Starship Asterisk*

bystander - thanks again for mentioning the flash 10 plugin - for sometime I have been frustrated because I couldn't view videos in my bowser and was blaming it all on my slow dialup internet connection. I had no idea that I needed that plugin - thanks for being alert enough to recognize the possibl...

I was wondering some of the same things that tesla (above) mentioned. What is different in the gravitational forces that cause some globular clusters to apparently resolve themselves into a disk-like galaxy as our galaxy but others still remain as globular clusters? What kind of rotational motions d...

Thanks bystander .....

Bummer! I couldn't download the video either - maybe because I'm on a crowded dial-up internet connection. Is it possible to provide a link to a smaller version of the video?

Neufer and Bystander - for some reason, your pictures aren't downloading here - very frustrating .....

A very non-technical WOW!! What a great picture. So many questions - I was wondering also how the two galaxies' central core/black holes could possibly not interact with each other and even pull together. Imagine if somehow two black holes were aligned in opposite directions/spins/forces and would j...

The story of the Owl and the pussycats(kittens) by biddie67 reminded me of something even scarier that happened to me about a half century ago. When i was somewhere around 10-12 yrs .......... Great story! And it gave me a great tip on how to hoot back at the owls around here. I have tried hooting ...

Greetings, Looking at the picture today I could not help but be amazed and how similar this looks to fluorescently labeled cells that I work with. Given the huge order of magnitude in size difference it is really incredible. I have attached a link to a couple of a cells so you can see for yourself....

Thanks neufer .....

It seems that we (i.e., this human species) needs to get cracking if we are going to accomplish an entire species migration to another safe stellar/planet environment before the Sun gives out - we haven't even been able to set up a permanent colony on the Moon yet ...

from the APOD description: ....the fate that awaits the Sun when it runs out of nuclear fuel in another 5 billion years ....

How is it known that the sun's fuel will run out in 5 billion years?

Owls!! : swoons : Couldn't help laughing at this .... I'm fascinated by the owls in my area but I'm also leery of the great horned owls here. Just last Sunday evening, a great horned owl made a run after my half-grown kittens playing in the driveway just at dusk. If my dog hadn't been on the alert ...

While I agree with rstevevson, I'm glad that planetquinn brought the subject up - you just never know what you might learn here in the hallowed halls of dear ol' APOD. It had never occurred to me before that the UK was anything else but England.

Any old house has it mysterious creaks and groans; surely this old Earth, with all its parts under stresses and strains, is going to let out some sounds of its own. Icebergs, underwater volcanoes/vents, shifting plates, plates that haven't shifted yet but are complaining.... You can't help but wonde...

I can't help but think of some more exotic possibilities (with absolutely noting but imagination to back them up) ... like an unexpected collision with a small roaming black hole or an unusually heavy concentration of dark energy/dark matter is interferring with the star ...

Wonderful picture - like a cosmic freezbe slicing through the universe

While the magnificence of photos like the Solar prominence and Pismis 24 are awesome and the technical achievement in acquiring the Dione Raw Image is amazing, my personal preference is for the Mystic Mountain photo. There are a couple reasons: even though I'm almost 70, the kid in me still responds...

Amazing - takes my breath away by both the beauty of the picture and what the SDO just might tell us ....

Each picture has something special about it - so hard to choose a "best" favorite ..... I love the range of topics ....

I think that somehow I arrived here before the doors officially opened ....

But what an interesting photograph - besides the amazing colors, it's pictures like this that help me understand the relative movements of objects that we see in the evening skies - thanks for a fine photo!!!!

Thanks for the additional link above ....

And they say that this structure is just one part of our galaxy - I have to echo owlice above ....

Roundup wrote:Gravity waves in Ash Cloud!!!
http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/real ... 0.250m.jpg

Is this a 3D picture?

Thanks for the above link - great photos!!!!

The photographer, Marco Fulle, was just interviewed on Fox News cable TV station. He's a scientist and is planning on going back out for another survey and more pictures. The station will be recycling the interview (by phone) a couple times each hour. P.S. the same picture as this APOD was shown on ...

great picture of the aurora as seen from the ISS!!