Starship Asterisk*

Friends tell me the eclipse was beautiful in Hawaii, my home state. Does anyone have photos from there to post?

In another thread about this recent eclipse, Bystander posted a site that explains beautifully the "square" or rectangular corona. http://www.exploratorium.edu/eclipse/2008/index.html As I understand it, because the sun, in its 11-year cycle of "hot" to "cool," is curre...

astrolabe wrote:
I found this particular APOD rather terrifying..

Yikes! Me, too. How many thousands (?) of miles did this prominence protrude out from the sun? Or, put another way, what percentage of, say, the distance to Mercury's orbit did it protrude?

Are there even larger prominences on record?

Cherie

The last 4 posts make me think of a remark attributed to Sir Arthur Eddington. It answers Martin's question, "why do you think that is?" I can't quote it exactly, but the gist of it is: "The universe did not exist first for mankind to discover it; the universe exists because man was h...

bystander: Right on with the response to FieryIce. Now Google "Arthur Dent". neufer: The literary references are great...when I get them. When I don't, I feel left out of the fun. It's not as unkind as when we are made to feel stupid and ignorant, but why not include everyone by providing ...

Thanks to you both (Case and npsguy).

Cherie

I used to get my late-night laughs from Letterman, now I just check into "Discuss" after ooohing and aaahing over the latest APOD. Much laughing out loud from the entries above. Today's is a beaut! (02/03/08...sorry, I see the URL box, but can I go back to find it and copy it without losin...

And what is that off to the right that looks like an upside-down tarantula?

Thanks, Lucky...and Case, too. With these explanations, I will review writeups of the last 25 or so galaxies featured on APOD and see if I can tell the difference between those with active nuclei (sp?) and those without.

Oops, still don't have the hang of the quote thing.

Many (all?) such galaxies have jets streaming out perpendicular to the disk.

But IC 342 does not?

Still confused. But maybe it's just semantics combined with my lack of knowledge.

The IC 342 writeup describes "star formation activity." You contrast this to "active galactic nucleus." One is considered active, one not. Please elaborate. Yes, we should definitely name it. Octopus works for me. BTW, I discovered APOD only last June when I was trying to find ou...

Yes, do tell us where you think we are. I'm interested too.

You have a better perspective. There's no reason to believe we won't be able to break through our perceived limitations and move beyond the crawling stage. Here's to hope.

Cherie

Thanks, BMA123. I knew it couldn't happen in my life time...now it's clear it won't happen in the earth's lifetime either.

Cherie

Noel expresses my thoughts exactly. This image blew me away and made me wonder ...how far away from earth would a satellite need to be (and how long would it take to get there) to take a full view (as opposed to edge on) photo of the Milky Way? Alternately, since we are on an outer spiral arm, I'm g...