Astronomy picture of the day…
That star trails one is crazily sickkkk. Great stuff rider!
2009 September 10
The Butterfly Nebula from Upgraded Hubble
Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team
Explanation: The bright clusters and nebulae of planet Earth’s night sky are often named for flowers or insects, and NGC 6302 is no exception. With an estimated surface temperature of about 250,000 degrees C, the central star of this particular planetary nebula is exceptionally hot though—shining brightly in ultraviolet light but hidden from direct view by a dense torus of dust. This dramatically detailed close-up of the dying star’s nebula was recorded by the newly upgraded Hubble Space Telescope. Cutting across a bright cavity of ionized gas, the dust torus surrounding the central star is near the center of this view, almost edge-on to the line-of-sight. Molecular hydrogen has been detected in the hot star’s dusty cosmic shroud. NGC 6302 lies about 4,000 light-years away in the arachnologically correct constellation Scorpius.
2009 September 11
Stephan’s Quintet
Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team
Explanation: The first identified compact galaxy group, Stephan’s Quintet is featured in this stunning image from the newly upgraded Hubble Space Telescope. About 300 million light-years away, only four galaxies of the group are actually locked in a cosmic dance of repeated close encounters. The odd man out is easy to spot, though. The four interacting galaxies (NGC 7319, 7318A, 7318B, and 7317) have an overall yellowish cast and tend to have distorted loops and tails, grown under the influence of disruptive gravitational tides. But the bluish galaxy at the upper left (NGC 7320) is much closer than the others. A mere 40 million light-years distant, it isn’t part of the interacting group. In fact, individual stars in the foreground galaxy can be seen in the sharp Hubble image, hinting that it is much closer than the others. Stephan’s Quintet lies within the boundaries of the high flying constellation Pegasus.
2009 September 12
Summer Night in Astronomy Town
Credit & Copyright: Babak Tafreshi (TWAN)
Explanation: This serene view records a late summer night sky over the rolling, green hills of planet Earth. It was taken near the rural village of Saadat Shahr, Fars province, in southern Iran. Saadat Shahr is also known as Astronomy Town, as the inhabitants have demonstrated a remarkable passion for sky gazing. Fittingly, this Astronomy Town sky view finds a lovely part of the Milky Way near picture center. The three brightest stars are the stars of the Summer Triangle, Deneb in Cygnus (top), Altair in Aquila (left), and Vega in Lyra (right). The foreground landscape, illuminated by Astronomy Town lights, includes a kind of wild pistachio tree common in the region. To identify the stars and constellations, just slide your cursor over the image.
2009 September 13
The Holographic Principle
Credit & Copyright: E. Winfree, K. Fleischer, A. Barr et al. (Caltech)
Explanation: Is this picture worth a thousand words? According to the Holographic Principle, the most information you can get from this image is about 3 x 1065 bits for a normal sized computer monitor. The Holographic Principle, yet unproven, states that there is a maximum amount of information content held by regions adjacent to any surface. Therefore, counter-intuitively, the information content inside a room depends not on the volume of the room but on the area of the bounding walls. The principle derives from the idea that the Planck length, the length scale where quantum mechanics begins to dominate classical gravity, is one side of an area that can hold only about one bit of information. The limit was first postulated by physicist Gerard ‘t Hooft in 1993. It can arise from generalizations from seemingly distant speculation that the information held by a black hole is determined not by its enclosed volume but by the surface area of its event horizon. The term “holographic” arises from a hologram analogy where three-dimension images are created by projecting light though a flat screen. Beware, other people looking at the above image may not claim to see 3 x 1065 bits—they might claim to see a teapot.
2009 September 14
The Center of Globular Cluster Omega Centauri
Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team
Explanation: What is left over after stars collide? To help answer this question, astronomers have been studying the center of the most massive ball of stars in our Milky Way Galaxy. In the center of globular cluster Omega Centauri, stars are packed in 10,000 times more densely than near our Sun. Pictured above, the newly upgraded Hubble Space Telescope has resolved the very center of Omega Centauri into individual stars. Visible are many faint yellow-white stars that are smaller than our Sun, several yellow-orange stars that are Red Giants, and an occasional blue star. When two stars collide they likely either combine to form one more massive star, or they stick, forming a new binary star system. Close binary stars interact, sometimes emitting ultraviolet or X-ray light when gas falls from one star onto the surface of a compact companion such as a white dwarf or neutron star. Two such binaries have now been located in Omega Centauri’s center. The star cluster lies about 15,000 light-years away and is visible toward the constellation of Centaurus.
Thats a cool as pic, looks like a Christmas tree or something. So many stars!
i can see the teapot…even the little handle for taking the lid off.
I can see a teapot…but then again knowing that there can be a teapot may be making me see the teapot. ARGH!
not meaning to take this off topic, but check this one out
Im confused…. what’s it suppossed to read?
It’s a ‘magic eye’ thing. Stare
I’ve been staring a while, Im not sure if im seeing a bullseye or not…......
I’ve been staring a while too, not too sure what it is but I don’t think its a bullseye.
It appears to be a repeating pattern from left to right, with about 5 repeats in there…
NFI what it is though
hahaha, it’s there you just have to look harder… and it’s not a target