Starship Asterisk*

This reminds me of hurricane Patricia currently in the east Pacific that strengthened to it's current incredible strength of 185 mph from 75 mph in just 24 hours.

I know that most of the mass of the dust in the pictured nebula is hydrogen, but what if less than 25% was hydrogen? Has anyone figured what would happen if dust that low in hydrogen combined to make an object approximately the mass of our sun? Would you have something that looked and acted like a ...

I know that most of the mass of the dust in the pictured nebula is hydrogen, but what if less than 25% was hydrogen? Has anyone figured what would happen if dust that low in hydrogen combined to make an object approximately the mass of our sun? Would you have something that looked and acted like a s...

Most galaxies have super massive black holes in their centers, with jets jetting out both sides of them. Does this one have a super massive black hole in it? It doesn't seem to have a jet.
Would a jet from its center have any effect on earth?

Guest wrote:There are some grey linear features on the left slope of the hill in a grid-like pattern. Does anybody know what they are?

Those are trails made by dust devils.

Viewing the large photo, it looks to me like there are some low clouds in the flat plain areas! The clouds (or whatever they are) appear to be arranged in rows, or cloud streets. I suppose they could be dunes of some sort.

Great photo! This comment section needs more comments, so... I was wondering about how atoms in space radiate photons. Do atoms radiate more photons the faster they are traveling? Does a single atom moving through a perfect vacuum radiate more photons the faster it is traveling? If so, how does the ...

Amazing.
Are people still saying the white area looks like a heart? It used to, but now in the closer view it looks like a giant footprint.

Back to the six-sided craters... Could the shape be caused by the atomic arrangement of the atoms that are hit first by the impactor? In other words, if you press atoms into a tight, flat layer, they should be arranged in a hexagonal pattern. As the shock wave expands, it expands faster in the six d...

The formation of globular clusters may not be understood, but is the movement of its stars understood? Wasn't there something about some globular clusters condensing in the center, while others did not? Also, if you look at the full sized photo, you will see several lines of stars that shouldn't be ...

The first sentence starts, "If were floating above the Earth..." It should be as it is shown at the top of this discussion page: "If you were floating above the Earth..." I'm sure it will be fixed soon.

Cool simulation and music. I have to wonder how realistic it is though. Even before reading that there are discrepancies in the model vs reality regarding star types and abundances, I recalled that, a few days ago, there was an APOD that mentioned that in star clusters, "the youngest stars are ...

Somehow this looks like a composite of two photos - the sky and the ground, with the sky more distorted or 'compressed' than the ground.
I may be wrong of course, and it's a great photo regardless.

Even though the tail is just as thick or thicker farther from the galaxy (ESO 137-001), there are no visible star clusters at those farther distances. Could that be because the material first stripped out of ESO 137-001 was almost 100% hydrogen, and contained almost no dust? The ram pressure would h...

Since it's moving steadily in one direction, it's most likely not a camera artifact. The clouds are moving right-to-left, so it doesn't seem to be cloud related. Bioluminescence would not be bright enough to reflect off the clouds, and also, it's more blue than that. I would guess it's some faint au...

Einstein predicted warped images of distant objects in front of closer galaxies. But he did not know that there was dark matter, did he? Would you even see the warping if it were only 1% of what it is? Einstein on left: Gravitational lensing minus dark matter. On right: What we actually see. http://...

I would be interesting if Hubble was used to make a time lapse of the light echo, though I don't know if the star's brightness varies enough to make a visually clear echo.

There is at least one (maybe three or four) stars inside the right side of the cloud. How are you determining that? Clicking on the link "above image" in the description, brings up a write-up that includes this: "Spectroscopic observations of the central star within IRAS 20324+4057.....

Why do they say that "IRAS 20324+4057, on the inside, is contracting to form a new star"? There is at least one (maybe three or four) stars inside the right side of the cloud. Wouldn't these stars themselves sweep away much of the dust, thus possibly preventing any new stars from forming? ...

This image of Hoag's Object is several years old - does anyone know if a higher resolution image of it exists?
What about a reprocessed image? I have seen several in the past that were of significantly higher quality than the originally released version.

'Red sky in the morning, sailors take warning. Red sky at night, sailor's delight. Jesus actually quoted something like that, and agreed with it (just quoting a historical figure!). He said, "When it is evening you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red’; and in the morning, ‘It wil...

A bit off topic, but I couldn't help but notice that the satellite galaxy in the first picture Ann posted (NGC 1232) looks very much like the Large Magellanic Cloud.

Awesome time lapse! Here is a time lapse I made of a storm. It's not nearly as good as the APOD, but you may like it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OILePpNLfr8 Caption: Time lapse of a series of storms that built up, some of them were quite strong. Several of the cells are topped with pileus clouds...

I'm finding it difficult to accept that both craters could come from two pieces of a formerly single object, with the impacts therefore happening within seconds of each other at virtually the same angle of incidence. Why? Because the crater shapes are so different. The left crater looks like a glan...

Stereo view of the Messier Craters I made from the original pics. To view, cross eyes. Click for larger photo.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mattmerritt/8984558885/