|
Useless Rabbit posted:According to this, it's the northern Gulf Coast, with New Orleans towards the bottom and Mobile Bay towards the top. Ah, okay. I can see that now. Thanks.
|
| # ? Apr 15, 2011 21:27 |
|
|
|
| # ? May 23, 2013 13:22 |
|
|
In preparation for Hubbles 21st anniversary on the 24th, NASA has released this beautiful picture of a pair of interacting galaxies, Arp 273. source
|
| # ? Apr 20, 2011 14:46 |
|
|
Rooney McNibnug posted:More 'Super-moon'! I'm surprised nobody called this out for being sooooo fake. Beside that the moon is from a separate exposure (no blurring whatsoever against a background of stars with a few minutes worth of trails); the illumination of the moon is not correct for the phase it should be in at the time of the "supermoon"; there is no evidence of shadows or brightness caused by the nearly-full moon on the ground features (yet they are strongly lit from one side); the moon is rotated close to 90 degrees from its true orientation relative to the plane of the ecliptic (roughly parallel with the star trails); either the moon should have evidence of light scattering around it (if the orange glow nearby is light pollution) or the bright sky is a sunset/rise, and the full moon is thus on the wrong side of the sky; and I strongly suspect that it is not to scale with the background stars (which could be proven by identifying which stars are visible and thus judging the angular diameter of the moon). Edit: also, the foreground was clearly imaged with a fairly wide lens, and the moon will always appear tiny under any conditions when imaged by a wideangle lens. There is nothing wrong with making a composite image, but this image misrepresents the "supermoon", and a composite should at least be subtly altered for aesthetic reasons - or otherwise overtly altered so it is not mistaken for reality. asteroceras fucked around with this message at Apr 20, 2011 around 15:43 |
| # ? Apr 20, 2011 15:36 |
|
|
 http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/ar...011/11/image/a/
|
| # ? Apr 23, 2011 06:09 |
|
|
The Cat's Eye Nebula from Hubble  "Staring across interstellar space, the alluring Cat's Eye nebula lies three thousand light-years from Earth. A classic planetary nebula, the Cat's Eye (NGC 6543) represents a final, brief yet glorious phase in the life of a sun-like star. This nebula's dying central star may have produced the simple, outer pattern of dusty concentric shells by shrugging off outer layers in a series of regular convulsions. But the formation of the beautiful, more complex inner structures is not well understood. Seen so clearly in this sharp Hubble Space Telescope image, the truly cosmic eye is over half a light-year across. Of course, gazing into the Cat's Eye, astronomers may well be seeing the fate of our sun, destined to enter its own planetary nebula phase of evolution ... in about 5 billion years." From APOD
|
| # ? Apr 24, 2011 14:45 |
|
|
Hypersaturated image of the moon:
|
| # ? Apr 24, 2011 16:04 |
|
|
A pretty cool time-lapse video of the Milky Way, and some nature stuff: http://vimeo.com/22439234
|
| # ? Apr 24, 2011 22:01 |
|
|
This picture really puts things into perspective.  quote:What is humanity's most distant spacecraft? Launched in 1977, Voyager 1 now holds that distinction at 17.5 billion kilometers from the Sun. That corresponds to 16 light-hours or 117 Astronomical Units (AU). This graphic shows the position of Voyager 1 relative to the outer solar system (top and side views) along with other distant spacecraft contenders. Next most distant, Pioneer 10 is about 15.4 billion kilometers from the Sun, though on the opposite side of the solar system from Voyager 1. Voyager 2 and Pioneer 11, both also well beyond the orbit of Pluto, are 14.2 billion and 12.4 billion kilometers from the Sun respectively. Still outbound for Pluto, the New Horizons spacecraft is presently 3 billion kilometers from the Sun and will encounter the Pluto system in July of 2015. All these spacecraft have used sling-shot style gravity assist maneuvers to increase their speeds through the outer solar system. Voyager 1 is moving the fastest, escaping the solar system at about 17 kilometers per second. Still operational, both Voyagers are headed towards the outer boundary of the solar system, in search of the heliopause and the beginning of interstellar space. Something we shot into space over 30 years ago would only take 16 hours to reach going the speed of light.
|
| # ? May 12, 2011 03:08 |
|
|
 This image comes from a very deep Chandra observation of the Tycho supernova remnant. Low-energy X-rays (red) in the image show expanding debris from the supernova explosion and high energy X-rays (blue) show the blast wave, a shell of extremely energetic electrons. These high-energy X-rays show a pattern of X-ray "stripes" never previously seen in a supernova remant.
|
| # ? May 12, 2011 22:12 |
|
|
This is a nice website http://skysurvey.org/
|
| # ? May 12, 2011 22:23 |
|
|
HanabaL03 posted:A picture transmitted from something we shot into space over 30 years ago would take sixteen loving hours to reach us. FTFY. When you think of it in terms of human travel, 16 hours is really quick, but in the current age of intercontinental phone calls and instant messaging, sixteen hours is a really long time. Add Skype into that thought, and sixteen hours is loving forever.
|
| # ? May 12, 2011 23:31 |
|
|
The past two APOD images have been amazing: APOD posted:Undulating bright ridges and dusty clouds cross this close-up of the nearby star forming region M8, also known as the Lagoon Nebula. A sharp, false-color composite of narrow band visible and broad band near-infrared data from the 8-meter Gemini South Telescope, the entire view spans about 20 light-years through a region of the nebula sometimes called the Southern Cliff. The highly detailed image explores the association of many newborn stars imbedded in the tips of the bright-rimmed clouds and Herbig-Haro objects. Abundant in star-forming regions, Herbig-Haro objects are produced as powerful jets emitted by young stars in the process of formation heat the surrounding clouds of gas and dust. The cosmic Lagoon is found some 5,000 light-years away toward constellation Sagittarius and the center of our Milky Way Galaxy. (Editor's Note: For location and scale, check out this image superimposing the close-up region shown in today's APOD on the larger Lagoon Nebula. Scale image is courtesy R. Barbá.)  APOD posted:A sunlit crescent of Saturn's moon Enceladus looms above the night side of Saturn in this dramatic image from the Cassini spacecraft. Captured on August 13, 2010 looking in a sunward direction during a flyby of the icy moon, the view also traces layers in the upper atmosphere of Saturn scattering sunlight along the planet's bright limb. Closer to the spacecraft than Saturn, Enceladus is a mere 60,000 kilometers from Cassini's camera. The south polar region of the 500 kilometer-diameter moon is illuminated, including plumes of water vapor and icy particles spraying above the long fissures in the moon's surface. The fissures have been dubbed tiger stripes. First discovered in Cassini images from 2005, the plumes are strong evidence that liquid water exists near the surface of surprisingly active Enceladus.
|
| # ? May 13, 2011 02:38 |
|
|
I figured this would be the best thread to ask, so please if anyone can, help me find this image in a larger size: http://www.life.com/hdgallery/42002...t-hits#index/21
|
| # ? May 13, 2011 06:20 |
|
|
This is just incredible: http://www.esa.int/export/esaSC/SEM...MG_index_0.html
|
| # ? May 13, 2011 23:10 |
|
|
RedneckwithGuns posted:I figured this would be the best thread to ask, so please if anyone can, help me find this image in a larger size: How's this?  Content: From NASA's Flickr account, a video of a comet slamming into the sun: http://www.flickr.com/photos/gsfc/5.../in/photostream
|
| # ? May 13, 2011 23:27 |
|
|
nerdly_dood posted:FTFY. I know, but I was just amazed that the fastest thing we've shot into space over 30 years ago would only take 16 hours to get there if we had the technology to go the speed of light. Imagine if we had that technology when we shot out those spacecraft? They'd be in other solar systems by now.
|
| # ? May 14, 2011 06:55 |
|
|
HanabaL03 posted:I know, but I was just amazed that the fastest thing we've shot into space over 30 years ago would only take 16 hours to get there if we had the technology to go the speed of light. Imagine if we had that technology when we shot out those spacecraft? They'd be in other solar systems by now. Well yeah, but we also would have no communication with them until they got where they were going, at which point they'd immediately start getting all the messages that were sent as soon as they hit the speed limit. I like communication to be faster than travel, it's easier that way, you don't have to just be helpless and hope that there aren't any problems at home while someone traveling at light speed is in transit. Oh and BTW... Universe Sandbox, a space simulator thingy, for sale on Steam for  . Pretty video here. Apparently you can make things explode at will.
Friar Zucchini fucked around with this message at May 14, 2011 around 10:15 |
| # ? May 14, 2011 10:09 |
|
|
nerdly_dood posted:Oh and BTW... Universe Sandbox, a space simulator thingy, for sale on Steam for Sold. And wow, it's pretty fun for
|
| # ? May 16, 2011 19:30 |
|
|
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/110...vetter_2000.jpg Beautiful.
|
| # ? May 17, 2011 06:17 |
|
|
Endeavour launch photographed from the stratosphere by a student balloon project: Closeup:  It makes me sad we won't be seeing much more of this, at least for a while.
|
| # ? May 17, 2011 07:17 |
|
|
That is awesome.
|
| # ? May 18, 2011 01:53 |
|
|
This doesn't even look real. Hubble continues to do amazing things... "Wide-field telescope observations of the remote early Universe, looking back to a time when it was a fifth of its present age (redshift = 2.38), have revealed an enormous string of galaxies about 300 million light-years long. This new structure defies current models of how the Universe evolved, which can't explain how a string this big could have formed so early."  edit: Not actually real! bimmian fucked around with this message at May 20, 2011 around 20:23 |
| # ? May 20, 2011 19:44 |
|
|
bimmian posted:This doesn't even look real. Hubble continues to do amazing things...
|
| # ? May 20, 2011 20:15 |
|
|
Leandros posted:It isn't, there's loads of small ones patched together. Also the integration time on these is probably, like, weeks. Just found the source... artists interpretation from 2004. That's what I get for not looking for the source first 
|
| # ? May 20, 2011 20:21 |
|
|
bimmian posted:Just found the source... artists interpretation from 2004. That's what I get for not looking for the source first Thought so, the purple glow didn't seem to fit. There are real pictures patched in there you can see by the edges because of a different sensitivity on the detectors. Kinda bad that he didn't normalise the darkness, really.
|
| # ? May 20, 2011 21:10 |
|
|
Just another day at the office... (click for huge)
|
| # ? May 28, 2011 05:09 |
|
|
bimmian posted:Just another day at the office... Staggering picture, I'm going to miss these shuttle photos.
|
| # ? May 28, 2011 12:21 |
|
|
Buggerlugs posted:Staggering picture, I'm going to miss these shuttle photos. Me too, nothing else can come close to the perspective they give.  (click for huge)
|
| # ? May 31, 2011 14:03 |
|
|
 "This spiral galaxy was discovered back in the nineteenth century by French astronomer Édouard Jean-Marie Stephan, but in 2008 it became a prime target for observations thanks to the violent demise of a white dwarf star. The type Ia supernova known as SN2008a was spotted in the galaxy and briefly rivaled the brilliance of its entire host galaxy but, despite the energy of the explosion, it can no longer be seen this Hubble image, which was taken around a year and a half later." Source
|
| # ? Jun 3, 2011 13:41 |
|
|
 (click for HUGE) "This view shows part of the very active star-forming region around the Tarantula Nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small neighbor of the Milky Way. At the exact center lies the brilliant but isolated star VFTS 682 and to its lower right the very rich star cluster R 136." Source
|
| # ? Jun 3, 2011 14:07 |
|
|
My favorite galaxy, M51, aka The Whirlpool Galaxy, is having a great big party in the sky. A supernova was detected yesterday.  And the galaxy in all its stunning glory: 
|
| # ? Jun 3, 2011 16:11 |
|
|
Couple recent photos by the amazing astrophotographer Thierry Legault, taken from the ground. Here is Endeavour docked to the IIS:  One amazing tidbit about the following two images is the timing needed to capture them. The transit time (how long it takes the IIS to pass across the sun) is about half a second. Endeavour on approach to the IIS:  Endeavor docked the IIS: 
|
| # ? Jun 6, 2011 18:57 |
|
|
From APOD's site today, Endeavour's last landing:
|
| # ? Jun 7, 2011 05:27 |
|
|
Picture taken by Paulo Naspoli after they pulled away from the IIS on the Soyuz return trip home:
|
| # ? Jun 7, 2011 20:55 |
|
|
First images from the brand new VLT Survey Telescope in Chile.  This one shows the Swan Nebula. There is a 660mb version of this out there if you want a super closeup  Omega Centauri, a star-rich globular cluster Over the next 5 years it will be surveying the regions outlined below. 
|
| # ? Jun 8, 2011 23:17 |
|
|
This is one of the coolest things I've ever seen. http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110613.html
|
| # ? Jun 13, 2011 06:17 |
|
|
bimmian posted:
Oh come on, that is clearly a turtle: 
|
| # ? Jun 13, 2011 09:20 |
|
|
HanabaL03 posted:This is one of the coolest things I've ever seen. http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110613.html That's awesome. The whole Cassini-Huygens program cost 3.26 billion, to me that's seriously a great deal considering how much knowledge we got out of that. Content:  Just sitting on the surface of a moon of another planet
|
| # ? Jun 13, 2011 12:30 |
|
|
Pneub posted:Oh come on, that is clearly a turtle: Can't unsee that head/body now!
|
| # ? Jun 13, 2011 13:29 |
|
|
|
| # ? May 23, 2013 13:22 |
|
|
HanabaL03 posted:This is one of the coolest things I've ever seen. http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110613.html Holy poo poo. I just watched it on mute until I saw the closing credit, then I watched it again with sound. This Chris Abbas guy absolutely nailed the majesty of cruising around Saturn, and whacked in a whole mess of disorienting space horror. It's like...watching a numbers station broadcast.
|
| # ? Jun 13, 2011 18:07 |
|
