Starship Asterisk*

[float=left][img3="[b][color=#0000FF][size=125]Ken 'Taco' Cockrell was 'Cujo' on STS-69[/size][/color][/b]"]http://www.spacefacts.de/mission/patches/sts-69_dog.png[/img3][/float][quote="illexsquid"][quote="tEH sNORK"]

What's with the weird link to the taco dog?[/quote]
I wondered if maybe the Imgur image had been changed after it was posted, but this makes a kind of odd sense. The dog is in disguise and has thus "changed his appearance", which is the hyperlinked text.[/quote][quote=" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Cockrell"]

<<Asteroid 14917, Taco, was discovered on January 8, 1994 by the Spacewatch project at Kitt Peak Observatory. Taco has a period of 4 years, 289 days. It was named for Kenneth Dale "Taco" Cockrell (born in 1950), an American astronaut and a veteran of five space shuttle missions.[/quote]

[quote="tEH sNORK"]What's with the weird link to the taco dog?[/quote]
I wondered if maybe the Imgur image had been changed after it was posted, but this makes a kind of odd sense. The dog is in disguise and has thus "changed his appearance", which is the hyperlinked text.

What's with the weird link to the taco dog?

[quote="Ann"]The Gabriela Mistral Nebula is a spitting image of the real deal, isn't it?[/quote]
Pretty good. But I'd have gone with the Alfred Hitchcock Nebula.

[attachment=0]ah.jpg[/attachment]

[float=left][img2]https://photos.smugmug.com/Category/Star-Forming-Regions/i-fBpQ9fT/0/L/NGC%203324%20Crop%20small-L.jpg[/img2][c][size=85]Gabriela Mistral Nebula.
Source: https://mikeberthonjones.smugmug.com/Category/Star-Forming-Regions/i-fBpQ9fT[/size][/c][/float] [float=right][img2]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/64/Gabriela_Mistral_1945.jpg[/img2][c][size=85]Gabriela Mistral, Nobel Prize-winning poet.
Photo: Anna Riwkin-Brick.[/size][/c][/float]



The Gabriela Mistral Nebula is a spitting image of the real deal, isn't it?














Ann

[quote="DrC"]

The Keyhole Nebula is not NGC 3324[/quote][quote=" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_3324"]
[float=left][img3="[color=#0000FF][size=150]NGC 3324[/size][/color]"]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f6/NGC_3324_Hubble.jpg/270px-NGC_3324_Hubble.jpg[/img3]
[img3="[size=150][color=#0000FF]Gabriela Mistral[/color][/size]"]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/64/Gabriela_Mistral_1945.jpg[/img3][/float]

<<NGC 3324 is an open cluster in the southern constellation Carina, located northwest of the Carina Nebula (NGC 3372) at a distance of 7,560 ly from Earth. It is closely associated with the emission nebula IC 2599, also known as Gum 31. The two are often confused as a single object, and together have been nicknamed the "Gabriela Mistral Nebula" due to its resemblance to the Chilean poet. NGC 3324 was first catalogued by James Dunlop in 1826.>>[/quote]

[quote="DrC"]The Keyhole Nebula is not NGC 3324[/quote]
I don't think the Keyhole Nebula has any catalog designation at all. It's simply an obscured section of NGC 3372.

The Keyhole Nebula is not NGC 3324

[quote="Chris Peterson"]
There is no evidence that globular clusters can still form. The formation of both globulars and galaxies are somehow related, and both apparently required conditions found in the early Universe which no longer exist.[/quote]

[float=left][img2]http://www.skyhound.com/images/M53%20montage.jpg[/img2][c][size=85]Globular clusters NGC 5053 (left) and M53 (right).
Source: http://www.skyhound.com/Fraternal%20Twins.html[/size][/c][/float]Whether or not globular clusters can still form partly depends on how we define "globular clusters" in the first place. Very many of the old, classic globular clusters must have been extremely large and massive when they formed, but it is quite possible that some of them were not so massive.

At left you can see two globular clusters that are located close together in the sky, but it is only too obvious that one of them ([url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messier_53]M53[/url]) is much more massive than the other one ([url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_5053]NGC 5053[/url]). It seems likely to me that these globulars were born unequal, and that NGC 5053 may never have been [i]extremely[/i] massive.

[float=right][img2]https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full/2002/27/aa1898/img33.gif[/img2][c][size=85]Hodge's Cluster in NGC 6946. Source: Hubble/Keck/ S.Larsen? [/size][/c][/float]








Yes, but now check out young massive Hodge's Cluster in [url=https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120109.html]NGC 6946[/url].

[quote][url=https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0707/0707.4635.pdf]Yu.N.Efremov, V.L.Afanasiev, E.J.Alfaro, R.Boomsma, N.Bastian,
S. Larsen, M.C.Sánchez-Gil, O.K.Silchenko, B.García-Lorenzo, C.Muñoz-Tuñon, and P.W.Hodge[/url] wrote about Hodge' Cluster:

Its photometric and dynamical masses were also estimated from these observations; both estimations provide similar values close to 10[sup][size=85]6[/size][/sup] solar masses. It was possible therefore to suggest that the cluster is gravitationally bound and that [b][size=120][color=#0040FF]it resembles a young globular cluster[/color][/size][/b], eventually to evolve into an old classical globular cluster. Its parameters fit those for giant young compact clusters, often
called super star clusters (SSC).
[/quote]

[float=left][img2]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/44/Eso1422a.jpg/300px-Eso1422a.jpg[/img2][c][size=85]NGC 3293, a massive young cluster.
Photo: ESO/G. Beccari[/size][/c][/float]I agree that young super star clusters (SSCs) are not identical to "classic" globular clusters, partly because extremely few SSCs were born as massive as the classic 10-12 billion-year-old globular clusters, and also because the young SSCs are not as metal-poor as classic globulars. But Chris points out an interesting possibility - perhaps the "true" globular clusters are the by-products of an early evolutionary phase of galaxy formation in the young universe. If so, no more globulars can ever form again, by definition. However, massive young clusters [i]can[/i] still form.

No globular cluster-like clusters - and no clusters similar to Hodge's Cluster - can be found in the Carina Nebula, and there are no signs of anything nearly so massive forming there. The most massive-[b][i][size=110]looking[/size][/i][/b] cluster in the area is [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_3293]NGC 3293[/url], which is the extended blue object near the bottom of today's APOD. But NGC 3293 is a far cry from being a globular cluster.

EDIT: NGC 3293 is apparently "top-heavy", and therefore even less massive than it appears to be. See [url=https://conference.ipac.caltech.edu/tmtsf2015/system/media_files/binaries/50/original/20150624_Hasan_ISDTdisc_MWNG_StarForm.pdf]here[/url] and [url=http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2007Ap%26SS.312..171S]here[/url].

Ann

A nice, dark image of the region. It makes the nebula look a lot like a few glowing embers of coal.

Too bad I can't easily travel to Prague to hear RJN's talk on June 30. I'm sure it will be inspiring!

[img3=""]http://www.buildabear.com/ProductImages/BABW_US/XL/21709x.jpg?01AD=3uxEYVoLeTGbMBDHnEcT88Iu-Cif3ID0fWW3PpXOff3s0s55appxnaA&01RI=DAEAB31D6098EEB&01NA=[/img3]

[quote="snuggs28"]Could it be possible we are watching a Globular Cluster being formed? 14,000 stars in the region.[/quote]
No, just the opposite- young star forming regions like this are short-lived, with the stars quickly dissipating because they're so weakly bound by gravity.

There is no evidence that globular clusters can still form. The formation of both globulars and galaxies are somehow related, and both apparently required conditions found in the early Universe which no longer exist.

Could it be possible we are watching a Globular Cluster being formed? 14,000 stars in the region.

[url=https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap170613.html][img]https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/calendar/S_170613.jpg[/img] [size=150]The Great Nebula in Carina[/size][/url]

[b] Explanation: [/b] In one of the brightest parts of [url=https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap050605.html]Milky Way[/url] lies a nebula where some of the oddest things occur. NGC 3372, known as the [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carina_Nebula]Great Nebula in Carina[/url], is home to massive stars and changing nebulas. The [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carina_Nebula#Keyhole_Nebula]Keyhole Nebula[/url] (NGC 3324), the bright structure just to the right of the image center, houses several of these massive stars and has itself [url=http://i.imgur.com/3BlMICY.jpg]changed its appearance[/url]. The entire [url=https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap160516.html]Carina Nebula[/url], [url=https://www.facebook.com/amitkamblephotography/photos/a.429235713802181.96044.428866457172440/1351719934887083/?type=3&theater]captured here[/url], spans over 300 [url=http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/cosmic_distance.html]light years[/url] and lies about 7,500 light-years away in the [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carina_(constellation)]constellation of Carina[/url]. [url=https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap060326.html]Eta Carinae[/url], the [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHGMJNqqXnQ]most energetic star[/url] in the nebula, was one of the brightest stars in the sky in the 1830s, but [url=https://arstechnica.com/science/2012/02/an-explosion-may-have-driven-the-great-eruption-of-eta-carinae/]then faded[/url] dramatically. While [url=http://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/nasa-observatories-take-an-unprecedented-look-into-superstar-eta-carinae]Eta Carinae[/url] itself maybe on the verge of a supernova explosion, [url=https://science.hq.nasa.gov/kids/imagers/ems/xrays.html]X-ray[/url] images indicate that much of the [url=https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap160323.html]Great Nebula in Carina[/url] has been a veritable [url=http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2011/carina/]supernova factory[/url].

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