astro-feminist

[astro-feminist]

2019 April 11

First Horizon-Scale Image of a Black Hole Image Credit: Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration

Explanation: What does a black hole look like? To find out, radio telescopes from around the Earth coordinated observations of black holes with the largest known event horizons on the sky. Alone, black holes are just black, but these monster attractors are known to be surrounded by glowing gas. The first image was released yesterday and resolved the area around the black hole at the center of galaxy M87 on a scale below that expected for its event horizon. Pictured, the dark central region is not the event horizon, but rather the black hole’s shadow – the central region of emitting gas darkened by the central black hole’s gravity. The size and shape of the shadow is determined by bright gas near the event horizon, by strong gravitational lensing deflections, and by the black hole’s spin. In resolving this black hole’s shadow, the Event Horizon Telescope (ETH) bolstered evidence that Einstein’s gravity works even in extreme regions, and gave clear evidence that M87 has a central spinning black hole of about 6 billion solar masses. The EHT is not done – future observations will be geared toward even higher resolution, better tracking of variability, and exploring the immediate vicinity of the black hole in the center of our Milky Way Galaxy.

∞ Source: apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap190411.html

[astro-feminist]

Posted by The Planetary Society on Facebook

[astro-feminist]

2019 April 12

A Cosmic Rose: The Rosette Nebula in Monoceros Image Credit & Copyright: Jean Dean

Explanation: The Rosette Nebula, NGC 2237, is not the only cosmic cloud of gas and dust to evoke the imagery of flowers, but it is the most famous. At the edge of a large molecular cloud in Monoceros some 5,000 light years away, the petals of this cosmic rose are actually a stellar nursery. The lovely, symmetric shape is sculpted by the winds and radiation from its central cluster of hot young, O-type stars. Stars in the energetic cluster, cataloged as NGC 2244, are only a few million years young, while the central cavity in the Rosette Nebula, is about 50 light-years in diameter. The nebula can be seen with a small telescope toward the constellation of Monoceros, the Unicorn. This natural appearing telescopic portrait of the Rosette Nebula was made using broadband and narrowband filters, because sometimes roses aren’t red.

∞ Source: apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap190412.html

[astro-feminist]

[astro-feminist]

2019 January 25

Moon Struck Image Credit & Copyright: Petr Horálek

Explanation: Craters produced by ancient impacts on the airless Moon have long been a familiar sight. But only since the 1990s have observers began to regularly record and study optical flashes on the lunar surface, likely explosions resulting from impacting meteoroids. Of course, the flashes are difficult to see against a bright, sunlit lunar surface. But during the January 21 total eclipse many imagers serendipitously captured a meteoroid impact flash against the dim red Moon. Found while examining images taken shortly before the total eclipse phase began, the flash is indicated in the inset above, near the Moon’s darkened western limb. Estimates based on the flash duration recorded by the Moon Impact Detection and Analysis System (MIDAS) telescopes in southern Spain indicate the impactor’s mass was about 10 kilograms and created a crater between seven and ten meters in diameter.

∞ Source: apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap190125.html

[astro-feminist]

2019 January 23

Orion over the Austrian Alps Image Credit & Copyright: Lukáš Veselý

Explanation: Do you recognize this constellation? Through the icicles and past the mountains is Orion, one of the most identifiable star groupings on the sky and an icon familiar to humanity for over 30,000 years. Orion has looked pretty much the same during the past 50,000 years and should continue to look the same for many thousands of years into the future. Orion is quite prominent in the sky this time of year, a recurring sign of (modern) winter in Earth’s northern hemisphere and summer in the south. Pictured, Orion was captured recently above the Austrian Alps in a composite of seven images taken by the same camera in the same location during the same night. Below and slightly to the right of Orion’s three-star belt is the Orion Nebula, while the four bright stars surrounding the belt are, clockwise from the upper left, Betelgeuse, Bellatrix, Rigel, and Saiph.

∞ Source: apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap190123.html

[astro-feminist]

[astro-feminist]

🗣🗣 EAT THE RICH

[astro-feminist]

This Thread

[astro-feminist]

[astro-feminist]

[astro-feminist]

2019 January 1

The Sombrero Galaxy in Infrared Image Credit: R. Kennicutt (Steward Obs.) et al., SSC, JPL, Caltech, NASA

Explanation: This floating ring is the size of a galaxy. In fact, it is a galaxy – or at least part of one: the photogenic Sombrero Galaxy, one of the largest galaxies in the nearby Virgo Cluster of Galaxies. The dark band of dust that obscures the mid-section of the Sombrero Galaxy in optical light actually glows brightly in infrared light. The featured image, digitally sharpened, shows the infrared glow, recently recorded by the orbiting Spitzer Space Telescope, superposed in false-color on an existing image taken by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope in optical light. The Sombrero Galaxy, also known as M104, spans about 50,000 light years across and lies 28 million light years away. M104 can be seen with a small telescope in the direction of the constellation Virgo.

∞ Source: apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap190101.html

[astro-feminist]

People keep asking who would do all the menial jobs if they didn’t have the threat of starvation hanging over their heads, but in my experience there are plenty of people who would be overjoyed to spend all day running minor errands for folks if they were allowed to tell the rude ones to fuck off.

[astro-feminist]

GENTRIFICATION WARNING PORTLAND

Two people posing as a young home buying couple (they are a young couple, that part isn’t in dispute) are sending mass letters to houses in entire neighborhoods talking about how much they love the house and want to buy it. For those who have sold, the couple have then flipped the properties, turning massive profits and displacing whole neighborhoods so that rich white newcomers can move in. Watch out for Rarebird!!!

The couple denies doing anything wrong.

[astro-feminist]

It’s an extremely popular opinion among middle and upper class white people.

[astro-feminist]

https://twitter.com/jnthnwwlsn/status/1066854113500192769

[astro-feminist]

They are just unbelievable!