It don't look like a tour was possible. It was quite a feeling driving around the same area that he may have ridden his bike or played (with model airplanes he built himself).*

*Did you know Neil Armstrong learned to fly and got a pilot license before learning to drive a car?

cee134

The Spider Nebula in Infrared



Will the spider ever catch the fly? Not if both are large emission nebulas toward the constellation of the Charioteer (Auriga). The spider-shaped gas cloud on the left is actually an emission nebula labelled IC 417, while the smaller fly-shaped cloud on the right is dubbed NGC 1931 and is both an emission nebula and a reflection nebula.

About 10,000 light-years distant, both nebulas harbor young, open star clusters. For scale, the more compact NGC 1931 (Fly) is about 10 light-years across. The featured picture in scientifically-assigned, infrared colors combines images from the Spitzer Space Telescope and the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS). Spitzer is celebrating its 16th year orbiting the Sun near the Earth.

cee134

The Large Cloud of Magellan



The 16th century Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan and his crew had plenty of time to study the southern sky during the first circumnavigation of planet Earth. As a result, two fuzzy cloud-like objects easily visible to southern hemisphere skygazers are known as the Clouds of Magellan, now understood to be satellite galaxies of our much larger, spiral Milky Way galaxy.

About 160,000 light-years distant in the constellation Dorado, the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is seen here in a remarkably deep, colorful, image. Spanning about 15,000 light-years or so, it is the most massive of the Milky Way's satellite galaxies and is the home of the closest supernova in modern times, SN 1987A. The prominent patch below center is 30 Doradus, also known as the magnificent Tarantula Nebula, a giant star-forming region about 1,000 light-years across.

cee134

Recycling Cassiopeia A



Massive stars in our Milky Way Galaxy live spectacular lives. Collapsing from vast cosmic clouds, their nuclear furnaces ignite and create heavy elements in their cores. After a few million years, the enriched material is blasted back into interstellar space where star formation can begin anew. The expanding debris cloud known as Cassiopeia A is an example of this final phase of the stellar life cycle. Light from the explosion which created this supernova remnant would have been first seen in planet Earth's sky about 350 years ago, although it took that light about 11,000 years to reach us.

This false-color image, composed of X-ray and optical image data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory and Hubble Space Telescope, shows the still hot filaments and knots in the remnant. It spans about 30 light-years at the estimated distance of Cassiopeia A. High-energy X-ray emission from specific elements has been color coded, silicon in red, sulfur in yellow, calcium in green and iron in purple, to help astronomers explore the recycling of our galaxy's star stuff. Still expanding, the outer blast wave is seen in blue hues. The bright speck near the center is a neutron star, the incredibly dense, collapsed remains of the massive stellar core.

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cee134

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6VmPU6Us00

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cee134

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86r41kzBRUE

This should work now.

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geraldaltman

I am watching but on a different channel I think. Thanks for the alert.

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geraldaltman

I think this is first moon landing I've watched in almost 50 years 🤣

geraldaltman

Don't know if anybody else sees this, the PM of India bears a slight resemblance to the older Buzz Aldrin; to me anyway. It's eerie under the circumstances.

cee134

It looks like it crashed?

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cee134

JustReadTheInstructions wrote: »

geraldaltman wrote: »

Don't know if anybody else sees this, the PM of India bears a slight resemblance to the older Buzz Aldrin; to me anyway. It's eerie under the circumstances.

Yes

cee134 wrote: »

It looks like it crashed?

I can't tell but it definitely went off it's trajectory and everyone looks confused

geraldaltman

I see, commentary quieted on channel I am on

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geraldaltman

No chatter at all now real bad sign. Reminds me of Challenger accident "Obviously a major mal-function" then PAO silence for a long time.

geraldaltman

Talking head on but not in English 😒

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JetJaguar

Yeah, bad sign after the PM and his entourage were briefed and then got up and left.

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geraldaltman

Back to my Challenger thought for a second: I watched that launch and explosion on the then very new Discovery Channel. My first thought was the (tragically "duuh") that's not supposed to happen. Shortly after the camera shifted to launch site and then the most eerie thing I have ever seen, panning the ocean horizon as if searching. Then I began checking channels for the "breaking news".