Starship Asterisk*

VLT: Then vs Now ESO Picture of the Week | 2023 May 22 https://cdn.eso.org/images/screen/potw2321a.jpg A lot can change in more than two decades — just take a look at these pictures of ESO’s Very Large Telescope ( VLT )! On the left we see the VLT when it was still under construction atop Cerro Par...

Astronomers Have a New Way to Measure the Expansion of the Universe Universe Today | Brian Koberlein | 2023 May 17 https://cdn.spacetelescope.org/archives/images/screen/ann1526a.jpg Image Credit: NASA, ESA, S. Rodney (JHU) and the FrontierSN Team; T. Treu (UCLA), P. Kelly (UC Berkeley) and the GLAS...

New Clues to the Formation of Globular Clusters: Their Ultramassive Stars Universe Today | Brian Koberlein | 2023 May 16 https://cdn.spacetelescope.org/archives/images/screen/potw2301a.jpg Globular clusters are odd beasts. They aren’t galaxies, but like galaxies, they are a gravitationally bound co...

The Many Layers of NGC 1808 NOIRLab Image of the Week | DECam | 2023 May 17 https://noirlab.edu/public/media/archives/images/screen/iotw2320b.jpg NGC 1808 is a barred spiral galaxy located in the southern constellation Columba (the dove). This image was captured using the Dark Energy Camera ( DECam...

Advanced Life Should Have Already Peaked Billions of Years Ago Universe Today | Evan Gough | 2023 May 11 https://www.universetoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/drake-equation.jpg Did humanity miss the party? Are SETI, the Drake Equation, and the Fermi Paradox all just artifacts of our ignorance a...

Webb Finds Water, and a New Mystery, in Rare Main Belt Comet NASA | GSFC | STScI | Webb | ESA Webb | ESA Space Science | 2023 May 15 https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01H03A8A79QCHQ0YP83N6185EH.jpg Illustration Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Joseph Olmsted (STScI) NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has enabled a...

https://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/Images/objects/heapow/active_galaxies/m84cavities_chandra_small.jpg Hot as H How quickly do black holes grow ? Since black holes grow by accreting material from their surroundings (which increases both their mass, and their size), their rate of growth depends on how qu...

Scrutinising a Star-Studded Cluster ESA Hubble Picture of the Week | 2023 May 15 potw2320a[1].jpg A dense cluster of bright stars. The core of the cluster is to the left and has a distinct group of blue stars. Surrounding the core are a multitude of stars in warmer colours. These stars are very num...

A Fiery Sky over Paranal ESO Picture of the Week | 2023 May 15 https://cdn.eso.org/images/screen/potw2320a.jpg Have you ever seen a sunset so red? Probably not, since the cause of this reddened twilight sky is something quite dramatic: a volcanic eruption. This Picture of the Week was captured at E...

The picture ist overwhelming, but something looks familar. Seen in a magazine, in TV? I scratched my head - and found this: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap200209.html Exactly the same. Same Picture, same text, same links. Did I miss, that the APOD repeats on Sundays? You probably also missed ap200209...

What if Titan Dragonfly had a Fusion Engine? Universe Today | Matt Williams | 2023 May 10 https://www.universetoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/dragonfly-on-surface.jpg In a little over four years, NASA’s Dragonfly mission will launch into space and begin its long journey towards Titan, Saturn’s...

VISTA Reveals Hidden Views of Vast Stellar Nurseries ESO Photo Release | 2023 May 11 https://cdn.eso.org/images/screen/eso2307g.jpg The L1688 region in the Ophiuchus Constellation (Infrared/Visible) Credits: ESO/Meingast et al. (Infrared) / ESO/S. Guisard (Visible) https://cdn.eso.org/images/screen...

Stellar Red Giant above KPNO NOIRLab Image of the Week | 2023 May 10 https://noirlab.edu/public/media/archives/images/screen/iotw2319a.jpg The dynamic coloring of the night sky at Kitt Peak National Observatory ( KPNO ), a Program of NSF’s NOIRLab, makes for a beautiful backdrop behind the UArizona...

Webb Looks for Fomalhaut’s Asteroid Belt and Finds Much More NASA | GSFC | STScI | Webb | ESA Space Science | ESA Webb | 2023 May 08 https://cdn.esawebb.org/archives/images/large/weic2312b.jpg Astronomers used the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope to image the warm dust around a nearby young ...

JWST Fails to Disprove the Big Bang Universe Today | 2023 May 08 https://www.universetoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/renaissance.jpg The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is revolutionizing our understanding of the early universe. With a mirror larger than Hubble and the ability to observe dee...

As I noted earlier, this HST project collected data through five filters, but we don't know the details of which ones were used to construct this particular image. There were two UV filters (275nm, 336nm), two visible light filters (438nm, 555nm), and a near-IR filter (814nm). With this set it isn'...

https://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/Images/objects/heapow/stars/cygob2_xmm_small.jpg Among the Stars The association of stars known as Cygnus OB2 has a storied X-ray history. Early observations with the Imaging Proportional Counter on the Einstein X-ray Observatory reported back in 1979 provided some of ...

Cosmic Leviathan ESA Hubble Picture of the Week | 2023 May 08 https://cdn.spacetelescope.org/archives/images/screen/potw2319a.jpg A vast galaxy cluster lurks in the centre of this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Like a submerged sea monster causing waves on the surface, this cosmic ...

Peekaboo ESO Picture of the Week | 2023 May 08 https://cdn.eso.org/images/screen/potw2319a.jpg The telescope peeking out from its dome is the 1.52-metre telescope at La Silla Observatory. Being over 55 years old, the 1.52-metre is one of the oldest telescopes at ESO and it has participated in layin...

Hi - I posted about my problem on yesterday's APOD page, but someone flagged it to be deleted, and it got no response. Here's what I wrote as guest user "johnnydeeptemp": I still have found no way to "contact an administrator" to resolve my login problem with my long-standing &q...

Dark Energy Was Always Present, Everywhere and at Every Time Universe Today | 2023 May 04 https://www.universetoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/efeds_cosmo_flex_gr_format_l-2000x1200.jpg The Force is with us, according to cosmologists working to understand a mysterious “something” that’s making ...

M84: 'H' is for Hot and Huge in Chandra Image NASA | MSFC | SAO | Chandra X-ray Observatory | 2023 May 04 https://chandra.si.edu/photo/2023/m84/m84_labeled.jpg X-ray: NASA/CXC/Princeton Univ/C. Bambic et al.; Optical: SDSS; Radio: NSF/NRAO/VLA/ESO; Image processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/N.Wolk With a singl...

There are some iconic astronomy pictures one might get tired of seeing over and over again, but M87* will never be one of them for me! I can't get enough of it. Just to fathom it's size, I find this image useful, compared to the Milky Way smbh: /Users/christian/Desktop/M87*-Sgr A* .png (edit: I can...