Starship Asterisk*

What could possibly be the survival advantage of bioluminescence for a fungal organism? That's a very interesting question. The best answer I found is in a thread here - https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/565/what-would-be-the-evolutionary-advantage-for-plants-to-be-bioluminescent. T...

orin stepanek wrote: ↑Sat May 23, 2020 12:09 pm IMG_1478-Edit1200.jpg

Yes The SMC is there; also a couple of meteor streaks
as well!
I loved the Silhouette of the large tree also!

Meteors or satellites? The description starts with "Stars shine and satellites glint"...

Hmm. I note that all these crescents are horizontal. Does that mean something particular about where the pictures were taken on the Earth? Is a horizontal crescent mandatory (or even possible) for an inferior planet when viewed from Earth? Or was this just depicted this way for artistic effect? Sor...

Hmm. I note that all these crescents are horizontal. Does that mean something particular about where the pictures were taken on the Earth? Is a horizontal crescent mandatory (or even possible) for an inferior planet when viewed from Earth? Or was this just depicted this way for artistic effect? Sorr...

I pity the fool who prints out the poster of Uranus or Neptune!

Also, it's a crying shame that the posters for the different versions of "asteroids", "comets" and "beyond" don't indicate what particular object they are pictures of

I often wonder when viewing simulations like this - just how fast is the viewer apparently moving? I have to guess it would be many times the speed of light. Yes, warp 7, in fact. So we only travel 7 3 = 343 light minutes over the minute of video :?: Clearly, it's much faster than that. Assuming we...

I agree with others who have said that a weather phenomenon is not a topic of astronomy. Years ago I submitted a photo of an analemmatic sundial that I constructed. It was rejected by the editors of APOD. You would think that a sundial has much more to do with astronomy than a waterspout. Would you...

Explanation: ....Their last go-round lasted about 100 million years.... Just curious how they could know such a detail? And if just their last interaction lasted that long (presumably when they were closest?), and these two galaxies are gradually spiraling toward each other, I would think it would ...

Amazing that such a clear image was taken from the earth. Also, I guess the great red spot was not in view for this picture (else I would think it would show up as a round feature of some sort)?

So in my opinion, south is up in Adam Block's image, and east is to the right. The blue star close to the top left corner in Adam Block's image is probably 52 Orionis, an A5V-type star (but suspiciously bright for its class according to Hipparcos, oh well). The same star can be seen, faintly, to th...

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9b/OrionSpur.png/800px-OrionSpur.png This image is disturbingly unsatisfying: does the Orion Spur extend up through the Perseus Arm and thence connect to the Cygnus Arm? It sure looks like it from that pic. And what is the unlabeled "arm&q...

Shout out to https://www.orionsarm.com, which is fun to delve into if you like Sci-Fi: Welcome to Orion's Arm, a scenario set thousands of years in the future where civilization spans the stars. Godlike ascended intelligences rule vast interstellar empires, and lesser factions seek to carve out thei...

This porpoise looks more like a hummingbird to me.

I failed to see any chicken, running or otherwise, even in the larger linked-to APOD of two weeks ago (https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap200420.html) Only when I saw an outline shown elsewhere did it make ANY sense at all, and even that's a stretch: https://www.thesun.co.uk/tech/11444109/nasa-running-ch...

orin stepanek wrote: ↑Tue May 05, 2020 11:40 am Beautiful photo! It would be difficult to use as a background though!

Not on an iPad or smart phone!

"Earth Flyby of BepiColombo"? Isn't this rather a BepiColombo Flyby of Earth?

EDIT: though perhaps that was the point, since this video is from the perspective of BepiColombo and all is relative after all.

Why are those stars in the lower right corner so brightly colored? Probably image enhancement. The link to the author - https://blog.naver.com/omololee/221208161212 - run through google translate (https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fblog.naver.com%...

<< M106 is about 80,000 light-years across and 23.5 million light-years away.>> <<The well-measured distance to M106 is 23.5 million light-years, making this [cropped] cosmic scene about 80,000 light-years across .>> << Messier 106 is one of the largest and brightest nearby galaxies, similar in siz...

I'm curious about the faintly visible bluish galaxy at the right edge of the image, just right of the blue foreground star. Does this galaxy have a name/designation? Are there any larger images of it? Good eye! Don't know what that galaxy is, but there's another similar but fainter bluish one to th...

Awesome Andromeda; Milky Way's big sister! 8-) Bigger in extent and number of stars most likely, but perhaps not in overall mass. I believe the jury is still out on that, though I've had a hard time finding anything definitive since there seems to be a lot of uncertainty. Wikipedia has the Milky Wa...

As beautiful as this short video and musical accompaniment was, it's sobering to think that the vast universe we are embedded in cares not a whit for the current dire plight of humankind on planet earth. We're all - and only us - in this together indeed.

The "you can check out the Earth Now" link (https://climate.nasa.gov/earth-now) - from the description shows a gaping absence of data over Antarctica. Anyone know why?

"The Truth is out there."

"I see millions of stars, Holmes," says Watson. "And what do you conclude from that, Watson?" Watson thinks for a moment. "Well," he says, "astronomically, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets. The entire quote is pre...

"I see millions of stars, Holmes," says Watson. "And what do you conclude from that, Watson?" Watson thinks for a moment. "Well," he says, "astronomically, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets. The entire quote is pre...