Starship Asterisk*

by **eder** » Wed Apr 18, 2012 9:49 pm

Guest wrote:I looked up some sky maps, it seems the brighter globular cluster towards the bottom of the picture should be M80, while the smaller one near the top should be M4. does anyone else think so?

The smaller globular is NGC 6144 closer to Antares, the larger and brighter one is Messier 4 towards the bottom. M80 is not shown on this image.

Ivan

by **Guest** » Wed Apr 18, 2012 7:54 pm

I looked up some sky maps, it seems the brighter globular cluster towards the bottom of the picture should be M80, while the smaller one near the top should be M4. does anyone else think so?

RJN wrote:
zingsy wrote:There is a mistake in the APOD description. The cluster described as being 'far behind Antares'
is actually NGC 6144 while the bright cluster to the lower right of the pic is the cluster M4.
The description was indeed unclear. Which globular cluster is M4 is now better described. I apologize for the oversight.

- RJN

by **sage** » Wed Apr 18, 2012 7:40 pm

OH, thank you both, Chris and Rob.

rstevenson wrote:Less confused now?

haha! Yes!

by **Ann** » Wed Apr 18, 2012 2:15 am

Ivan wrote:

Ann,
Do you mean sigma Scorpii instead of sigma Orionis?

Ooops! Yes, of course!

Ann

by **eder** » Wed Apr 18, 2012 12:13 am

Ann wrote:I'm going to paste my comment from a Recent Submissions thread here:

Ivan Eder, you've done full justice to this colorful region of the sky. You really bring out how the emission and reflection nebulosity is unevenly distributed around Sigma Orionis. (It's a double star, and I think that only one of the components is hot enough to produce a lot of Ha emission.) But please not how the nebulosity around both Sigma Orionis and Antares seems "thicker" on the right side of the star, as if some strong "wind" had blown the gas and dust to one side of the stars.
Let me add that this is a glorious image of a fantastically colorful region of the sky. We see the trademark blue reflection nebulosity here, but the Antares region is also one of the few regions of the sky where we can see yellow reflection nebulosity, as the light from the red supergiant Antares is reflected in dust clouds. What a coincidence that photogenic globular cluster M4, a background object, is seen among the sparkling colors of the Antares region.

Ann,
Do you mean sigma Scorpii instead of sigma Orionis?
Thank you for your nice comment, appreciate it.

Ivan

by **Chris Peterson** » Tue Apr 17, 2012 11:25 pm

Guest wrote:
Chris Peterson wrote:
Antares will certainly end in a supernova, sometime in the next million years or so (and possibly in a few minutes).
If it happened in the next few minutes would we still see the same view of Antares for 550 years? This shouldn't confuse me, but it does. :oops:

"Now" usually refers to when we observe something; in astronomy, it is seldom necessary to correct for light time. Unless it is stated otherwise, you should assume that something happens when we observe it.

by **rstevenson** » Tue Apr 17, 2012 11:23 pm

Yes, the view would remain pretty much the same. But we wouldn't know it had gone nova in the next few minutes for about 550 years.

Less confused now?

Rob

by **Guest** » Tue Apr 17, 2012 11:01 pm

Chris Peterson wrote:
Antares will certainly end in a supernova, sometime in the next million years or so (and possibly in a few minutes).

If it happened in the next few minutes would we still see the same view of Antares for 550 years? This shouldn't confuse me, but it does.

by **henrystar** » Tue Apr 17, 2012 8:42 pm

It is so nice that the globular cluster happens to be offset from the other things. What a help for studying it clearly! Just another blessing from God.

by **Chris Peterson** » Tue Apr 17, 2012 7:56 pm

Case wrote:The letters ‘NCC’ in the designation ‘NCC 1701’ were never explained in the canon Star Trek universe, but the novel ‘Star Trek: Best Destiny’ mentions that it stands for “Naval Construction Contract”.

Perhaps, but the actual reason for using NCC is well known: it is a combination of the NC prefix used for U.S. aircraft registrations (the "C" is no longer used), and a Soviet-era CC prefix. By combining the two into NCC, the Star Trek creators were emphasizing a future of peace and cooperation.

by **Case** » Tue Apr 17, 2012 7:34 pm

Beyond wrote:uh, wait a minute Ann, it says NGC, not NCC. Nice bright galaxy, but one letter off.

Ann wrote:NCC, eh? It doesn't sound too astronomical to me.

Beyond wrote:Ok, thanks Ann. I didn't realize that -NGC- was a catalog designation.

The letters ‘NCC’ in the designation ‘NCC 1701’ were never explained in the canon Star Trek universe, but the novel ‘Star Trek: Best Destiny’ mentions that it stands for “Naval Construction Contract”.

by **Chris Peterson** » Tue Apr 17, 2012 7:15 pm

pleas wrote:Could Antares convert to a supernova and destroy the Earth?

Antares will certainly end in a supernova, sometime in the next million years or so (and possibly in a few minutes). But it's much too far away to pose any danger to Earth (by at least a factor of 20). It will, however, be spectacular, lighting up the night sky and even being visible in the daytime.

by **pleas** » Tue Apr 17, 2012 6:53 pm

Could Antares convert to a supernova and destroy the Earth?

Phil

by **Anthony Barreiro** » Tue Apr 17, 2012 6:44 pm

This is a beautiful picture full of astronomical wonders -- a yellow supergiant star, a hot blue star, yellow and blue reflection nebulae, red emission nebula, a couple of globular clusters. Wow.

And, I hate to admit that I know this, NCC 1701 is the Starfleet number for the starship Enterprise. You know, with Kirk, Spock, etc. My childhood enthusiasm for Star Trek has had a lasting effect on my mind. I can't remember Kepler's laws of planetary motion, but I could still run the transporter controls in an emergency.

by **Keina** » Tue Apr 17, 2012 6:09 pm

Chris Peterson wrote:
Keina wrote:"Antares is about 850 times the diameter of our own Sun"
Suns diameter is approx.1 392 000 km. Is Antareses diameter then 850x1 392 000km= 1 183 200 000 km? Or is Antareses volume 850xSuns volume? Sounds more plausible to me.
Antares's diameter is more than 850 times that of the Sun. It isn't called a supergiant for nothing!

Thanks for the info Chris. I read more info from wiki and was astonished that the thing is bigger than orbit of Mars.

by **Beyond** » Tue Apr 17, 2012 5:23 pm

Ok, thanks Ann. I didn't realize that -NGC- was a catalog designation. My ignorance of cosmological things is just about limitless.

But hey, you found a Nice blue galaxy to look at, right

by **Ann** » Tue Apr 17, 2012 4:40 pm

Beyond wrote:uh, wait a minute Ann, it says NGC, not NCC. Nice bright galaxy, but one letter off.

Ooops, you're right, Beyond!

NCC, eh? It doesn't sound too astronomical to me. NGC means New General Catalogue, and while it isn't very new these days, it was new by the time it arrived in the late 19th or the early 20th century. But NCC? New Cosmic Catalogue?

There is a Swedish building and construction company called NCC, and they built Malmö's famous skyscraper, Turning Torso.

But what about NCC 1701? Would it be the 1701th building constructed by NCC? I doubt it.

Ann

by **Psnarf** » Tue Apr 17, 2012 4:30 pm

I duckduckwent [my new favorite search engine: https://duckduckgo.com] and found this at the top of the list.

The skies are green and glowing
Where my heart is
Where my heart is
Where... the scented lunar flower is blooming
Somewhere, beyond the stars
Beyond Antares

I'll be back though it takes forever
Forever is just a day.
Forever is just another journey
Tomorrow a stop along the way

And let the years go fading
Where my heart is
Where my heart is
Where my love eternally is waiting
Somewhere, beyond the stars
Beyond Antares
http://images.wikia.com/memoryalpha/en/ ... ntares.ogg

-http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Beyond_Antares

by **Beyond** » Tue Apr 17, 2012 3:48 pm

uh, wait a minute Ann, it says NGC, not NCC. Nice bright galaxy, but one letter off.

by **Ann** » Tue Apr 17, 2012 3:35 pm

Beyond wrote:
Case wrote:NGC 6144
Is there an astronomical designation NCC 1701 ? I Googled, but didn't find anything except StarTrek. But then, i don't really know what to Google for.

Source: http://aladin.u-strasbg.fr/simbad-
thumbnails/thumbnails724.html

Here it is. It's a spiral galaxy. My software, which isn't very reliable in these matters, says that it is a spiral galaxy of type Sb (similar to the Andromeda Galaxy), 240 million light-years away, and that it is quite large and luminous, twice as bright as the Milky Way.

Ann

by **Pastorian** » Tue Apr 17, 2012 2:58 pm

Chris Peterson wrote:Supergiant stars are very tenuous. Planets could be orbiting inside of them. (They are still very dense at their cores, but have huge, tenuous outer layers.)

I expect that this would explain the nebula around the star as described by today's image caption:

APOD Robot wrote:Antares is seen on the left surrounded by a yellowish nebula of gas which it has itself expelled.

by **idahogie** » Tue Apr 17, 2012 2:58 pm

Chris Peterson wrote:Supergiant stars are very tenuous. Planets could be orbiting inside of them. (They are still very dense at their cores, but have huge, tenuous outer layers.)

Thanks, Chris. That's amazing.

It makes me think that a supergiant must not really have a surface -- at least not the way that we think of our sun's surface because of all the cool pictures -- where it looks like a lake of plasma swirling with magnetic currents, and periodically shooting streamers that splash back down. The surface of a supergiant must just fade out like a planetary atmosphere. Is that the case?

by **Chris Peterson** » Tue Apr 17, 2012 2:44 pm

idahogie wrote:If the diameter of Antares is 850 times that of the sun, then its volume would be a factor of 850^3 greater, right? Yet it is only 15 times more massive than the sun?

That would make its average density something like 15/850^3 that of our sun.

Supergiant stars are very tenuous. Planets could be orbiting inside of them. (They are still very dense at their cores, but have huge, tenuous outer layers.)

by **idahogie** » Tue Apr 17, 2012 2:32 pm

If the diameter of Antares is 850 times that of the sun, then its volume would be a factor of 850^3 greater, right? Yet it is only 15 times more massive than the sun?

That would make its average density something like 15/850^3 that of our sun.

by **Chris Peterson** » Tue Apr 17, 2012 2:15 pm

Keina wrote:"Antares is about 850 times the diameter of our own Sun"
Suns diameter is approx.1 392 000 km. Is Antareses diameter then 850x1 392 000km= 1 183 200 000 km? Or is Antareses volume 850xSuns volume? Sounds more plausible to me.

Antares's diameter is more than 850 times that of the Sun. It isn't called a supergiant for nothing!

Starship Asterisk*

APOD: Antares and Clouds (2012 Apr 17)

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