Starship Asterisk*

Why do the white blob and the yellow blob appear to be windblown in opposite directions? The windblown white blob, by the way, is ever so slightly similar to Hubble's Variable Nebula . https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8b/Hubble%27s_Variable_Nebula_-_NGC_2261.png/290px-Hubble%2...

disk shadow 2

a second, much smaller, disk shadow, noted in Pontoppidan et al. (2020), is also visible east of EC 82. The orientation of this second disk shadow is similar to that of EC 82.

...

disk shadow 1

The disk around the intermediate-mass young star EC 82 casts a large shadow on surrounding reflection nebulosity, giving rise to the so-called “Great Serpens Disk Shadow”

...

Yeah, I'm not clearly seeing any obvious aligned "jests" in this image. Fortunately, there is a nice image at the "detailed explanation" link that provides some help, though the alignments aren't as close as I was expecting. The original image is too big to post, but here's a si...

offtopic: a funny new year tree fish

in a strange way Saturn's violet-blue atmosphere over amber-yellow clouds mimics albino human's cyan skin over red erythrocytes. Both situations are an interplay of a pair of complementary colours, creating white or gray where the opponents strike a balance. Saturn's atmosphere █ █ █ clouds albino h...

The image is striking (pun intended). The number of Jets is a good question. It appears that there are 5 with 2 converging and one (on the right) diverging. But, I am wondering what is the bright object in the middle of the frame? to answer that we need to recognize the star field. Is there a star ...

the stars are fixed in this APOD. I guess they are from one short exposure, not a series of exposures 10 minutes apart. But I wonder if it's possible to see a sprite and the star field in one exposure. If a sprite lasts for 3-100 ms (and in a shorter exposure resolves to a ball, moving up at the spe...

more details:
Jets and Sprites over Kuragangri Snow Mountain on 10 June 2024
From: Lurila Observatory, China, Stack of five photos

Is this 5 or 4 exposures?
What is the water body at foreground (is it Yamdrok Lake, so Lhasa is 100 km (62 mi) to the northeast)?

Ann wrote: ↑Thu Jun 13, 2024 5:15 am

This image shows Messier 66, an intermediate spiral galaxy located 31 million light-years away in the constellation of Leo. The bright orange 'snake' inside M66 is the galaxy's supply of cold molecular gas. Image credit: ESO / PHANGS.

---

Ann

here I fit this APOD to A flame thrower with IR of cold molecular gas
...

2 What momentum is not being conserved? This isn't a planetary nebula, it is a shock front created by winds coming off a star. Does a CME from the Sun require a matching one from the opposite hemisphere to conserve any momentum? my guess was that the nose is a dissipating track of massive fast-movin...

An anti-nose or a few ones are needed to conserve the total momentum without an invisible party What momentum is not being conserved? This isn't a planetary nebula, it is a shock front created by winds coming off a star. Does a CME from the Sun require a matching one from the opposite hemisphere to...

Not sure quite what structure you're referring to here. Why would you expect one? the bumpy surface covered by a pale smooth veil: https://asterisk.apod.com/download/file.php?id=49820 An anti-nose or a few ones are needed to conserve the total momentum without an invisible party That kind of struct...

Your image isn't about color, but about structure. Ann talking about the structure, I wonder why there seems to be a smooth pale cover about 1 ly above bumpy and solid surface (though it's hard vacuum for a laboratory)? Not sure quite what structure you're referring to here. And why the Nose has no...

Ann wrote: ↑Sat Jun 08, 2024 5:56 pm Your image isn't about color, but about structure.
Ann

talking about the structure, I wonder why there seems to be a smooth pale cover about 1 ly above bumpy and solid surface (though it's hard vacuum for a laboratory)?
And why the Nose has no anti-nose feature at 4 or 5 o'clock

Blue star light does not make purple reflection nebulas! 🤬 Ann The info on the ESA site says The blue, green, red channels capture the Universe seen by Euclid around the wavelength 0.7, 1.1, and 1.7 micron respectively. This gives Euclid a distinctive colour palette: hot stars have a white-blue hue...

Blue star light does not make purple reflection nebulas! 🤬 Ann The info on the ESA site says The blue, green, red channels capture the Universe seen by Euclid around the wavelength 0.7, 1.1, and 1.7 micron respectively. This gives Euclid a distinctive colour palette: hot stars have a white-blue hue...

Amazing display on Friday night from Cornwall in the South-West of the UK. The pillars were bright rapidly changing, in subtle greens, purples and occasionally blue. Didn't know where to look at times, there were some bright transient features due South. Brightest display here for over 20 years I b...

the location of sunspots on the Sun is not random. https://www.rmg.co.uk/sites/default/files/styles/large_no_alt/public/2022-08/A%20Year%20in%20the%20Sun%20by%20Soumyadeep%20Mukherjee%20-%20Astronomy%20Photographer%20of%20the%20Year%202022%20Our%20Sun.jpg?itok=Y-_vrDSh Ann seems rather like one of ...

Neither black hole lost mass. The individual precursor black holes merged to form a new black hole, and it has a higher mass than either of the precursors. The total mass difference reflects the conversion of gravitational potential energy (as the two precursors got closer) into kinetic energy, and...

Hello everybody, I have a question about the BHs' masses. I imagined that nothing could escape from a BH (except perhaps by Hawking radiation) but it seems that part of the mass of a couple of merging BHs is radiated as GW. I suspect that the energy emitted as GW comes from the kinetic/gravitationa...

While the bare physics have to be right, and the simulation flawless, I was underwhelmed by the video - surely such an event will be accompanied by more fireworks, with accretion disks and jets exploding? And thank you to Ann for telling me of the "Final Parsec Problem". I found this: &qu...

I wonder how to tell Wiki to edit all ly to kly at the right side of this infographics from 15 April 2021 about the companions to the Event Horizon Telescope's April 2017 campaign:

I wonder why this version failed to gain popularity

The singularity is small (infinitesimal) but isn't the BH's "size" and hence the gravitational effect - and collision window - determined by how large the event horizon is? A black hole's "gravitational effect" is determined by its mass. The event horizon isn't a real thing, jus...