Starship Asterisk*

[quote="granlund"]Did anybody else see the face in the bright area at the centre of this picture?
If you tilt your head to the left you will see a quite clear image of the left side of a stern man's face looking down at a 35 degree angle.
If you tilt your head to the right you may see a slightly less clear image of a completely different face within that one looking more or less straight out, but his head is laying at a 35 degree angle to horizontal, with the bottom of his chin tilted up. This face looks more like an old man with wrinkles and slightly flattened as if it was pressed up against glass.
A curiousity to be sure
Karle H. Granlund[/quote]

As a canoeist I have to ask whether you're sure it's stern and not bow.

Did anybody else see the face in the bright area at the centre of this picture?
If you tilt your head to the left you will see a quite clear image of the left side of a stern man's face looking down at a 35 degree angle.
If you tilt your head to the right you may see a slightly less clear image of a completely different face within that one looking more or less straight out, but his head is laying at a 35 degree angle to horizontal, with the bottom of his chin tilted up. This face looks more like an old man with wrinkles and slightly flattened as if it was pressed up against glass.
A curiousity to be sure
Karle H. Granlund

Thank you...these explainations have been very helpful!

I hope to be forgiven for commenting again on the myths infesting current cosmologies. We originate from a tiny sperm, we have invented the hydrogen bomb,(the big bang) and we die. Being prisoners of our own egos we believe the universe must do the same. Well why not, we have invented our Gods in our own form too.

Another form of ego is to believe that if we cannot see it, it is not there. Evidence to the contrary is presented in the [url=http://www.atlasoftheuniverse.com/startype.html]Classification of Stars[/url] (click on O type stars on APOD 7 May) In the abundances row at the bottom is a hyperbolic distribution of abundances with the smallest coolest stars being by far the most abundant (80%). Does anyone really believe that a sharp cutoff in abundance occurs there? Is there no evidence of many more cool and invisible objects that could account in part for the mysterious missing mass.? Are there any physical laws violated by these smaller objects, keeping in mind the planets both solid and gaseous and the moons. I presume that gases can accrete and condense to hold an atmosphere in the cold depths of space at much smaller sizes than in the solar system due to the lack of star winds and radiation and considering the greatly reduced molecular energies at very low temperatures. Why then should there be a sharp cutoff in the size distribution, it makes no sense to me. The imaginary "Dark Energy" reminds me of the search for the Aether in the old days. Could the dark energy be better explained by an abundance of snowballs in space? I think so.

Jack White
Albany OR

[quote="Talleyrand"]Bare with me for a dumb question...

Re the Halo image: the text indicated that in three million years there would be a supernova...

Supernovas can be seen presumably easily due to their huge energy output...so,

If there are a 100B stars (OK, not all will be the type to blow) in 100B galaxies and the Universe if about 15BYO...

Shouldn't we be seeing supernovas all the time? [/quote]
Let's just concentrate on the Milky Way which has ~ 300B stars

I'm guessing than only about 1 in a million stars is a short lived supergiant
(i.e., an average distance of ~400 lyrs vs. ~4 lyrs.)

So the Milky Way has ~ 300,000 short lived supergiants with an average life of 15M yrs.

Hence, a Milky Way supernova should occur about once every 50 yrs. (= 15M yrs./300,000).

A careful monitoring of 50 big galaxies should yield about one supernova a year.

Note, however, that a systematic careful monitoring of other galaxies for un-obscured supernova is a fairly recent phenomenon.

Bare with me for a dumb question...

Re the Halo image: the text indicated that in three million years there would be a supernova...

Supernovas can be seen presumably easily due to their huge energy output...so,

If there are a 100B stars (OK, not all will be the type to blow) in 100B galaxies and the Universe if about 15BYO...

Shouldn't we be seeing supernovas all the time?

The vast numbers would suggest greater frequency than we observe...can you tell I got a C in astronomy as an undergrad?

Can anyone educate me on this...where I can look this up?
Thanks, A Lay-Reader
PS: I am guessing that there is a lot of solid stuff between us and much of what is happening...

May the force be with you! :D :mrgreen:

Orin

[attachment=0]41%2B6bGjhpHL__SS500_.PNG[/attachment]
[quote="neufer"][url=http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=16830&p=105578#p105578]A Halo for Darth Vader?[/url][/quote]

Could look like a face with a bit of imagination. :)
and here's another dying star. 8) http://www.jb.man.ac.uk/astronomy/nightsky/AList/EtaCarina.jpg

Orin

Anyone besides me notice that we have a face on here to rival the "Face On Mars"? Looks like a cosmic ad campaign for Neutrogena or Oil of Olay.

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap090507.html