The Sun is a Mass of Incandescent Gas
Credit: NASA/SDO/AIA
How is it I’ve never used this title before? I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought it while posting. Maybe the lyrics work themselves into the blog in more subtle ways. Anyway, presented for your approval, the Sun, circa August 1, 2010.
Adjust Your Antennae
NASA’s telescope composite images come out so interesting-looking..!! And each color showing something different about the same area. It’s terrific! This one has HUGE visual appeal (in my book, anyway.) It’s like fireworks, shrouded in mist… against stars.
A beautiful new image of two colliding galaxies has been released by NASA’s Great Observatories. The Antennae galaxies, located about 62 million light-years from Earth, are shown in this composite image from the Chandra X-ray Observatory (blue), the Hubble Space Telescope (gold and brown), and the Spitzer Space Telescope (red). The Antennae galaxies take their name from the long antenna-like “arms,” seen in wide-angle views of the system. These features were produced by tidal forces generated in the collision.
The collision, which began more than 100 million years ago and is still occurring, has triggered the formation of millions of stars in clouds of dusts and gas in the galaxies. The most massive of these young stars have already sped through their evolution in a few million years and exploded as supernovas.
The X-ray image from Chandra shows huge clouds of hot, interstellar gas that have been injected with rich deposits of elements from supernova explosions. This enriched gas, which includes elements such as oxygen, iron, magnesium, and silicon, will be incorporated into new generations of stars and planets. The bright, point-like sources in the image are produced by material falling onto black holes and neutron stars that are remnants of the massive stars. Some of these black holes may have masses that are almost one hundred times that of the Sun.
The Spitzer data show infrared light from warm dust clouds that have been heated by newborn stars, with the brightest clouds lying in the overlapping region between the two galaxies.
The Hubble data reveal old stars and star-forming regions in gold and white, while filaments of dust appear in brown. Many of the fainter objects in the optical image are clusters containing thousands of stars.
The Chandra image was taken in December 1999. The Spitzer image was taken in December 2003. The Hubble image was taken in July 2004, and February 2005.
Perseid Aurora
Credit & Copyright: Jimmy Westlake (Colorado Mountain College)
The Perseid meteor shower is my favorite astronomical event of the year, and one I look forward to all summer. I have fond childhood memories of staring at the skies with my parents, out on the back lawn. On this funky old chocolate/ivory zebra-striped blanket. The things you remember. [shrug]
Anyway, the image above is doubly neat, in that it is a Perseid seen against auroral glow in Colorado, taken in August 2000. Since anybody north of me (pretty much) has just seen a whopper of a geomagnetic storm, it seemed appropriate. And speaking of last night’s storm, I conclude with this beautiful shot from Denmark:
Photo credit: Jesper Grønne, Denmark
Bull’s-eye
Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
An unusual impact structure on Mars, as seen by HiRISE:
What caused the central pit within this impact crater: unusual subsurface layering or a lucky second impact?
Impacts into layers of alternately strong and weak material – for example, ice rich versus non-ice-rich – produce terracing such as that seen between the inner pit and the outer rim. Scientists have used terraced craters to estimate the thickness of lava flows on the Moon and elsewhere. Uneven sublimation and periglacial erosion of exposed ice-rich material in the interior of the crater may explain why the small central pit is slightly offset from center relative to the terrace and rim of the larger crater.
The pit in the center of the main feature could also be from a later impact crater striking inside and slightly off-center from the original. It has a raised rim, which is characteristic of impact craters and is difficult to explain with a layered target. While no ejecta from this later impact can be seen, the ejecta could have been removed by extensive periglacial modification. Additionally, the floor fill around the inner crater resembles impact ejects elsewhere at this latitude, and some of the “landslides” to the East could be flow-back of ejecta off the walls of the larger crater.
Written by: Sarah Milkovich
(Via Sky and Telescope.)
If You Were There
Posted by Danielle in Art & Architecture on July 30, 2010
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
I have a soft spot for conceptual space art — trying to capture what this probe or that lander will see, when it gets there. Since we can’t tag along with every robotic explorer, it’s up to the artist to imagine what we’d see. What a wonderful occupation! In this case, we’re shadowing the Stardust probe:
On Jan. 2, 2004 NASA’s Stardust spacecraft made a close flyby of comet Wild 2 (pronounced “Vilt-2″). Among the equipment the spacecraft carried on board was a navigation camera.that Comet Wild 2 is about 3.1 miles in diameter.
This artist’s concept depicts a view of Wild 2 that shows the faint jets emanating from the comet.
Labyrinth
Posted by Danielle in Art & Architecture on July 29, 2010
Labyrinth, copyright Tsuneo Sanda
As I frequently apologize for mention, I try not to overwhelm this blog with my fandom of choice, but some things are too beautiful to let them pass me by. (Via DBSW.)
Dark Matter
This ring of dark matter is not new-news from Hubble, but it caught my eye as I was scrolling through the mighty folder of space images this morning. Dark perhaps, but a nice shade of blue!
May 15, 2007: Astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have discovered a ghostly ring of dark matter that formed long ago during a titanic collision between two massive galaxy clusters. The ring’s discovery is among the strongest evidence yet that dark matter exists. Astronomers have long suspected the existence of the invisible substance as the source of additional gravity that holds together galaxy clusters. Such clusters would fly apart if they relied only on the gravity from their visible stars. Although astronomers don’t know what dark matter is made of, they hypothesize that it is a type of elementary particle that pervades the universe.
This Hubble composite image shows the ring of dark matter in the galaxy cluster Cl 0024+17. The ring-like structure is evident in the blue map of the cluster’s dark matter distribution. The map was derived from Hubble observations of how the gravity of the cluster Cl 0024+17 distorts the light of more distant galaxies, an optical illusion called gravitational lensing. Although astronomers cannot see dark matter, they can infer its existence by mapping the distorted shapes of the background galaxies. The map is superimposed on a Hubble Advanced Camera for Surveys image of the cluster taken in November 2004.
Craters
Posted by Danielle in Fashion & Accessories on July 27, 2010
Been a while since I poked around Etsy — this time I found fantastic earrings. I love the patina, especially.
Handcrafted in sterling silver, these little moons will be great for everyday, casual wear. They were first cut from sterling silver sheet, then hand stamped, formed, and treated with a patina to highlight the detail. The patina has been sealed with lacquer to protect the finish.
Antique Meteors
Posted by Danielle in Art & Architecture, Books & Literature on July 23, 2010
The Meteor of 1860 by Frederic Church. Courtesy: Judith Filenbaum Hernstadt (painting photographed by Gerald L. Carr)
Yesterday’s APOD featured a painting and poem that documented a fireball event in 1860. The Meteor of 1860 by Frederic Church is a beautiful work of art, and dovetails nicely with this snippet of Walt Whitman’s Year of Meteors:
…the strange huge meteor procession, dazzling and clear, shooting over our heads,
(A moment, a moment long, it sail’d its balls of unearthly light over our heads,
Then departed, dropt in the night, and was gone;)
Here’s the story of how these two works were connected to the cosmic phenomenon, and eachother:
Frederic Church (1826-1900), American landscape painter of the Hudson River School, painted what he saw in nature. And on July 20th, 1860, he saw a spectacular string of fireball meteors cross the Catskill evening sky, an extremely rare Earth-grazing meteor procession. From New York City, poet Walt Whitman (1819-1892) also wrote of the “… strange huge meteor procession, dazzling and clear, shooting over our heads” in his poem Year of Meteors (1859-60). But the inspiration for Whitman’s words was forgotten. His astronomical reference became a mystery, the subject of scholarly debate until Texas State University physicists Donald Olson and Russell Doescher, English professor Marilynn Olson, and Honors Program student Ava Pope, located reports documenting the date and timing of the spectacular meteor procession. The breakthrough was spotting the connection with Church’s relatively little-known painting. Fittingly, the forensic astronomy team’s work was just published, on the 150th anniversary of the cosmic event that inspired both poet and painter.
Star Pendants
Posted by Danielle in Fashion & Accessories on July 21, 2010
Star pendant I bought at Uniko Jewelry, Portland Saturday Market, June 2010
I’ve been wanting to make this post for about a month. I bought this beautiful fused glass star pendant at the Portland Saturday Market in Portland, Oregon. It’s a mind-bogglingly huge array of artisans and craftsmen, so much so that I was hard-pressed to pick something to spend my money on… until I saw Uniko Jewelry’s fused glass pendants. (I have a thing for glass.) The hearts were gorgeous, but naturally what caught my eye were the STARS, each one a bit different, all of them fantastic. Mine is teal (or purple, depending on angle/lighting) with a dash of red and black. I absolutely adore it. It’s nearly an inch wide, a bit more than a quarter-inch thick, and it comes with a very nice silver chain.
Image copyright Uniko Jewelry/Stephen Poon, used with permission.
I asked the owner/artist Stephen Poon for permission to post some of his art here (and for larger pictures), which he kindly provided! There are several stars for sale on his website, and they’re all beautiful as far as I’m concerned. Please go buy one (or two or three!)
Image copyright Uniko Jewelry/Stephen Poon, used with permission.
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About Silver Rockets
This blog celebrates space exploration, human spaceflight and the heavens, through lots and lots ofimages.
My name is Danielle Signor, and I am a space cadet.
This is a blog, NOT A SHOP. Click the images for their source or purchase link, if available.
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