Starship Asterisk*

Chris Peterson wrote:

neufer wrote:
Most non-astronomers would have a good idea of what 'towards' the constellation Ursa Major or Big Dipper generally means.

However, few would know, off hand, what constitutes the gerrymandered district "IN the constellation Ursa Major."

I think that most everybody, astronomers or not, would correctly get the meaning of the sentence either way.

• 1) Sheldon_Cooper and/or
  
  2) a specific feature physically among the stars of the Big Dipper.

neufer wrote:Most non-astronomers would have a good idea of what 'towards' the constellation Ursa Major or Big Dipper generally means.

However, few would know, off hand, what constitutes the gerrymandered district "IN the constellation Ursa Major."

Chris Peterson wrote:

Sandstone wrote:I've scoured the finest mathematical resources known to humanity, and a cone is... well... a cone. You know, one of those round pointy things.

The error you made was in scouring "mathematical resources". The APOD caption isn't a mathematical discourse, nor are the discussions here. And a quick perusal of ordinary English language dictionaries will immediately reveal that a cone can be something other than "one of those round pointy things".

Chris Peterson wrote:... my dictionary includes

a solid bounded by a circular or other closed plane base and the surface formed by line segments joining every point of the boundary of the base to a common vertex

TNT wrote:

jisles wrote:
The galaxy is not 'towards' the constellation Ursa Major. APOD captions regularly make this mistake.
It's IN the constellation Ursa Major. Constellations comprise everything within an irregularly-outlined cone, stretching to infinity, whose apex is at the observer's eye. I love APOD though!

That seems correct to me. If an object is said to be in a certain area, wouldn't it also be seen towards that area?

Sandstone wrote:I've scoured the finest mathematical resources known to humanity, and a cone is... well... a cone. You know, one of those round pointy things.

TNT wrote:

jisles wrote:The galaxy is not 'towards' the constellation Ursa Major. APOD captions regularly make this mistake. It's IN the constellation Ursa Major. Constellations comprise everything within an irregularly-outlined cone, stretching to infinity, whose apex is at the observer's eye. I love APOD though!

That seems correct to me. If an object is said to be in a certain area, wouldn't it also be seen towards that area? And where are you getting an irregularly outlined cone? It would be more logical to say that it is an irregularly shaped figure or plane, as it appears two-dimensional. I don't think I've even seen an irregularly outlined cone before.

jisles wrote:The galaxy is not 'towards' the constellation Ursa Major. APOD captions regularly make this mistake. It's IN the constellation Ursa Major. Constellations comprise everything within an irregularly-outlined cone, stretching to infinity, whose apex is at the observer's eye. I love APOD though!

Sandstone wrote:

jisles wrote:The galaxy is not 'towards' the constellation Ursa Major. APOD captions regularly make this mistake. It's IN the constellation Ursa Major. Constellations comprise everything within an irregularly-outlined cone, stretching to infinity, whose apex is at the observer's eye. I love APOD though!

Hmmmm... and how does one define "cone", then?

jisles wrote:The galaxy is not 'towards' the constellation Ursa Major. APOD captions regularly make this mistake. It's IN the constellation Ursa Major. Constellations comprise everything within an irregularly-outlined cone, stretching to infinity, whose apex is at the observer's eye. I love APOD though!

Beyond wrote:

Sandstone wrote:

neufer wrote: <<The decline in populations of Swan galaxiids (Galaxias fontanus) has been...

Neufer,

From where do these gems of thought and wondrous information spring forth???

Oh my

Sandstone wrote:

neufer wrote: <<The decline in populations of Swan galaxiids (Galaxias fontanus) has been...

Neufer,

From where do these gems of thought and wondrous information spring forth???

neufer wrote: <<The decline in populations of Swan galaxiids (Galaxias fontanus) has been...

orin stepanek wrote:
Interesting looking galaxy; but not very pretty!

It's kind of like the ugly duckling of galaxies!

Maybe it will evolve into a beautiful swan!

http://www.parks.tas.gov.au/index.aspx?base=1074 wrote:

[b][size=150][color=#0000FF]Swan galaxiid[/color]; credit: A. Sanger.[/size][/b]

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• Swan galaxias

<<The decline in populations of Swan galaxiids (Galaxias fontanus) has been attributed to predation by introduced fish such as brown trout and redfin perch. The endemic Swan galaxiid also has a fairly restricted, natural range, only being found in the Swan and Macquarie river tributaries on Tasmania's east coast. Any changes to its habitat could have a disastrous effect on the fish.

To prevent the Swan galaxiid being eaten to extinction by these introduced predators, since 1989 the Inland Fisheries Commission has been relocating them to areas where these predators do not occur. Sites chosen usually have natural barriers, such as waterfalls, to prevent the trout and perch from reaching them. Provided people do not interfere by introducing exotic fish to these particular sites the Swan galaxiid has a good chance of survival.>>

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap060414.html wrote:

[b][color=#FF0000]M82's infrared appearance in the Spitzer Space Telescope[/color] Credit: C. Engelbracht (Steward Obs.), et al. JPL, Caltech, NASA[/b]

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Smoke from the Cigar Galaxy

<<Explanation: Very bright in infrared light, well-known starburst galaxy M82's popular name describes its suggestive shape seen at visible wavelengths - The Cigar Galaxy. Ironically, M82's fantastic appearance in this Spitzer Space Telescope image really is due to cosmic "smoke" - the infrared emission of exented dust features blown by stellar winds from M82's luminous, central star forming regions. The false-color view highlights a component of dust emission from complex carbon molecules called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons or PAHs. PAHs are also seen in star forming regions throughout our own, much calmer, Milky Way Galaxy and are products of combustion on planet Earth. Likely triggered by interactions with nearby galaxy M81, M82's intense star formation activity appears to be blowing out immense clouds of dust and PAHs extending nearly 20,000 light-years both above and below the galactic plane. M82 is about 12 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major. >>

APOD Robot wrote: Huge Gamma Ray Bubbles Found Around Milky Way

Explanation: Did you know that our Milky Way Galaxy has huge bubbles emitting gamma rays from the direction of the galactic center? Neither did anybody. As the data from the Earth-orbiting Fermi satellite began acuminating over the past two years, however, a large and unusual feature toward our Galaxy's center became increasingly evident. The two bubbles are visible together as the red and white spotted oval surrounding the center of the above all sky image, released yesterday. The plane of our Galaxy runs horizontally across the image center. Assuming the bubbles emanate from our Galaxy's center, the scale of the bubbles is huge, rivaling the entire Galaxy in size, and spanning about 50,000 light years from top to bottom. Earlier indications of the bubbles has been found on existing all sky maps in the radio, microwave, and X-ray. The cause of the bubbles is presently unknown, but will likely be researched for years to come.