NGC 4038 and NGC 4039, better known as the Antennae galaxy, located over 70 million light years. The nuclei of both galaxies are joining to form a giant spiral galaxy. The object got its name from its two long stream of stars which resemble the antennae of insects.
Posts tagged "space"
-
Source unknownskywalker
-
The image shows the Jellyfish Nebula or IC443 to the right, and IC444 to the the left. The first is a planetary nebula which shelters a neutron star, the product of a star that exploded about 30,000 years ago and left a very large remnant; it is located about 5,000 light years away. In the picture the nebulae are flanked by the stars Mu and Etas in the constellation Gemini.
Source unknownskywalker -
Most Detailed View of a Solar Eclipse Corona
Credit & Copyright: Miloslav Druckmüller (Brno University of Technology), Martin Dietzel, Peter Aniol, Vojtech Rušin
Only in the fleeting darkness of a total solar eclipse is the light of the solar corona easily visible. Normally overwhelmed by the bright solar disk, the expansive corona, the sun’s outer atmosphere, is an alluring sight.
But the subtle details and extreme ranges in the corona’s brightness, although discernible to the eye, are notoriously difficult to photograph. Pictured above, however, using multiple images and digital processing, is a detailed image of the Sun’s corona taken during the 2008 August total solar eclipse from Mongolia.
(via cro-magno)
Source ikenbot -
You three at the back, where are your moustaches? Get out.
Source winking-at-the-moon -
Source carl00s01
-
The Sombrero Galaxy in Infrared
Credit: R. Kennicutt (Steward Obs.) et al., SSC, JPL, Caltech, NASAExplanation: This floating ring is the size of a galaxy. In fact, it is part of the photogenic Sombrero Galaxy, one of the largest galaxies in the nearby Virgo Cluster of Galaxies. The dark band of dust that obscures the mid-section of the Sombrero Galaxy in optical light actually glows brightly in infrared light. The above image, digitally sharpened, shows the infrared glow, recently recorded by the orbiting Spitzer Space Telescope, superposed in false-color on an existing image taken by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope in optical light. The Sombrero Galaxy, also known as M104, spans about 50,000 light years across and lies 28 million light years away. M104 can be seen with a small telescope in the direction of the constellation Virgo.
Source nasasapod -
Europa’s Hidden Ice Chemistry by NASA Goddard Photo and Video on Flickr.
Via Flickr:
NASA image release October 4, 2010
The icy surface of Europa is shown strewn with cracks, ridges and “chaotic terrain,” where the surface has been disrupted and ice blocks have moved around. New laboratory experiments show that water ice and frozen sulfur dioxide react even at the frigid temperatures of Europa. Because the reaction occurs without the aid of radiation, it could take place throughout the moon’s thick ice layer—an outcome that would revamp current thinking about the chemistry and geology of this moon and perhaps others.
To read more go to: www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/features/europa-ice.html
Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona(via abcstarstuff)
Source spacettf -
I blogged this a while back.
“Looking down at the sky”
Source fuckyeahspaceexploration -
During the middle of the 19th century, a star system known as Eta Carinae suddenly became the second-brightest star in the night sky, then gradually faded again. Known as the Great Eruption, this event released about 10 percent of the energy that would have been liberated if the star had gone supernova, and caused the star to shed approximately 10 Suns’ worth of mass. Yet somehow, Eta Carinae survives to this day. Understanding the behavior of Eta Carinae (which is estimated to still hold at least 100 times the mass of our Sun) will provide astronomers with knowledge of the end-stages of very massive stars, and allow them to distinguish between eruptions and supernova explosions.
(via scinerds)
Source opulantpetrichor -
When the word nebula entered English in the early 15th century, it had nothing to do with astronomy. Arriving as nebule meaning a cloud or mist from the Latin word nebula meaning mist, which in turn came from the Proto Indo-European root word *nebh-meaning cloud, vapor, fog, moist, sky. Ancient Greek had the related word nephele, nephos which also meant cloud. When the word nebula reappeared in English it had a medical meaning for cataracts or cloudy defects in the eye. The astronomical meaning of a cloud-like patch in the night sky was first recorded around 1730. It wasn’t until the early 20th century with the advent of modern and powerful telescopes that nebula were fully understood as massive clouds of gas and dust.
Image of the Bubble nebula, the Carina Nebula, the Lagoon Nebula and the 30 Doradus nebula, all courtesy NASA from Hubble Space Telescope Program.
(via uraniaproject)
Source kidsneedscience -
A Messier Object is an astronomical object first described by the great French astronomer Charles Messier in 1771. An insatiable comet hunter, Messier began his catalog of objects that were neither stars nor comets as a way of accounting for them and subsequently avoiding them as he searched for comets. With the help of his assistant Pierre Méchain, the first edition of the Catalogue des Nébuleuses et des Amas d’Étoiles (Catalogue of Nebulae and Star Clusters) contained 45 objects, mostly nebulae, galaxies and star clusters. According to Messier, who was waiting for the return of Halley’s Comet:
What caused me to undertake the catalog was the nebula I discovered above the southern horn of Taurus on September 12, 1758, whilst observing the comet of that year. This nebula had such a resemblance to a comet in its form and brightness that I endeavored to find others, so that astronomers would no more confuse these same nebulae with comets just beginning to appear.
Messier’s final publication included 103 objects, but the catalog was added to as recently as 1966, almost 200 years after his original publication! Today the catalog contains 110 objects and many objects are still referred to by their Messier number.
All images in the public domain, courtesy NASA.
(via uraniaproject)
Source kidsneedscience -
Hubble Space Telescope by Glenn LR Johnson on Flickr.
Via Flickr:
The Hubble Space Telescope was placed in orbit by the Space Shuttle in 1990. The roll-out solar cell array were supplied by British Aerospace in Filton, Bristol, UK.
Watercolour on card; 20 x 24 inches
Painted in 1982 (photo of print)
Original presented to Raymond Baxter at the 1982 British Aerospace Apprentice Prize-giving evening.(via abcstarstuff)
Source spacettf -
Ancient Galaxy Collision Created Enormous Stellar Swirls
New simulations suggest that enormous swirls of stars surrounding a distant galaxy formed when two equal-sized galaxies collided. The galaxy, named NGC 5907, is located 50 million light-years away in the constellation Draco.
Its loops and currents, containing stars, gas and dust, are 150,000 light-years across. Researchers studying these swirls previously thought they were formed when a relatively small galaxy hit a larger one, getting torn apart in the process.
But in the new study, a massive computer simulation shows that it would have been impossible for a very small galaxy to produce the observed streams. More likely, two roughly equal-sized galaxies crashed into each other 8 or 9 billion years ago. The simulation also showed that the galaxies must have been very gas-rich in order to produce the swirls surrounding NGC 5907.
Most large spiral galaxies are thought to have formed from similar processes. Over the history of the universe, smaller galaxies have collided with one another and merged, producing ever-larger galaxies. Our own Milky Way galaxy is headed on a crash course with the neighboring Andromeda galaxy in 4.5 billion years.
Above: (1) Visible light image of NGC 5907. (2) Simulation of the collisions that produced NGC 5907 (1 Gyr = 1 billion years).
(via project-argus)
Source
-
Cosmic dust cloud near Taurus hides baby stars
The dusty tendril actually consists of two parts, called Barnard 211 and Barnard 213.Source mothernaturenetwork -
Source beautifulurself
