Starship Asterisk*

The Trifid is such a sweet nebula! And just on top of the Lagoon Nebula. Moving back and forth between the two is a stargazing delight…
(and just above and east, the star cloud M24 - more delight!) (and then on to M25 and then down to M22 and then ok I’ll stop here! I call this my Milk run)

Dazzling cluster! It made me think of another one of similar shape - though more dazzling still! - NGC 3603. (Hubble)

Seeing Earth from space alongside Bach's music sums up quite well how far we've come since the time cyanobacteria ruled the planet!
(but - oh the heresy! - the video cuts out the last chord of that Bach piece!) (which can also be heard on Voyager's Golden Record)

Marvellous image, cosmic creation in full force! And we barely need to "surmise" what's going on, we see those new worlds forming! (even more so in AVAO's zoom-in link)

Telescopes as time machines is a familiar idea but we should never lose sight of how extraordinary this is! Imagine if palaeontologists could study actual pictures of dinosaurs! Or if historians could see pictures of Cleopatra, or geologists seeing pictures of the Late Heavy Bombardment! What’s more...

Ann wrote: ↑Sat Jun 22, 2024 1:53 pm

Christian G. wrote: ↑Sat Jun 22, 2024 12:08 pm

APOD Robot wrote: ↑Sat Jun 22, 2024 4:05 am telltale reddish glow from scattered Herbig-Haro objects hiding in the image.

Telltale yet hidden seems contradictory! Where in the image do we see signs of HH objects?

Maybe these:


APOD 22 June 2024 annotated 3.png


Ann

Thanks!

APOD Robot wrote: ↑Sat Jun 22, 2024 4:05 am telltale reddish glow from scattered Herbig-Haro objects hiding in the image.

Telltale yet hidden seems contradictory! Where in the image do we see signs of HH objects?

The idea of a black hole tearing a star apart is pretty wild and sure captures the imagination, I'm glad there are at least "attempts" to show what such events might look like. Here's a more sober attempt, for something hugely wild! A massive black hole repeatedly plunging through the disk...

Are the "rays" that appear to be emitted from the top edges of the red cloud from energy escaping or light as crepuscular rays or ? Well, light is energy too! :wink: https://static.spektrum.de/fm/1027/f2000/RCW%2085.jpg What we see coming out of that opening in the RCW 85 molecular cloud ...

The top section reminds me of a similar one in the Eagle Nebula, both filled with star births:

Another one: If it's blinking but appears too high to be an aircraft, or even more mystifying, if the blinking is irregular! - it's a tumbling satellite.

Ann, is the mysterious "red dot" seen in the video seen in either of the labeled images you posted? Also, I can't seem to orient and locate your images, OR the "red dot" on today's APOD. <sigh> If we're talking about the red dot at 1:00, I see it left of the galaxy circled in wh...

The warping of spacetime in this image can be seen not only in the many lensed galaxies, but also broadly in the image as a whole when looked at from a certain distance: Instead of seeing galaxies "travelling" towards the center, for fun you can imagine the black space as a sheet behind wh...

This image is simply GLORIOUS!
(The first link mentions it contains 50 000 "sources" - does that roughly mean 50 000 galaxies?)

The Dolphin Head nebula looks so much like a dolphin head that there really is no need to overdo the colour to make it look still more like a dolphin head! Which often astrographers tend to do I find, in blue-greens, but not in this case, it's just the right amount in my view! A fascinating aspect ...

The Dolphin Head nebula looks so much like a dolphin head that there really is no need to overdo the colour to make it look still more like a dolphin head! Which often astrographers tend to do I find, in blue-greens, but not in this case, it's just the right amount in my view! A fascinating aspect w...

Graceful spiral arms are always a pretty sight but every once in a while a galaxy seen edge-on can be stunning! As for the "Needle" nickname, sure, but that's an impressive needle! 175 000 light-years long and 5000 light-years thick! With a trillion stars. (depending on sources) NGC4565 .j...

The Moon clearly shows us its best side! Its "softer" side too, which the early Earth kept warm… (while the other side was left in the cold, forced to grow a thicker crust)

Just in case this question was missed earlier (and if it wasn't but just inspired no comments, that's fine!) - are Wolf-Rayet stars the brightest of stars intrinsincally? Supposedly THE brightest star currently known is a Wolf-Rayet (R136a 1), but is it also the case with any Wolf-Rayet compared to ...

OK, so I ask: Why 85% of high mass stars are part of binary systems? One answer probably has to do with the formation process of high-mass stars. https://media2.spaceref.com/news/2013/oodualbinary.jpg Spaceref.com wrote: Thanks Ann. I have hard time understanding what are the possible causes for a ...

If you compare a Wolf-Rayet with an LBV of the exact same mass (leaving aside ejectae), which one would be most luminous? Would it be the WR by virtue of the burning core being more exposed so to speak, or could it be either one depending on various other factors?

Wolf-Rayet stars are so tumultuous and fiery, even when they look this adorable!

Thanks for this most interesting link! I wonder if another consideration that might support the idea of stars vanishing into back holes is that of supernovae (type II) as rebounds - what's there to rebound against when a star collapses into a black hole? (might the two even be related - no rebound,...

Thanks for this most interesting link! I wonder if another consideration that might support the idea of stars vanishing into back holes is that of supernovae (type II) as rebounds - what's there to rebound against when a star collapses into a black hole? (might the two even be related - no rebound, ...

First a total eclipse, then a historic sunspot leading to nearly global auroras, and now yet more! The Sun gives quite a show these days! The spaceweather link in the caption of the APOD shows this image of the same flare with the following comment from its author : "I have not seen an explosio...