Archive for category Picspam
Celestial Green
Kvaløya, Norway, Mar. 14, 2010 - Credit: Fredrik Broms
It’s St. Patrick’s Day so I’ve found some GREEN for you, courtesy of the SpaceWeather.com Aurora Gallery. (Normally I’d just pick one but, well… I couldn’t decide between these two! So you get both.)
Aurora over Sommarøy, near Tromsø, Mar. 2, 2010 - Credit: Bjørnar G. Hansen
Centaurus A
Image Credit & Copyright: Tim Carruthers, astrophoto.com.au
A great APOD from the weekend — follow the link for huge (4000px) version. This will be my desktop momentarily.
Explanation: Only 11 million light-years away, Centaurus A is the closest active galaxy to planet Earth. Spanning over 60,000 light-years, the peculiar elliptical galaxy, also known as NGC 5128, is featured in this sharp color image. Centaurus A is apparently the result of a collision of two otherwise normal galaxies resulting in a fantastic jumble of star clusters and imposing dark dust lanes. Near the galaxy’s center, left over cosmic debris is steadily being consumed by a central black hole with a billion times the mass of the Sun. As in other active galaxies, that process likely generates the radio, X-ray, and gamma-ray energy radiated by Centaurus A.
Veils
I’ve always loved imagery of the Veil Nebula/Cygnus Loop — I guess I’m a sucker for wisps of color. These Hubble images rock my socks off (artistically speaking.)
Credit for both images: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration. Acknowledgment: J. Hester (Arizona State University)
This image shows a small portion of the Veil Nebula – the shattered remains of a supernova that exploded some 5-10,000 years ago. The intertwined rope-like filaments of gas result from the enormous amounts of energy released as the fast-moving debris from the explosion ploughs into its surroundings and creates shock fronts. These shocks, driven by debris moving at 600,000 kilometres per hour, heat the gas to millions of degrees. It is the subsequent cooling of this material that produces the brilliantly coloured glows.
This portion of the Veil Nebula is located in a magnificent part of the Veil known as the Witch’s Broom Nebula to the east (to the right in the overview image). The entire structure spans about 3 degrees, corresponding to about 6 full moons. The bright blue star – dubbed 52 Cygni and unrelated to the supernova explosion – can be observed with the naked eye on a clear summer’s night.
This small portion of the Veil Nebula is located in the larger segment seen in its western part (the top left corner of the large ground-based overview image). The entire structure spans about 3 degrees, corresponding to about 6 full moons.
Helene
I’m pretty sure it’s not intentional, but the cropping of this new image of Saturn’s moon Helene makes it really eye-catching. Framing really makes or breaks a photo. I’m in an artsy mood, alright? Also, color images can be gorgeous and breathtaking (and space ones often are), but there’s just something about black and white….
(Somewhere out there, a photographer-reader is nodding. Uh-huh. I see you.)
What’s happening on the surface of Saturn’s moon Helene? The moon was imaged in unprecedented detail last week as the robotic Cassini spacecraft orbiting Saturn swooped to within two Earth diameters of the diminutive moon. Although conventional craters and hills appear, the above raw and unprocessed image also shows terrain that appears unusually smooth and streaked. Planetary astronomers will be inspecting these detailed images of Helene to glean clues about the origin and evolution of the 30-km across floating iceberg. Helene is also unusual because it circles Saturn just ahead of the large moon Dione, making it one of only four known moons to occupy a gravitational well known as a stable Lagrange point.
Medusa
Credit: H. Schweiker/NOAO/AURA/NSF and T. A. Rector/University of Alaska Anchorage and NOAO/AURA/NSF
This beautiful image came through my Twitter stream Friday night, so I’m passing the savings onto you! (Thanks @TaviGreiner for retweeting it, and @jimcook310 for finding the larger versions!) Scientifically speaking, this nebula is known as Abell 21, but hey, I can see the “Medusa” bit. I really can. [nod nod]
The Medusa nebula, known scientifically as Abell 21, is an old planetary nebula some 1,500 light-years away in the constellation Gemini. It is estimated to be over 4 light-years across. This image was taken on Oct 24th, 2008 at the Mayall telescope with the mosaic camera, with [OIII] (assigned a blue color) and H-alpha (orange) filters
This image was released during the 100 Hours of Astronomy webcast, “Around the World in 80 Telescopes” held from April 3-4, 2009, during the International Year of Astronomy 2009.
Weird Streaks
Credit: HiRISE, MRO, LPL (U. Arizona), NASA
What are these weird streaks on Mars? Anyone’s guess. They’re neat-looking, at any rate!
What creates these picturesque dark streaks on Mars? No one knows for sure. A leading hypothesis is that streaks like these are caused by fine grained sand sliding down the banks of troughs and craters. Pictured above, dark sand appears to have flowed hundreds of meters down the slopes of Acheron Fossae. The sand appears to flow like a liquid around boulders, and, for some reason, lightens significantly over time. This sand flow process is one of several which can rapidly change the surface of Mars, with other processes including dust devils, dust storms, and the freezing and melting of areas of ice. The above image was taken by the HiRise camera on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter which has been orbiting Mars since 2006. Acheron Fossae is a 700 kilometer long trough in the Diacria quadrangle of Mars.
Blue Marble, Silver Moon
I think it’s good to look at our home now and then, from a different perspective than the ground-view we get every day. The image above is simply stunning:
This spectacular “blue marble” image is the most detailed true-color image of the entire Earth to date. Using a collection of satellite-based observations, scientists and visualizers stitched together months of observations of the land surface, oceans, sea ice, and clouds into a seamless, true-color mosaic of every square kilometer (.386 square mile) of our planet. Much of the information contained in this image came from a single remote-sensing device-NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, or MODIS. Flying over 700 km above the Earth onboard the Terra satellite, MODIS provides an integrated tool for observing a variety of terrestrial, oceanic, and atmospheric features of the Earth.
And below, an enchanting view of the Moon, as seen from the International Space Station by astronaut Noguchi Soichi on February 28:
Another beautiful “Silver” moon! I love it! Enjoy full moon tonite, everybody.
Photo by Astro_Soichi, twitter.com/astro_soichi
Dark Shuttle
Today’s photo was featured on APOD last week, and probably several other places by now, but that’s because it’s an AMAZING image. Taken from the ISS, it shows Space Shuttle Endeavour approaching the station to dock.
What’s that approaching? Astronauts on board the International Space Station first saw it far in the distance. Soon it enlarged to become a dark silhouette. As it came even closer, the silhouette appeared to be a spaceship. Finally, at just past 11 pm (CST) last Tuesday, the object, revealed to be the Space Shuttle Endeavour, docked as expected with the Earth-orbiting space station. Pictured above, Endeavour was imaged near Earth’s horizon as it approached, where several layers of the Earth’s atmosphere were visible. Directly behind the shuttle is the mesosphere, which appears blue. The atmospheric layer that appears white is the stratosphere, while the orange layer is Earth’s Troposphere.
Friday Fun-post
Found the above forced-perspective shot here (along with another shuttle-related photo which I am uh, *not* going to post here, but it’s snicker-worthy. You’ll know it when you see it.) Thought I’d post some fun/interesting pictures today, because it is Friday, after all!
This next one is a long exposure of the Expedition 22 Soyuz rollout, and you know how much I LOVE long-exposure/night photography:
The Soyuz TMA-17 spacecraft is seen in this long exposure as it is rolled out by train to the launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, Friday, Dec. 18, 2009. The launch of the Soyuz spacecraft with Expedition 22 NASA Flight Engineer Timothy J. Creamer of the U.S., Soyuz Commander Oleg Kotov of Russia and Flight Engineer Soichi Noguchi of Japan, is scheduled for Monday, Dec., 21, 2009 at 3:52a.m. Kazakhstan time. Photo Credit (NASA/Bill Ingalls)
And finally, Etherbrian introduced me to these lovely ladies with their remarkable futuristic fashions! I’d love to know what this is from, if someone on the Intarwebs knows: Update: They hail from the 1970s British show UFO, a precursor to Space: 1999.
Room With A View
One of the things delivered to the International Space Station this trip is the Cupola, a seven-windowed dome giving the residents a 360° view. Above, removing launch restraint bolts from the Cupola’s windows:
ISS022-E-066884 (17 Feb. 2010) — NASA astronaut Nicholas Patrick, STS-130 mission specialist, participates in the mission’s third and final session of extravehicular activity (EVA) as construction and maintenance continue on the International Space Station. During the five-hour, 48-minute spacewalk, Patrick and astronaut Robert Behnken (out of frame), mission specialist, completed all of their planned tasks, removing insulation blankets and removing launch restraint bolts from each of the Cupola’s seven windows.
Below, moving it from place to place with the robotic arm (it’s in the middle of the picture, still covered with insulation blankets):
In the grasp of the Canadarm2, the cupola was relocated from the forward port to the Earth-facing port of the International Space Station’s newly installed Tranquility node. The cupola is a robotic control station with six windows around its sides and another in the center that will provide a panoramic view of Earth, celestial objects and visiting spacecrafts. With the installation of Tranquility and cupola, the space station is about 90 percent complete.
Image Credit: NASA
And here is the final result, courtesy of astronaut Noguchi Soichi:
“Let there be light! Cupola windows open toward Sahara desert. Priceless!”
EDIT: And here’s a hi-res NASA image taken just after, can see the Sahara better — but Soichi was FIRST. ;)
ISS022-E-066972 (17 Feb. 2010) — This image is the first taken through a first of its kind “bay window” on the International Space Station, the seven-windowed Cupola. The image shows the Sahara Desert spread out through the array of windows. The Cupola will house controls for the station robotics and will be a location where crew members can operate the robotic arms and monitor other exterior activities.
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