space porn

Alive again.

Sat, 11 May 2013 23:48:29 -0400

Alive again.

In the Martian winter, carbon dioxide freezes out of the air...

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 16:07:23 -0500

In the Martian winter, carbon dioxide freezes out of the air (and you thought it was cold where you are). In the summer, that CO₂ sublimates; that is, turns directly from a solid to a gas. When that happens the sand gets disturbed, and falls down the slopes in little channels, which spreads out when it hits the bottom. But this disturbs the red dust, too, which flows with the sand. When it’s all done, you get those feathery tendrils. Note that at the tendril tips, you see blotches of red; that’s probably from the lighter dust billowing a bit before settling down.

Now, you might think I’m making this all up. How do we know this stuff is flowing downhill like that? Ah, because in this picture we’ve caught it in the act! In this image, a closeup of a region just to the left of center of the big image, you can actually see the cloud of dust from an avalanche as it occurs.

Oh, baby. The cloud is only a few dozen meters across, and can’t be more than a few seconds old.

When did galaxies form? To help find out, the deepest ...

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 11:28:43 -0500

When did galaxies form? To help find out, the deepest near-infrared image of the sky ever has been taken of the same field as the optical-light Hubble Ultra Deep Field (HUDF) in 2004. The new image was taken this summer by the newly installed Wide Field Camera 3 on the refurbished Hubble Space Telescope. Faint red smudges identified on the above image likely surpass redshift 8 in distance. These galaxies therefore likely existed when the universe was only a few percent of its present age, and may well be members of the first class of galaxies. Some large modern galaxies make a colorful foreground to the distant galaxies. Analyses by the HUDF09 team indicate that at least some of these early galaxies had very little interstellar dust. This early class of low luminosity galaxies likely contained energetic stars emitting light that transformed much of the remaining normal matter in the universe from a cold gas to a hot ionized plasma.

This colorful cosmic portrait features glowing gas and obscuring...

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 11:27:44 -0500

This colorful cosmic portrait features glowing gas and obscuring dust clouds in IC 1795, a star forming region in the northern constellation Cassiopeia. The nebula’s colors were created by adopting the Hubble false-color palette for mapping narrow emission from oxygen, hydrogen, and sulfur atoms to blue, green and red colors, and further blending the data with images of the region recorded through broadband filters. Not far on the sky from the famous Double Star Cluster in Perseus, IC 1795 is itself located next to IC 1805, the Heart Nebula, as part of a complex of star forming regions that lie at the edge of a large molecular cloud. Located just over 6,000 light-years away, the larger star forming complex sprawls along the Perseus spiral arm of our Milky Way Galaxy. At that distance, this picture would span about 70 light-years across IC 1795.

laidbare: mooshoo: skunkmonkey: Via CNN: Scientists spot...

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 19:06:25 -0500

laidbare:

mooshoo:

skunkmonkey:

Via CNN: Scientists spot nearby “super-Earth”

Uh, holy shit?! There’s a watery planer 40 light years away from Earth that appears to be able to support life (although life very different from us because this planet is a lot hotter with a thicker atmosphere). So basically what you’re saying is aliens are real and the climate crises = solved. Get my spaceship and refrigerator suit ready, scientists! I’m moving!

Awesome! But we need to work on a new name for this super-Earth. It’s current name, “GJ 1214b”, lacks pizzazz.

I nominate “Van Damne” for consideration. Jean-Claude has given us dozens cinematic masterpieces over the years. It’s only fitting we name a planet after him.

Photo

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 11:53:11 -0500

Photo

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 11:10:20 -0500

A mysterious phenomenen of light on the nightsky shocked...

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 10:55:09 -0500

A mysterious phenomenen of light on the nightsky shocked citizens of northern and mid-Norway on wednesday morning….

…It spun around and exploded in the sky…

…It looked like it came over a mountain. First it followed a path, until it disintegrated. Then it suddenly became a huge sphere, so large that it covered the entire sky.

Meteorologists in Tromsø have no idea what caused the light:

“We don’t know what it is. I don’t want to assume anything about it, but it appears to have been very spectacular”

“People describe the moving light as overwhelming, extremely beautiful, and partially frightening. They describe it as a new years rocket that looks like a spinning spiral.”

The phenomenon lasted for a few minutes, just before eight on Wednesday morning. The meteorologist says the light apparently has come from the east.

A mysterious phenomenen of light on the nightsky shocked...

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 10:54:51 -0500

The constellation of Orion holds much more than three stars in a...

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 16:01:48 -0400

The constellation of Orion holds much more than three stars in a row. A deep exposure shows everything from dark nebula to star clusters, all imbedded in an extended patch of gaseous wisps in the greater Orion Molecular Cloud Complex . The brightest three stars on the far left are indeed the famous three stars that make up the belt of Orion. Just below Alnitak, the lowest of the three belt stars, is the Flame Nebula, glowing with excited hydrogen gas and immersed in filaments of dark brown dust. Below the frame center and just to the right of Alnitak lies the Horsehead Nebula, a dark indentation of dense dust that has perhaps the most recognized nebular shapes on the sky. On the upper right lies M42, the Orion Nebula, an energetic caldron of tumultuous gas, visible to the unaided eye, that is giving birth to a new open cluster of stars. Immediately to the left of M42 is a prominent bluish reflection nebula sometimes called the Running Man that houses many bright blue stars. The above image, a digitally stitched composite taken over several nights, covers an area with objects that are roughly 1,500 light years away and spans about 75 light years.

oh god it’s full of stars

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 15:48:12 -0400

oh god it’s full of stars

From Sagittarius to Scorpius, the central Milky Way is a truly...

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 10:55:03 -0400

From Sagittarius to Scorpius, the central Milky Way is a truly beautiful part of planet Earth’s night sky. The gorgeous region is captured here, an expansive gigapixel mosaic of 52 fields spanning 34 by 20 degrees in 1200 individual images and 200 hours of exposure time. Part of ESO’s Gigagalaxy Zoom Project, the images were collected over 29 nights with a small telescope under the exceptionally clear, dark skies of the ESO Paranal Observatory in Chile. The breathtaking cosmic vista shows off intricate dust lanes, bright nebulae, and star clusters scattered through our galaxy’s rich central starfields. Starting on the left, look for the Lagoon and Trifid nebulae, the Cat’s Paw, the Pipe dark nebula, and the colorful clouds of Rho Ophiuchi and Antares (right).

The Tarantula Nebula is more than 1,000 light-years in diameter...

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 10:36:13 -0400

The Tarantula Nebula is more than 1,000 light-years in diameter — a giant star forming region within our neighboring galaxy the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). That cosmic arachnid lies left of center in this sharp, colorful telescopic image taken through narrow-band filters. It covers a part of the LMC over 2,000 light-years across. Within the Tarantula (NGC 2070), intense radiation, stellar winds and supernova shocks from the central young cluster of massive stars, cataloged as R136, energize the nebular glow and shape the spidery filaments. Around the Tarantula are other violent star-forming regions with young star clusters, filaments and bubble-shaped clouds. The rich field is about as wide as the full Moon on the sky, located in the southern constellation Dorado.

What is left over after stars collide? To help answer this...

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 12:49:01 -0400

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.

The expanding debris cloud from the explosion of a massive star...

Sat, 05 Sep 2009 13:32:55 -0400

The expanding debris cloud from the explosion of a massive star is captured in this multiwavelength composite, combining x-ray and optical images from the Chandra and Hubble telescopes. Identified as E0102-72, the supernova remnant lies about 190,000 light-years away in our neighboring galaxy, the Small Magellanic Cloud. A strong cosmic source of x-rays, E0102 was imaged by the Chandra X-ray Observatory shortly after its launch in 1999. In celebration of Chandra’s 10th anniversary, this colorful view of E0102 and its environs was created, including additional Chandra data. An analysis of all the data indicates that the overall shape of E0102 is most likely a cylinder that is viewed end-on rather than a spherical bubble. The intriguing result implies that the massive star’s explosion has produced a shape similar to what is seen in some planetary nebulae associated with lower mass stars. At the distance of the Small Magellanic Cloud, this field of view spans about 150 light-years.

What are those strange blue objects? Many of the brightest...

Sun, 23 Aug 2009 05:03:04 -0400

What are those strange blue objects? Many of the brightest blue images are of a single, unusual, beaded, blue, ring-like galaxy which just happens to line-up behind a giant cluster of galaxies. Cluster galaxies here typically appear yellow and — together with the cluster’s dark matter — act as a gravitational lens. A gravitational lens can create several images of background galaxies, analogous to the many points of light one would see while looking through a wine glass at a distant street light. The distinctive shape of this background galaxy — which is probably just forming — has allowed astronomers to deduce that it has separate images at 4, 10, 11, and 12 o’clock, from the center of the cluster. A blue smudge near the cluster center is likely another image of the same background galaxy. In all, a recent analysis postulated that at least 33 images of 11 separate background galaxies are discernable. This spectacular photo of galaxy cluster CL0024+1654 from the Hubble Space Telescope was taken in November 2004.

Photo

Sat, 22 Aug 2009 12:50:29 -0400

Named for Australian astronomer Colin Stanley Gum (1924-1960),...

Sat, 22 Aug 2009 12:49:21 -0400

Named for Australian astronomer Colin Stanley Gum (1924-1960), The Gum Nebula is so large and close it is actually hard to see. In fact, we are only about 450 light-years from the front edge and 1,500 light-years from the back edge of this cosmic cloud of glowing hydrogen gas. Covered in this 41 degree-wide mosaic of H-alpha images, the faint emission region is otherwise easy to lose against the background of Milky Way stars. The complex nebula is thought to be a supernova remnant over a million years old, sprawling across the southern constellations Vela and Puppis.

NGC 4631 is a big beautiful spiral galaxy seen edge-on (top...

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 09:44:59 -0400

NGC 4631 is a big beautiful spiral galaxy seen edge-on (top right) only 25 million light-years away towards the small northern constellation Canes Venatici. This galaxy’s slightly distorted wedge shape suggests to some a cosmic herring and to others the popular moniker of The Whale Galaxy. Either way, it is similar in size to our own Milky Way. In this gorgeous color image, the Whale’s dark interstellar dust clouds, yellowish core, and young blue star clusters are easy to spot. A companion galaxy, the small elliptical NGC 4627, appears above the Whale Galaxy. At the lower left is another distorted galaxy, the hockey stick-shaped NGC 4656. The distortions and mingling trails of gas detected at other wavelengths suggest that all three galaxies have had close encounters with each other in their past. The Whale Galaxy is also known to have spouted a halo of hot gas glowing in x-rays.

During July 22nd’s solar eclipse, the Moon’s dark...

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 09:45:15 -0400

During July 22nd’s solar eclipse, the Moon’s dark shadow traced a narrow path as it raced eastward across India and China and on into the Pacific. Hong Kong was south of the shadow’s path, so a total eclipse was not visible there, but a partial eclipse was still enjoyed by inhabitants of the populous city. And while many were (safely!) watching the sky, images of the partially eclipsed Sun adorned the city itself. In this downlooking photo, taken at 9:40am local time, a remarkable array of solar eclipse views was created by reflection in a grid of eastward facing skyscraper windows. The photographer’s location was the 27th floor of Two Pacific Place.