Starship Asterisk*

Ann wrote: ↑Mon May 25, 2020 5:25 pm

bystander wrote: ↑Mon May 25, 2020 4:48 pm One Large Stellar Latte To Go
ESA Hubble Picture of the Week | 2020 May 25

Image Credit: ESA/Hubble, NASA, and R. Barrows

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Far away in the Ursa Major constellation is a swirling galaxy that would not look out of place on a coffee made by a starry-eyed barista. NGC 3895 is a barred spiral galaxy that was first spotted by William Herschel in 1790 and was later observed by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.

Hubble's orbit high above the Earth's distorting atmosphere allows astronomers to make the very high resolution observations that are essential to opening new windows on planets, stars and galaxies — such as this beautiful view of NGC 3895. The telescope is positioned approximately 570 km above the ground, where it whirls around Earth at 28 000 kilometres per hour and takes 96 minutes to complete one orbit.

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

When you pour cream into coffee, then at first you get some interesting patterns. If you stir the coffee in one direction, you might create a swirling spiral shape.

I agree that galaxy NGC 3895 looks like cosmic latte.

Ann

bystander wrote: ↑Mon May 25, 2020 4:48 pm One Large Stellar Latte To Go
ESA Hubble Picture of the Week | 2020 May 25

Image Credit: ESA/Hubble, NASA, and R. Barrows

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Far away in the Ursa Major constellation is a swirling galaxy that would not look out of place on a coffee made by a starry-eyed barista. NGC 3895 is a barred spiral galaxy that was first spotted by William Herschel in 1790 and was later observed by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.

Hubble's orbit high above the Earth's distorting atmosphere allows astronomers to make the very high resolution observations that are essential to opening new windows on planets, stars and galaxies — such as this beautiful view of NGC 3895. The telescope is positioned approximately 570 km above the ground, where it whirls around Earth at 28 000 kilometres per hour and takes 96 minutes to complete one orbit.

Image Credit: ESA/Hubble, NASA, and R. Barrows

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Far away in the Ursa Major constellation is a swirling galaxy that would not look out of place on a coffee made by a starry-eyed barista. NGC 3895 is a barred spiral galaxy that was first spotted by William Herschel in 1790 and was later observed by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.

Hubble's orbit high above the Earth's distorting atmosphere allows astronomers to make the very high resolution observations that are essential to opening new windows on planets, stars and galaxies — such as this beautiful view of NGC 3895. The telescope is positioned approximately 570 km above the ground, where it whirls around Earth at 28 000 kilometres per hour and takes 96 minutes to complete one orbit.

Image Credit: ESO/Petr Horálek

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Posing here under the splendours of the southern sky is Babak A. Tafreshi, one of ESO’s Photo Ambassadors. Babak is standing on part of the massive Miñiques volcanic complex, located in the Antofagasta region of Chile’s Atacama Desert. This region is also home to ESO’s Paranal Observatory, where the Very Large Telescope (VLT) gazes up at the sky, observing exotic phenomena such as gamma-ray bursts, extrasolar planets, and supermassive black holes.

Each of the VLT’s constituent telescopes can detect objects roughly four billion times fainter than the naked eye can see, giving it a far richer view of the Universe than is available to humans. However, the skies above the Atacama are some of the clearest and darkest in the world — so it’s little wonder that Babak stands in awe beneath it all.

The spectacular swirl of blue above Babak’s head is the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a dwarf galaxy that orbits the Milky Way. It is part of the Local Group and is the third closest galaxy to us, lying approximately 163 000 light-years away. The LMC used to be classified as an irregular galaxy, but astronomers now think it was originally a barred spiral galaxy before its shape was distorted by the gravitational influence of the Milky Way and the nearby Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC). A bridge of gas filled with protostars connects the SMC to the LMC, providing evidence of tidal interactions between the two galaxies.

Ann wrote: ↑Tue May 19, 2020 8:03 pm Comet SWAN
http://www.astrostudio.at/2_Bright%20Comets.php
Image and copyright: Gerald Rhemann.

Click to view full size image

Click to view full size image

Susanna Kohler wrote:

Be sure to click on the image and enlarge it for the full view of the stunning, rich galaxy cluster Abell 370 (top right) and its surrounding area. This image was captured as part of the Beyond Ultra-deep Frontier Fields and Legacy Observations (BUFFALO) program, which is using 101 orbits of Hubble Space Telescope time to revisit the six Hubble Frontier Fields galaxy clusters and their flanking regions. Expanding on the Frontier Fields study, each set of BUFFALO images covers a region that’s four times larger than the previous coverage — the red-shaded section above shows the area that was previously imaged through Frontier Fields. BUFFALO’s wide, deep look will take advantage of gravitational lensing from these massive galaxy clusters to do two things: discover distant, high-redshift galaxies that lie behind the clusters, and study dark matter and galaxy assembly using the foreground clusters. For more information, check out the below article led by Charles L. Steinhardt (Cosmic Dawn Center (DAWN) and University of Copenhagen) that describes the study.

• Astrophysical Journal Supplement 247(2):64 (2020 Apr) DOI: 10.3847/1538-4365/ab75ed
• arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:2001.09999 > 27 Jan 2020 (v1), 13 Feb 2020 (v2)

bystander wrote: ↑Mon May 18, 2020 3:44 pm Stellar Glitter in a Field of Black
ESA Hubble Picture of the Week | 2020 May 18

Credit: NASA/ESA/Hubble, E Shaya, L Rizzi, B Tully, et al

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Unlike a spiral or elliptical galaxy, the galaxy KK 246 looks like glitter spilled across a black velvet sheet. KK 246, also known as ESO 461-036, is a dwarf irregular galaxy residing within the Local Void, a vast region of empty space. This lonely galaxy is the only one known for certain to reside in this enormous volume, along with 15 others that have been tentatively identified.

Although the picture appears to be full of galaxies, they are actually beyond this void, and instead form part of other galaxy groups or clusters. Cosmic voids, such as this one, are the spaces within the web-like structure of the Universe wherein very few or no galaxies exist.

Adjacent to the Local Group, this region of empty space is at least 150 million light-years across. For perspective, our own Milky Way galaxy is estimated to be 150 000 light-years across, making this void immense in its nothingness.

Space Telescope wrote:

Although the picture appears to be full of galaxies...

Credit: NASA/ESA/Hubble, E Shaya, L Rizzi, B Tully, et al

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Unlike a spiral or elliptical galaxy, the galaxy KK 246 looks like glitter spilled across a black velvet sheet. KK 246, also known as ESO 461-036, is a dwarf irregular galaxy residing within the Local Void, a vast region of empty space. This lonely galaxy is the only one known for certain to reside in this enormous volume, along with 15 others that have been tentatively identified.

Although the picture appears to be full of galaxies, they are actually beyond this void, and instead form part of other galaxy groups or clusters. Cosmic voids, such as this one, are the spaces within the web-like structure of the Universe wherein very few or no galaxies exist.

Adjacent to the Local Group, this region of empty space is at least 150 million light-years across. For perspective, our own Milky Way galaxy is estimated to be 150 000 light-years across, making this void immense in its nothingness.