#space

[the-wolf-and-moon]

NGC 6164, Dragon's Egg

[spacewonder19]

April Full Moon © astronycc

[stellanix]

thinking about how like. as a kid growing up in the light-polluted suburbs, space was always somewhere else. it was in the eyepiece of a telescope, star clusters and the andromeda galaxy and the orion nebula (good luck seeing any other galaxies or nebulae from suburbia) all faint and fuzzy, and outside the eyepiece, nothing. just a handful of stars in a not-that-dark sky. it was either that or look up hubble pics

i knew, in theory, that the night sky was space. but in practice i found that hard to believe since the sky i could see barely resembled the wonders of the cosmos described to me in documentaries or books. that telescope eyepiece was like a gateway into another world where faint hints of these things really did exist, because they didn't exist in my sky

and then i started going to dark sky sites, and it's all just. there. it's real. you can just see the plane of our galaxy with its star clouds and dust lanes

one time, a friend and i stopped in the middle of nowhere in kansas on the way back from a road trip. it was the darkest and most remote night sky i've ever seen. she pointed to a fuzzy little cloud fairly close to the horizon, like a puff of steam rising from the spout of the teapot of sagittarius. it was the lagoon nebula. she also pointed out the andromeda galaxy, a distinct smear on the sky

not with a telescope, but with the naked eye. everything was just there! sure, it didn't lookk like hubble pics, but it wasn't just the night sky anymore - it really was space

i think one of the saddest things about light pollution is that we live in a time where humans have unprecedented knowledge about the universe and our place in it. we can look at features of the night sky and understand the immensity and significance of it all. you can look at the puff of steam in sagittarius and know that suns are being born there

but for most people, these facts are distant and irrelevant, because they can't see them in the sky above their heads, and i think that's a tragic loss for our species

[wonders-of-the-cosmos]

This image, taken with the VLT Survey Telescope hosted at ESO’s Paranal Observatory, shows the beautiful nebula NGC 6164/6165, also known as the Dragon’s Egg. The nebula is a cloud of gas and dust surrounding a pair of stars called HD 148937. 

In a new study using ESO data, astronomers have shown that the two stars are unusually different from each other — one appears much younger and, unlike the other, is magnetic. Moreover, the nebula is significantly younger than either star at its heart, and is made up of gases normally found deep within a star and not on the outside. These clues together helped solve the mystery of the HD 148937 system — there were most likely three stars in the system until two of them clashed and merged, creating a new, larger and magnetic star. This violent event also created the spectacular nebula that now surrounds the remaining stars. Credit:

Credit: ESO

[cosmicexplorersblog]

Space view of moon's shadow on earth during eclipse

[without-ado]

April's Full Pink Moon rising at StonehengeUK

[nasa]

Tiny BurstCube's Tremendous Travelogue

Meet BurstCube! This shoebox-sized satellite is designed to study the most powerful explosions in the cosmos, called gamma-ray bursts. It detects gamma rays, the highest-energy form of light.

BurstCube may be small, but it had a huge journey to get to space.

First, BurstCube was designed and built at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Here you can see Julie Cox, an early career engineer, working on BurstCube’s gamma-ray detecting instrument in the Small Satellite Lab at Goddard.

BurstCube is a type of spacecraft called a CubeSat. These tiny missions give early career engineers and scientists the chance to learn about mission development — as well as do cool science!

Then, after assembling the spacecraft, the BurstCube team took it on the road to conduct a bunch of tests to determine how it will operate in space. Here you can see another early career engineer, Kate Gasaway, working on BurstCube at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.

She and other members of the team used a special facility there to map BurstCube’s magnetic field. This will help them know where the instrument is pointing when it’s in space.

The next stop was back at Goddard, where the team put BurstCube in a vacuum chamber. You can see engineers Franklin Robinson, Elliot Schwartz, and Colton Cohill lowering the lid here. They changed the temperature inside so it was very hot and then very cold. This mimics the conditions BurstCube will experience in space as it orbits in and out of sunlight.

Then, up on a Goddard rooftop, the team — including early career engineer Justin Clavette — tested BurstCube’s GPS. This so-called open-sky test helps ensure the team can locate the satellite once it’s in orbit.

The next big step in BurstCube’s journey was a flight to Houston! The team packed it up in a special case and took it to the airport. Of course, BurstCube got the window seat!

Once in Texas, the BurstCube team joined their partners at Nanoracks (part of Voyager Space) to get their tiny spacecraft ready for launch. They loaded the satellite into a rectangular frame called a deployer, along with another small satellite called SNoOPI (Signals of Opportunity P-band Investigation). The deployer is used to push spacecraft into orbit from the International Space Station.

From Houston, BurstCube traveled to Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, where it launched on SpaceX’s 30th commercial resupply servicing mission on March 21, 2024. BurstCube traveled to the station along with some other small satellites, science experiments, as well as a supply of fresh fruit and coffee for the astronauts.

A few days later, the mission docked at the space station, and the astronauts aboard began unloading all the supplies, including BurstCube!

And finally, on April 18, 2024, BurstCube was released into orbit. The team will spend a month getting the satellite ready to search the skies for gamma-ray bursts. Then finally, after a long journey, this tiny satellite can embark on its big mission!

BurstCube wouldn’t be the spacecraft it is today without the input of many early career engineers and scientists. Are you interested in learning more about how you can participate in a mission like this one? There are opportunities for students in middle and high school as well as college!

Keep up on BurstCube’s journey with NASA Universe on X and Facebook. And make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

[catsonsynthesizersinspace]

[theofficialastronomy101]

Clearest photo of Pluto ever taken

[the-wolf-and-moon]

Regulus, Lion's Heart

[akendara]

The starship is safe.

[spacebarbarianweird]

Hi there! I love your writing and I was wondering if I could get a request? Just something fluffy between Astarion and a Tav who's body runs HOT. Gets hot super easily and finds it hard to sleep on humid nights. I feel like Astarion would LOOOVE their warmth and could help cool them off when they're too hot.

Hmmm... Do you know what DnD race really runs hot? Fire Genasi!

Those who think of other planes at all consider them remote, distant realms, but planar influence can be felt throughout the world. It sometimes manifests in beings who, through an accident of birth, carry the power of the planes in their blood. The genasi are one such people, the offspring of genies and mortals.

Astarion x Fire Genasi

Your skin is hell hot and you have fire resistance.

You feel warm in winter but humid summer days are torture.

Let's say, Astarion is obsessed with your body heat.

Your blood runs so hot, that it feels boiling.

And your skin feels warm as if it was enchanted with fire magic.

Early in your relationship, Astarion would always find a way to sneak longer around you.

Once he ended dining, he would find every possible reason to stay close.

Until you permitted him to stay.

Now, he wraps himself around you like a weighted blanket and you finally get some pleasant coldness.

As your relationship progresses, you get more and more comfortable with each other.

Sometimes when you feel too hot, you run up to Astarion to wrap yourself around him.

He does the same when he can't stand the coldness of his own body.

There are also some other tricks you know - you can create fire sparkles with your fingers and you do that to calm Astarion down when the darkness takes a grip on him.

When he screams in pain caused by invisible claws, and every touch feels acid, you create flame and let Astarion watch it.

It mesmerizes him and as he watches you start speaking in Ignan, a primordial language of your ancestors, the language full of sharp clicks and hisses.

Astarion slowly relaxes and allows you to touch him. You can sit like that for hours, his cheek placed on your chest, his eyes on the flame as you talk about things he can't understand.

He finally starts meditating, and you tug him closer so he can take all the warmth he needs.

@tugoslovenka  

@herstxrgirl 

@herdarkestnightelegance  

@vixstarria 

@not-so-lost-after-all  

@marcynomercy  

@theearthsfinalconfession 

@starlight-ipomoea    

@micropoe10 

@astarion-imagine-archive  

@veillsar

@elora-the-slutty-songstress  

@fayeriess  

@lumienyx  

@tallymonster    

@caitlincat-95  

@tragedybunny  

@valeprati  

@lynnlovesthestars   

@marina-and-the-memes  

@waking-eyes   

@ayselluna  

@connorsui  

@asterordinary  

@darkarchangel96  

@locallegume  

@brainfullofhotsauce   

@coffeeanddonutscafe  

@my-queen-rhaenyra-targaryen 

@queenofthespacesquids  

@ednaaa-04  

@dajeong

@wilteddreamsofbaldursgate

[wonders-of-the-cosmos]

In celebration of the 34th anniversary of the launch of NASA’s legendary Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers took a snapshot of the Little Dumbbell Nebula, also known as Messier 76, or M76, located 3,400 light-years away in the northern circumpolar constellation Perseus.

Credit: NASA, ESA, STScI

[kaijuno]

Her 🪐

[world-beauty]

A Jupiter Vista from Juno

Credits: NASA, JPL-Caltech, SwRI, MSSS, License, Kevin M. Gill