beyond-the-exosphere

[beyond-the-exosphere]

Top 10 Treats for Summer Astronomy

Roll out your telescopes, it’s nearly summer! Kinda…

[beyond-the-exosphere]

The Flaming Star Nebula by Terry Hancock www.downunderobservatory.com on Flickr.

[beyond-the-exosphere]

snow is meltinggg !!

[beyond-the-exosphere]

Backlit Saturn - Seen from the Cassini Spacecraft

The Cassini spacecraft was sent by NASA and ESA to study Saturn and its moons. Two of Saturn’s moons, Enceladus and Tethys, appear in the bottom right of this image. So far, the spacecraft has found new storm systems on Saturn, active geysers on its moon Enceladus, liquid oceans on its moon Titan, and many other unexpected discoveries. Due to its elliptical orbit, Cassini is occasionally able to catch beautyful images of saturn backlit by our sun, as seen above. 

Credit: NASA/JPL/ESA

[beyond-the-exosphere]

NGC1555 by Warren Keller on Flickr.

[beyond-the-exosphere]

Zodiacal Light by Adrian Jannetta on Flickr.

[beyond-the-exosphere]

Infrared image of the dark side of the rings of Uranus, take by the Keck Observatory, 2007

[beyond-the-exosphere]

Downtown Auriga  Image Credit & Copyright: Rogelio Bernal Andreo (Deep Sky Colors)

Explanation: Rich in star clusters and nebulae, the ancient constellation of Auriga, the Charioteer, rides high in northern winter night skies. Spanning nearly 24 full moons (12 degrees) on the sky, this deep telescopic mosaic view recorded in January shows off some of Auriga’s most popular sights for cosmic tourists. The crowded field sweeps along the plane of our Milky Way galaxy in the direction opposite the galactic center. Need directions? Near the bottom of the frame, at the Charioteer’s boundary with Taurus the Bull, the bright bluish star Elnath is known as both Beta Tauri and Gamma Aurigae. On the far left and almost 3000 light-years away, the busy, looping filaments of supernova remnant Simeis 147 cover about 150 light-years. Look toward the right to find emission nebula IC 410, significantly more distant, some 12,000 light-years away. Star forming IC 410 is famous for its embedded young star cluster, NGC 1893, and tadpole-shaped clouds of dust and gas. The Flaming Star Nebula, IC 405, is just a little farther along. Its red, convoluted clouds of glowing hydrogen gas are energized by hot O-type star AE Aurigae. Two of our galaxy’s open star clusters, Charles Messier’s M36 and M38 line up in the starfield above, familiar to many binocular-equipped skygazers.

[beyond-the-exosphere]

Double Cluster in Perseus

Image credit & copyright: Fabrizio Francione

[beyond-the-exosphere]

Metallicity

In astronomy and physical cosmology, the metallicity of an object is the proportion of its matter made up of chemical elements other than hydrogen and helium. Because stars, which comprise most of the visible matter in the universe, are composed mostly of hydrogen and helium, astronomers use for convenience the blanket term “metal” to describe all other elements collectively. Thus, a nebula rich in carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and neon would be “metal-rich” in astrophysical terms even though those elements are non-metals in chemistry. This term should not be confused with the usual definition of “metal”; metallic bonds are impossible within stars, and the very strongest chemical bonds are only possible in the outer layers of cool K and M stars. Earth-like chemistry therefore has little or no relevance in stellar interiors.

The metallicity of an astronomical object may provide an indication of its age. When the universe first formed, according to the Big Bang theory, it consisted almost entirely of hydrogen which, through primordial nucleosynthesis, created a sizeable proportion of helium and only trace amounts of lithium and beryllium and no heavier elements. Therefore, older stars have lower metallicities than younger stars such as our Sun.

Image credit: NASA, ESA, and H. Richer (University of British Columbia)

[beyond-the-exosphere]

Unknown Forces Causing Milky Way to “Flutter Like a Huge Flag in the Wind”

An international team of astronomers have discovered that Milky Way galaxy “wobbles.” In addition to the regular Galactic rotation the scientists found the Milky Way moving perpendicular to theGalactic plane. The Milky Way acts like a Galactic mosh pit or a huge flag fluttering in the wind (see graphic below), north to south, from the Galactic plane with forces coming from multiple directions, creating a chaotic wave pattern. The source of the forces is still not understood: possible causes include spiral arms stirring things up or ripples caused by the passage of a smaller galaxy through our own.

The team of astronomers around Mary Williams from the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam(AIP) detected and examined this phenomenon with the RAdial Velocity Experiment (RAVE), a survey of almost half a million stars around the Sun.

Using a special class of stars, red clump stars, which all have about the same brightness, mean distances to the stars could be determined. The velocities measured with RAVE, combined with other survey data, could be used to determine the full 3D velocities (up-down, in-out and rotational).

Continue Reading

[beyond-the-exosphere]

This is a near-infrared image of a pillar of gas and dust called the Mystic Mountain, which is a region in the Carina Nebula. The pillar measures three light years in height. (Image credit: ESA/NASA/M. Livio)

[beyond-the-exosphere]

Barnard stares at NGC 2170

A gaze across a cosmic skyscape, this telescopic mosaic reveals the continuous beauty of things that are. The evocative scene spans some 6 degrees or 12 Full Moons in planet Earth’s sky. At the left, folds of red, glowing gas are a small part of an immense, 300 light-year wide arc. Known as Barnard’s loop, the structure is too faint to be seen with the eye, shaped by long gone supernova explosions and the winds from massive stars, and still traced by the light of hydrogen atoms. Barnard’s loop lies about 1,500 light-years away roughly centered on the Great Orion Nebula, a stellar nursery along the edge of Orion’s molecular clouds. But beyond lie other fertile star fields in the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy. At the right, the long-exposure composite finds NGC 2170, a dusty complex of nebulae near a neighboring molecular cloud some 2,400 light-years distant.

Image credit & Copyright: John Davis

[beyond-the-exosphere]

The Life Cycle Of A Star:

Today, our solar system hosts planets, moons, and an abundance of life. But it will not always be this way. Everything in the universe eventually dies—from the smallest ant to the most massive star.

Learn about the cycle of birth and death in the universe at: http://www.fromquarkstoquasars.com/?p=14578

Image via Jack Hughes

Twitter: @jackmrhughes http://jack-hughes.com/

[beyond-the-exosphere]

Mar's Victoria Crater

The Victoria Crater is a small impact crater thats under 100 million years old. It's diameter is .5 miles but it slowly increasing due to wind. It was explored by the Mars rover Opportunity from 2006 to 2008, most of the time was spent just circling around its edge.  

[beyond-the-exosphere]

Cat's Eye Nebula

The cats eye nebula is approximately 3,000 light years away. Its too far away for the Hubble to see the central star. The "eye" of the nebula has been estimated to have a diameter of over half a light year. I personally love this nebula just because of its symmetry, its truly amazing how closely related the basic ideas of symmetry they teach you in 1st grade can be to remarkable nebulas 3,000 light years away.

[beyond-the-exosphere]

Messier 66