Starship Asterisk*

[img3="Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA
Acknowledgement: Judy Schmidt (Geckzilla.com)"]http://cdn.spacetelescope.org/archives/ ... w1552a.jpg[/img3][hr][/hr]

This image, taken with the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 on board the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, shows the galaxy NGC 6052, located around 230 million light-years away in the constellation of Hercules.

It would be reasonable to think of this as a single abnormal galaxy, and it was originally classified as such. However, it is in fact a “new” galaxy in the process of forming. Two separate galaxies have been gradually drawn together, attracted by gravity, and have collided. We now see them merging into a single structure.

As the merging process continues, individual stars are thrown out of their original orbits and placed onto entirely new paths, some very distant from the region of the collision itself. Since the stars produce the light we see, the “galaxy” now appears to have a highly chaotic shape. Eventually, this new galaxy will settle down into a stable shape, which may not resemble either of the two original galaxies.

[img3="Credit: ESO/H. Dahle"]http://cdn.eso.org/images/screen/potw1552a.jpg[/img3][hr][/hr]

Modern science and the spectre of ancient man coexist in this thought-provoking image of a petroglyph near the site of ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile.

A petroglyph is an ancient stone engraving, examples of which can be found scattered across the globe. In some places they can date back as far as 40 000 BCE, but the one pictured here is much more recent.

Upon the face of the stone, the images of men are depicted alongside llamas or other similar wild camelids. The native nomadic people of the Atacama Desert in Chile would have followed herds of these animals across the largely arid and inhospitable land before they adopted a sedentary culture, creating desert oases where they bred camelids.

The pale glow of the stars over and beyond the mountain ridge and the silhouette of one of La Silla’s telescopes frame the passing of the centuries and the progress of humanity from prehistory to our modern age of space exploration.

bystander wrote:Infant Star’s Artistic Outburst (HH 34)
ESA Hubble Picture of the Week | 2015 Dec 21

[img3="Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA"]http://cdn.spacetelescope.org/archives/ ... w1551a.jpg[/img3][hr][/hr]

The artistic outburst of an extremely young star, in the earliest phase of formation, is captured in this spectacular image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The colourful wisps, found in the lower left of the image, are painted onto the sky by a young star cocooned in the partially illuminated cloud of obscuring dust seen to the upper right.

Pictured punching through the enshrouding dust is an extremely hot, blue jet of gas released by the young star. As this jet speeds through space, it collides with cooler surrounding material. The result is the colourful object to the lower left, produced as the cooler material is heated by the jet (opo9524a, potw1307a).

This wispy object is known as HH 34 and it is an example of a Herbig–Haro (HH) object. It resides approximately 1400 light-years away near the Orion Nebula, a large star formation region within the Milky Way. HH objects exist for a cosmically brief time — typically thousands of years — with changes seen in observations taken only a few years apart (heic1113).

Although the jet extends the entire length between the infant star and HH34, only a fraction of it appears visible. This part of the jet possesses an intricate structure of knots and ripples, thought to be caused by the different outbursts catching up and ramming into each other over time.

[img3="Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA"]http://cdn.spacetelescope.org/archives/ ... w1551a.jpg[/img3][hr][/hr]

The artistic outburst of an extremely young star, in the earliest phase of formation, is captured in this spectacular image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The colourful wisps, found in the lower left of the image, are painted onto the sky by a young star cocooned in the partially illuminated cloud of obscuring dust seen to the upper right.

Pictured punching through the enshrouding dust is an extremely hot, blue jet of gas released by the young star. As this jet speeds through space, it collides with cooler surrounding material. The result is the colourful object to the lower left, produced as the cooler material is heated by the jet (opo9524a, potw1307a).

This wispy object is known as HH 34 and it is an example of a Herbig–Haro (HH) object. It resides approximately 1400 light-years away near the Orion Nebula, a large star formation region within the Milky Way. HH objects exist for a cosmically brief time — typically thousands of years — with changes seen in observations taken only a few years apart (heic1113).

Although the jet extends the entire length between the infant star and HH34, only a fraction of it appears visible. This part of the jet possesses an intricate structure of knots and ripples, thought to be caused by the different outbursts catching up and ramming into each other over time.

Ann wrote:

starsurfer wrote:Ring Nebula (M57)
http://www.capella-observatory.com/Imag ... 7Field.htm
Copyright: Volker Wendel, Josef Pöpsel, Bernd Koch, Stefan Binnewies and Rainer Sparenberg

M57.jpg

Seeing this great image makes me want to say, Halo, Halo!

Ann

starsurfer wrote:Ring Nebula (M57)
http://www.capella-observatory.com/Imag ... 7Field.htm
Copyright: Volker Wendel, Josef Pöpsel, Bernd Koch, Stefan Binnewies and Rainer Sparenberg

M57.jpg