Starship Asterisk*

Ann wrote:

starsurfer wrote:Wild Duck Cluster (M11)
http://www.chart32.de/index.php/component/k2/item/130
Copyright: CHART32

m11.jpg

That is such a lovely image. On the shore of the Milky Way, among uncountable grains of yellow sand, are sprinkled a handful of little blue sapphires - and a few yellow topazes.

Ann

starsurfer wrote:Wild Duck Cluster (M11)
http://www.chart32.de/index.php/component/k2/item/130
Copyright: CHART32

m11.jpg

[attachment=0]eso1439a[1].jpg[/attachment][/b]

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The MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile has captured a richly colourful view of the bright star cluster NGC 3532. Some of the stars still shine with a hot bluish colour, but many of the more massive ones have become red giants and glow with a rich orange hue.

NGC 3532 is a bright open cluster located some 1300 light-years away in the constellation of Carina (The Keel of the ship Argo). It is informally known as the Wishing Well Cluster, as it resembles scattered silver coins which have been dropped into a well. It is also referred to as the Football Cluster, although how appropriate this is depends on which side of the Atlantic you live. It acquired the name because of its oval shape, which citizens of rugby-playing nations might see as resembling a rugby ball.

This very bright star cluster is easily seen with the naked eye from the southern hemisphere. It was discovered by French astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille whilst observing from South Africa in 1752 and was catalogued three years later in 1755. It is one of the most spectacular open star clusters in the whole sky.

NGC 3532 covers an area of the sky that is almost twice the size of the full Moon. It was described as a binary-rich cluster by John Herschel who observed “several elegant double stars” here during his stay in southern Africa in the 1830s. Of additional, much more recent, historical relevance, NGC 3532 was the first target to be observed by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, on 20 May 1990. ...

[c][attachment=0]sc14_iotd_solar[1].png[/attachment][/b][/c]

Magnetic fields emerging from below the surface of the sun influence the solar wind—a stream of particles that blows continuously from the sun’s atmosphere through the solar system. Researchers at NASA and its university partners are using high-fidelity computer simulations to learn how these magnetic fields emerge, heat the sun’s outer atmosphere and produce sunspots and flares.

This visualization shows magnetic field loops in a portion of the sun, with colors representing magnetic field strength from weak (blue) to strong (red). The simulation was run on the Pleiades supercomputer at the NASA Advanced Supercomputing facility at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California.

The knowledge gained through simulation results like this one help researchers better understand the sun, its variations, and its interactions with Earth and the solar system.

[url=http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/swift/multimedia/Swift-concept.html][b][i]Artist's Concept of SWIFT[/i][/b][/url] - [b][i]Credit: NASA, Spectrum Astro[/i][/b]

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Over the past decade, NASA's Swift Gamma-ray Burst Explorer has proven itself to be one of the most versatile astrophysics missions ever flown. It remains the only satellite capable of precisely locating gamma-ray bursts -- the universe's most powerful explosions -- and monitoring them across a broad range of wavelengths using multiple instruments before they fade from view.

"Swift" isn't just a name -- it's a core capability, a part of the spacecraft's DNA. Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) typically last less than a minute and Swift detects one event about twice a week. Once Swift observes a GRB, it automatically determines the blast's location, broadcasts the position to the astronomical community, and then turns toward the site to investigate with its own sensitive telescopes. ...

To date, Swift has detected more than 900 GRBs. Its discoveries include a new ultra-long class, whose high-energy emissions endure for hours; the farthest GRB, whose light took more than 13 billion years to reach us; and the "naked-eye" GRB, which for about a minute was bright enough to see with the naked-eye despite the fact that its light had traveled 7.5 billion years. Early in the mission, Swift observations provided the "smoking gun" that validated long-standing theoretical models suggesting that GRBs with durations under two seconds come from mergers of two neutron stars, objects with the mass of the sun that have been crushed to the size of a city.

In addition to its studies of GRBs, Swift conducts a wide array of observations of other astrophysical phenomena. A flexible planning system enables astronomers to request Swift "target-of-opportunity" (TOO) observations, which can be commanded from the ground in as little as 10 minutes, or set up monitoring programs to observe specific sources at time intervals ranging from minutes to months. The system can schedule up to 75 independent targets a day. ...

Videos:

• NASA/GSFC: Highlights of Swift's Decade of Discovery
  NASA/GSFC: Swift: A Decade of Game-changing Astrophysics

[b][i]Credit: NASA, ESA/Hubble; Acknowledgement:[/i][/b] [url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/78527981@N06/6988928524][b][i]Luca Limatola[/i][/b][/url]

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The galaxy cutting dramatically across the frame of this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image is a slightly warped dwarf galaxy known as UGC 1281. Seen here from an edge-on perspective, this galaxy lies roughly 18 million light-years away in the constellation of Triangulum (The Triangle).

The bright companion to the lower left of UGC 1281 is the small galaxy PGC 6700, officially known as 2MASX J01493473+3234464. Other prominent stars belonging to our own galaxy, the Milky Way, and more distant galaxies can be seen scattered throughout the sky.

The side-on view we have of UGC 1281 makes it a perfect candidate for studies into how gas is distributed within galactic halos — the roughly spherical regions of diffuse gas extending outwards from a galaxy’s centre. Astronomers have studied this galaxy to see how its gas vertically extends out from its central plane, and found it to be a quite typical dwarf galaxy. However, it does have a slightly warped shape to its outer edges, and is forming stars at a particularly low rate.

[b][i]Credit: ESO, S. Ramstedt (Uppsala University, Sweden), & W. Vlemmings (Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden)[/i][/b]

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Studying red giant stars tells astronomers about the future of the Sun — and about how previous generations of stars spread the elements needed for life across the Universe. One of the most famous red giants in the sky is called Mira A, part of the binary system Mira which lies about 400 light-years from Earth. In this image ALMA reveals Mira’s secret life.

Mira A is an old star, already starting to throw out the products of its life’s work into space for recycling. Mira A’s companion, known as Mira B, orbits it at twice the distance from the Sun to Neptune.

Mira A is known to have a slow wind which gently moulds the surrounding material. ALMA has now confirmed that Mira’s companion is a very different kind of star, with a very different wind. Mira B is a hot, dense white dwarf with a fierce and fast stellar wind.

New observations show how the winds from the two stars have created a fascinating, beautiful and complex nebula. The remarkable heart-shaped bubble at the centre is created by Mira B’s energetic wind inside Mira A’s more relaxed outflow. The heart, which formed some time in the last 400 years or so, and the rest of the gas surrounding the pair show that they have long been building this strange and beautiful environment together. ...

• Astronomy & Astrophysics 570 L14 (Oct 2014) DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/201425029
  arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1410.1529 > 06 Oct 2014

starsurfer wrote:Very nice visually! Shouldn't this be in the video submissions thread?

geckzilla wrote:Beautiful simulation.

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

[b][i]Credit: ESO/G. Lombardi[/i][/b]

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Have you ever wondered what the inside of ESO's Very Large Telescope looks like? Well, wonder no more, as this picture of the week shows the internal structure of one of the VLT's Unit Telescopes (UTs) — specifically UT3, otherwise known as Melipal.

Seen here, lit by moonlight, is the main steel structure of the Unit Telescope's optical assembly. The main mirror, measuring 8.2 metres in diameter and weighing in at more than 23 tonnes, requires a sturdy frame to allow it to rotate within the structure, while maintaining high optical resolution. This movable steel frame itself weighs over 430 tonnes, about the same as a fully loaded jumbo jet!

The structure, optics and electronics are housed within a further steel enclosure, which provides protection from the harsh Atacama environment.

Melipal is named after the Mapuche term for the constellation of the Southern Cross (Crux). All four of the VLT's Unit Telescopes have Mapuche names relating to well-known and prominent astronomical features: Antu, Kueyen, Melipal, and Yepun, or the Sun, Moon, Southern Cross, and Venus respectively. The Mapuche people are indigenous to the Southern Central region of Chile, and have a long history of astronomy.

This picture was taken by ESO Photo Ambassador Gianluca Lombardi, who, when not taking photographs of the Chilean landscape, spends his days as an ESO astronomer working at La Silla and Paranal.

[b][i]Credit: ESA/Hubble, NASA[/i][/b]

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This new Hubble image is a snapshot of NGC 986 — a barred spiral galaxy discovered in 1828 by James Dunlop. This close-up view of the galaxy was captured by Hubble’s Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2).

NGC 986 is found in the constellation of Fornax (The Furnace), located in the southern sky. NGC 986 is a bright, 11th-magnitude galaxy sitting around 56 million light-years away, and its golden centre and barred swirling arms are clearly visible in this image.

Barred spiral galaxies are spiral galaxies with a central bar-shaped structure composed of stars. NGC 986 has the characteristic S-shaped structure of this type of galactic morphology. Young blue stars can be seen dotted amongst the galaxy’s arms and the core of the galaxy is also aglow with star formation.

To the top right of this image the stars appear a little fuzzy. This is because a gap in the Hubble data was filled in with data from ground-based telescopes. Although the view we see in this filled in patch is accurate, the resolution of the stars is no match for Hubble’s clear depiction of the spiral galaxy.