Astronomy picture of the day…

2009 August 28

NGC 7822 in Cepheus

Credit & Copyright: Don Goldman

Explanation: Pillars of gas, dust, and young, hot stars fill the center of NGC 7822. At the edge of a giant molecular cloud toward the northern constellation Cepheus, the glowing star forming region lies about 3,000 light-years away. Within the nebula, bright edges and tantalizing shapes are highlighted in this colorful skyscape. The image includes data from both broadband and narrowband filters, mapping emission from atomic oxygen, hydrogen, and sulfur into blue, green, and red hues. The atomic emission is powered by the energetic radiation from the hot stars, whose powerful winds and radiation also sculpt and erode the denser pillar shapes. Stars could still be forming inside the pillars by gravitational collapse, but as the pillars are eroded away, any forming stars will ultimately be cutoff from their reservoir of star stuff. This field spans around 30 light-years at the estimated distance of NGC 7822.

woww honestly, I always thought of astronomical pictures as a typical black sky with dots of stars everywhere and the occasional planet.
These pics are a revelation :]

2009 August 29

NGC 7771 Galaxy Group

Credit & Copyright: Kent Biggs

Explanation: Slide your cursor over the image to identify three members of this intriguing gathering of galaxies. Known as the NGC 7771 Group, they lie almost 200 million light-years away toward the high flying constellation Pegasus. The largest galaxy, barred spiral NGC 7771, is itself about 75,000 light-years across, but will someday find itself part of a larger galaxy still. As the galaxies of the group make repeated close passages, they will finally merge into one very large galaxy. Played out over hundreds of millions of years, the process is understood to be a normal part of the evolution of galaxies, including our own Milky Way.

I think if i hang around this thread long enough i might become some sort of astronomical genius :O

This stuff is amazing. Especially snowslider’s cloud wave thing. Absolutely incredible!

Sorry for the delay, I have been at the snow with limited internet.

Here they are…

2009 August 30

D. rad Bacteria: Candidate Astronauts

Credit: Michael Daly (Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences), DOE

Explanation: These bacteria could survive on another planet. In an Earth lab, Deinococcus radiodurans (D. rad) survive extreme levels of radiation, extreme temperatures, dehydration, and exposure to genotoxic chemicals. Amazingly, they even have the ability to repair their own DNA, usually within 48 hours. Known as an extremophile, bacteria such as D. rad are of interest to NASA partly because they might be adaptable to help human astronauts survive on other worlds. A recent map of D. rad’s DNA might allow biologists to augment their survival skills with the ability to produce medicine, clean water, and oxygen. Already they have been genetically engineered to help clean up spills of toxic mercury. Likely one of the oldest surviving life forms, D. rad was discovered by accident in the 1950s when scientists investigating food preservation techniques could not easily kill it. Pictured above, Deinococcus radiodurans grow quietly in a dish.

2009 August 31

Open Cluster M25

Credit & Copyright: Jean-Charles Cuillandre (CFHT) & Giovanni Anselmi (Coelum Astronomia), Hawaiian Starlight

Explanation: Many stars like our Sun were formed in open clusters. The above pictured open cluster, M25, contains thousands of stars and is about two thousand light years distant. The stars in this cluster all formed together about 90 million years ago. The bright young stars in M25 appear blue. Open clusters, also called galactic clusters, contain fewer and younger stars than globular clusters. Also unlike globular clusters, open clusters are generally confined to the plane of our Galaxy. M25 is visible with binoculars towards the constellation of the Archer ( Sagittarius).

2009 September 1

Shadows of Saturn at Equinox

Credit: Cassini Imaging Team, ISS, JPL, ESA, NASA

Explanation: Unusual shadows and dark rings appeared around Saturn near its equinox last month. At that time—early August—Saturn’s ring plane pointed directly at the Sun. Visible above, Saturn’s moon Tethys casts a shadow visible only on the far right. Saturn’s own shadow blacks out a large swath of rings on the right. The night side of Saturn glows with ringshine—sunlight reflected by ring particles back onto Saturn. Images near equinox at Saturn are giving astronomers a chance to search for unexpected shadows that may illuminate previously unknown features of Saturn’s complex ring system. Cassini, the robotic spacecraft orbiting Saturn that took this image, is not expected to survive to the next Saturnian equinox in 15 years.

saturn always looks sick…love the rings

2009 September 2

Discovery’s Rainbow

Credit: NASA, Ben Cooper (Launch Photography)

Explanation: Just one minute before midnight EDT, Friday, August 28, the Space Shuttle Discovery began a long arc into a cloudy sky. Following the launch, a bright and remarkably colorful trail was captured in this time exposure from the Banana River Viewing Site, looking east toward pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center. On STS-128, Discovery docked with the International Space Station Sunday evening. The 13-day mission will exchange space station crew members and deliver more than 7 tons of supplies and equipment. Of course, the equipment includes the Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill (COLBERT).

That bacteria has great potential for biotech. Go go future!

Rider, love the open cluster!
Looks soo sick

I have seen the space shuttle launch from Kennedy space center, like in the above photo.
My grandma lives in Florida and when younger I would visit her each summer.

that launch pic above is great, a whole world of problems would have arisen to get the exposure spot on…and they nailed it.

2009 September 3

Despina, Moon of Neptune

Credit: NASA, JPL, Ted Stryk

Explanation: Despina is a tiny moon of Neptune. A mere 148 kilometers across, diminutive Despina was discovered in 1989, in images from the Voyager 2 spacecraft taken during its encounter with the solar system’s most distant gas giant planet. But looking through the Voyager 2 data 20 years later, amateur image processor (and philosophy professor) Ted Stryk discovered something no one had recognized before—images that show the shadow of Despina in transit across Neptune’s blue cloud tops. His composite view of Despina and its shadow is composed of four archival frames taken on August 24, 1989, separated by nine minutes. Despina itself has been artificially brightened to make it easier to see. In ancient Greek mythology, Despina is a daughter of Poseidon (the Roman god Neptune).