Starship Asterisk*

Here's a video of a rocket launch. I've timed it to 2:10, where we can see a magnificent view of some material apparently moving up around the rocket. Assuming that the POV is down on the ground looking up, how can we make sense of the scene? Does the phenomenon have a name? Is that material hot air...

I find the animation/simulation not convincing. From the accompanied text and links, I can't really tell if the planet is a rocky or gassy one, but in any case it can hardly be any more than 1% the mass of the star. Also, I assume that this "Sun-like" star has run out of H and is now fusin...

Today's image is so impressive I thought it was a 3D model before reading that it was actually taken by Juno. All of the spacecraft's photos that I've seen before don't have a depth of this level, so it stands out as a pleasant surprise.

Wow thanks! A key word really opened an Alice-like rabbit hole. As an amateur, I find the literature about this stuff is somewhat limited and hard for outsiders to grasp with many big words thrown around. I have more questions reading it than getting answers. From my very basic understanding, the wo...

I'm interested in the shapes under the nozzles. How did they form such specific shapes? Illustration-included answers will be much appreciated.

I immediately thought of a cephalopod when looking at the picture. Since we already have a Squid somewhere on the sky, maybe it's apt to nickname this one the Octopus nebula?

Wow. That Shakespeare piece is something to enjoy, and I'm saying it not as a native English speaker.

Why a ring? Is there a preferred angle of reflection, like for ice crystals in the atmosphere reflecting sunlight, and why? Echoing these questions, I have the same. Could anyone provide a sketch from a point of view far from Earth? Does the intervening gas look like a veil? From my understanding o...

they are only as good as our knowledge of the actual position of the planets, and that's not as good as you might think, especially for the outer planets that we've only observed for an orbit or two (or less than an orbit). I kinda see the problem with them. This dependence on outer factors might m...

these are modeled all the time. But they are only as good as the understanding of the underlying physics. Like the nature of the magnetic fields. Most of our understanding of jets comes from numerical modeling. Hmm. I understand that as, "relativistic experiments couldn't exist/be done effecti...

The first one I think of is bipolar jets. If their cause and mechanism are debated so hotly, why haven't someone build a model and run it on a supercomputer? Then by removing or adjusting some component - say, magnetism - the answer must be found soon enough? The second one is the solar system's his...

While I appreciate the Timestorm video link buried deep within the article (and the writer's apparent mindset of rewarding those who are diligent with a beautiful clip), I think it should be more prominently displayed. Such a good video can make someone's day.

My question is more about the image itself. Joe cited that that the galaxy is ~500mly away. Then why is it so blurred in the pic? IIRC, Hubble has snapped pictures of mid-range galaxies that are far crisper.

What intrigues me most is the foreground. It's even greener than the aurora! How could that be? Is this some kind of on-site lighting trick or some Photoshop magic?

Ann, with answers like these you sure deserve the title of Color Commentator. My appreciation. I almost can't believe you managed to incorporate even the latest APOD into it! Have to agree that 2a & 1b are the perfect examples of mid-distant galaxies. One can't go wrong with your analysis. BTW, ...

Thank you Ann. That annotated pic is great. I know that there are filaments and voids in the universe, and that fact is related to the issue, but couldn't formulate it into words in the OP questions. Now, let's try it. Using common logic deduction: if in any random pic taken by Hubble, we see hundre...

Hubble images of galaxies are glorious. Yet looking at them, I can't help but notice something. In (nearly) all of the pictures, there is 1, or maybe 2, featured galaxies, with dozens of red, small background galaxies scattered everywhere. The red, distant galaxies are around 1/20 of the main one, d...

Thank you Chris! I don't think I've seen images with just two diffraction spikes. Telescopes with 3 vanes produce six spikes, and while not super common, we certainly see those. You also get six spikes from some of the big professional scopes that have hexagonal segment mirrors. And a four vane spid...

I've seen many pictures of galaxies and clusters, and in all of them there are diffraction spikes. It's explained to be caused by the vanes supporting the telescope's secondary mirror. Most of the images have 4 spikes, but some not taken by Hubble have 2. That begs the question of why 2 or 4 but not...

For me this Geminids shower was of importance too. It marked the 1st time I deliberately moved out to watch a shower and actually caught some. BTW, this year-end is going to be emotional. I've started a mission on 26Mar17, to read all APOD posts since its beginning. I do that by opening the APOD arc...

IMO occasional repeats are OK, as long as they feature different narrative texts each time, along with links for the newest related discoveries.

Finally I've read up the 1st 25 years of APOD. A bit of a late-comer here, but I still want to say thank you all, and see you in real time by 2021!

1 of the links in the APOD text points to a research letter where they concluded that the rock was about 27kg and made a hole around 9m. Since then, have spacecrafts taken picture of the scene? Especially when the crater was still fresh?

This scene reminds me of Monty Oum.

Well, I find something incomprehensible too. In some sequences all the reflections on the surface go on a same direction, which makes sense. But in some other, the upper half goes 1 way and the lower half goes to the opposite direction. What causes this strange effect?