Starship Asterisk*

a typical recombination time of about 10,000 years. I had no idea it took so long for recombination to occur! So if an energetic star magically popped up in the middle of a neutral hydrogen cloud, the latter would start glowing in visible light only thousands of years later?? (what about instances ...

Zoom into the Orion Nebula https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JkrnhTDk7w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JkrnhTDk7w This animation took over 5000 frames to complete, taken over a period of three months. Each frame is a 60 second exposure. Multiple focal lengths were used, from 15mm to 600mm. The ima...

3C 273 Host Galaxy with Hubble Space Telescope Coronagraphy Bin B. Ren, Kevin Fogarty, John H. Debes, Eileen T. Meyer, Youbin Mo, Dimitri Mawet, Marshall D. Perrin, Patrick M. Ogle, Johannes Sahlmann ARXIV | Preprint 2024 Feb 24 Reply with quote RTC4Y Jac An utterly spectacular object! 4 trillion t...

3C 273 Host Galaxy with Hubble Space Telescope Coronagraphy Bin B. Ren, Kevin Fogarty, John H. Debes, Eileen T. Meyer, Youbin Mo, Dimitri Mawet, Marshall D. Perrin, Patrick M. Ogle, Johannes Sahlmann ARXIV | Preprint 2024 Feb 24 https://cdn.masto.host/astrodonsocial/cache/media_attachments/files/11...

A glass may appear half empty or half full, and this island universe may appear dusty or starry! Way more starry to me!
(also the caption mentions the presence near its center of massive black holes - plural form! There must be some crazy dynamics over there...)

Thank you for these answers, Ann and Chris. You make a great team!

Is it fair to say that seeing a globular cluster is like seeing a tiny spherical galaxy within our own?

From their initial attraction to their complete merger into one, these two will have taken two billion years! Galaxies sure don't rush into things. These two galaxies have always been gravitationally bound, in orbit around each other. Nothing has really changed since their formation. Their orbits a...

From their initial attraction to their complete merger into one, these two will have taken two billion years! Galaxies sure don't rush into things.

In my book the first thing one has to learn about the cosmos is how exhilarating it is! The second thing is all the knowledge, which can only be fun to acquire once you’ve learned the first thing. Ann, you are a great teacher at both! By the way can anyone spot tiny background galaxies in the APOD?...

By the way can anyone spot tiny background galaxies in the APOD? I’m curious to see how those would compare between Hubble and Webb. Looks like there may be one here, right on the left edge of the Webb image APOD1.jpg It's quite visible and blue-ish in the Webb view, but disappears in Hubble. I see...

Not all galaxies are like the cosmic beauty queen, NGC 1566! https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2402/Ngc1566_WebbHubble_960.jpg https://bigthink.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/potm2209b.jpg?resize=768,1516 Amazing, isn't it? In NGC 1566, the dust serves like the framework and the load-bearing beams o...

Otherworldly!

Majestic galaxy indeed! Beautiful image too. And holy smokes, the central black hole link mentions that this one is spinning almost at the speed of light, is that common among SMBHs? There are some pretty wild things in heaven and earth, Horatio…

Ann wrote: ↑Wed Jan 31, 2024 6:00 am wouldn't it be fun to be able to see the night sky this way?

Ann

And how! Or just to see the sky from ancient times when the only human light pollution came from candles.

A new image today: https://esawebb.org/images/weic2403e/

Those beautiful Pleiades… If they didn't exist, the skies would be incomplete! I wonder: Are we 100% sure that the totality of nebulosity around them is there by pure chance? That no fraction of the original nebulosity that gave birth to them is left over? And is some of that chance nebulosity capt...

Those beautiful Pleiades… If they didn't exist, the skies would be incomplete! I wonder: Are we 100% sure that the totality of nebulosity around them is there by pure chance? That no fraction of the original nebulosity that gave birth to them is left over? And is some of that chance nebulosity captu...

"Image credit: Unknown" - Now that would be exciting! And scary.

"The Orion you can almost see". I can, - in my dreams! (and thank you Ann for these wonderful additions!)

"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion"... (cf Blade Runner, final scene). Can anyone see those in the APOD?

Okay, Chris (and Donald). What the heck is a 22 o halo? The halo is just a circle. How can it be 22 o ? Bear in mind that I'm unbelievably thick when it comes to math, so if you have to show me some math formulas, you may as well not bother and I'll just accept that the circle is 22 o and give the ...

Splendid deep space vista!

Fun fact: a day on Venus lasts longer than a year on Venus!

Stars are utterly beautiful from birth to death, and on top of it their atomic legacy as they die is full of promise for future worlds!

After weeks of cloudy nights where I live, there were finally clear skies last night and I gazed at every part of Orion until exhaustion! So, wonderful to see this APOD today... (and if the presence of a black hole is confirmed at the heart of the Trapezium, this would be icing on the cake for this ...