APOD: Three Arches Above Utah (2011 May 24)

[APOD Robot]

Three Arches Above Utah

Explanation: How many arches can you count in the above image? If you count both spans of the Double Arch in the Arches National Park in Utah, USA, then two. But since the above image was taken during a clear dark night, it caught a photogenic third arch far in the distance -- that of the overreaching Milky Way Galaxy. Because we are situated in the midst of the spiral Milky Way Galaxy, the band of the central disk appears all around us. The sandstone arches of the Double Arch were formed from the erosion of falling water. The larger arch rises over 30 meters above the surrounding salt bed and spans close to 50 meters across. The dark silhouettes across the image bottom are sandstone monoliths left over from silt-filled crevices in an evaporated 300 million year old salty sea. A dim flow created by light pollution from Moab, Utah can also be seen in the distance.

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[geckzilla]

Great photo. And thanks, Brad, for providing it at such a high resolution! It's totally understandable when a photographer provides a much smaller image but I really appreciate seeing all the fine details close up.

[Ann]

Very beautiful. Yes, three arches indeed! And for me as a color freak, it's fun to see the contrast between the red rock here and the white and blue color of the stars.

Ann

[Indigo_Sunrise]

Wonderful image!


>snip<

the red rock here and the white and blue color of the stars.

Maybe TPTB should've used this image on the 4th July?



And is it just me, or does anyone else see a different thumbnail image in "APOD Robot's" initial post....?

[owlice]

And is it just me, or does anyone else see a different thumbnail image in "APOD Robot's" initial post....?

It's just you.

This image was first seen on Asterisk here, where you can see other images that were submitted that same week (or so).

[wildcinders147@yahoo.com]

Rangers at Arches National Park tell visitors that ARCHES are made by wind erosion and Natural Bridges are made by water..... The photo is amazing!

[neufer]

<<In the 1950s, a milkshake machine salesman named Ray Kroc bought exclusive rights to the 1930s-era Multimixer milkshake maker from inventor Earl Prince, and went on to use automated milkshake machines to speed up production at McDonald's restaurants.

In 2003, a "fast-food chain that wanted to improve milk shake sales and profits" initially tried using focus groups to find out what factors in milkshakes attracted customers (e.g., price, amount of chocolate), but the profits did not increase. The restaurant hired researchers to study why customers purchased fast-food milkshakes, as a way of finding out which factors would help the restaurant to increase sales. The researchers found that, contrary to their expectations, that "...nearly half of all milk shakes were bought in the early morning", and usually, the "...shake was the only item purchased, and it was rarely consumed in the restaurant." The researchers determined that most of the customers were buying a milkshake to sip slowly during their "long, boring commute." They wanted a food product that could be consumed with one hand, and that would not risk soiling their hands or work clothes (a danger with toast and jam or sausage and egg bagelwiches).>>

[owlice]

The researchers determined that most of the customers were buying a milkshake to sip slowly during their "long, boring commute." They wanted a food product that could be consumed with one hand

neufer, I really did not need that idea planted in my head...

[orin stepanek]

I loved the video; was almost like being there.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YB_p3jjER6c

[goldpaintphoto]

Thank you ALL for your kind words!!! Glad you are enjoying the high-res version as I knew most people on Starship Asterisk would appreciate it.

I have lot's more from this magical night and my trip to Arches. You can see more on my website, http://goldpaintphotography.com, if interested. Feel free to ask any questions you may have as I'll be back to this thread throughout the next couple of days.

Maybe some of you would enjoy this too... Different night taken in Brownwood, TX.


Thanks again,

Brad Goldpaint

[neufer]

Three Arches Above Utah

Explanation: The sandstone arches of the Double Arch were formed from the erosion of falling water. The larger arch rises over 30 meters above the surrounding salt bed and spans close to 50 meters across. The dark silhouettes across the image bottom are sandstone monoliths left over from silt-filled crevices in an evaporated 300 million year old salty sea.

Rangers at Arches National Park tell visitors that ARCHES are made by wind erosion and Natural Bridges are made by water..... The photo is amazing!

Wind, water & Ice: "Over time, water seeped into the surface cracks, joints, and folds of these layers. Ice formed in the fissures, expanding and putting pressure on surrounding rock, breaking off bits and pieces. Winds later cleaned out the loose particles. A series of free-standing fins remained. Wind and water attacked these fins until, in some, the cementing material gave way and chunks of rock tumbled out."

<<Arches National Park is a U.S. National Park in eastern Utah. It is known for preserving over 2000 natural sandstone arches, including the world-famous Delicate Arch, in addition to a variety of unique geological resources and formations. The park is located just outside of Moab, Utah. Its highest elevation is 1,723 m at Elephant Butte, and its lowest elevation is 1,245 m at the visitor center. Forty-three arches have collapsed due to erosion since 1970.

The national park lies atop an underground evaporite layer or salt bed, which is the main cause of the formation of the arches, spires, balanced rocks, sandstone fins, and eroded monoliths in the area. This salt bed is thousands of feet thick in places, and was deposited in the Paradox Basin of the Colorado Plateau some 300 million years ago when a sea flowed into the region and eventually evaporated. Over millions of years, the salt bed was covered with debris eroded from the Uncompahgre Uplift to the northeast. During the Early Jurassic (about 210 Ma) desert conditions prevailed in the region and the vast Navajo Sandstone was deposited. An additional sequence of stream laid and windblown sediments, the Entrada Sandstone (about 140 Ma), was deposited on top of the Navajo. Over 5000 feet (1500 m) of younger sediments were deposited and have been mostly eroded away. Remnants of the cover exist in the area including exposures of the Cretaceous Mancos Shale. The arches of the area are developed mostly within the Entrada formation.

The weight of this cover caused the salt bed below it to liquefy and thrust up layers of rock into salt domes. The evaporites of the area formed more unusual salt anticlines or linear regions of uplift. Faulting occurred and whole sections of rock subsided into the areas between the domes. In some places, they turned almost on edge. The result of one such 2,500-foot (760 m) displacement, the Moab Fault, is seen from the visitor center.

As this subsurface movement of salt shaped the landscape, erosion removed the younger rock layers from the surface. Except for isolated remnants, the major formations visible in the park today are the salmon-colored Entrada Sandstone, in which most of the arches form, and the buff-colored Navajo Sandstone. These are visible in layer cake fashion throughout most of the park. Over time, water seeped into the surface cracks, joints, and folds of these layers. Ice formed in the fissures, expanding and putting pressure on surrounding rock, breaking off bits and pieces. Winds later cleaned out the loose particles. A series of free-standing fins remained. Wind and water attacked these fins until, in some, the cementing material gave way and chunks of rock tumbled out. Many damaged fins collapsed. Others, with the right degree of hardness and balance, survived despite their missing sections. These became the famous arches.>>

[starwolf69]

Excellent photograph; definitely making this one my new desktop wallpaper!

[Bob Stuart]

I only see two arches, and from that angle, they can't be distinguished from beams, except by assuming scale. The galaxy also appears more linear than arc-shaped, and is not a compression structure.

[slee]

Love the picture. APOD continues to brighten my day!

But I think there's a typo at the end of the description. "A dim flow created by light pollution...." How about "A dim glow..."?

[Gliese581d_bound]

How many arches can you count in the above image? If you count both spans of the Double Arch in the Arches National Park in Utah, USA, then two. But since the above image was taken during a clear dark night, it caught a photogenic third arch far in the distance -- that of the overreaching Milky Way Galaxy

Is this the correct answer? my understanding is that the disk where Earth resides is the arch to the central disk and not vice versa. I think the correct answer is the third arch is "our vantage point."

what we're looking at is the arch for the center of the galaxy.

[Chris Peterson]

Is this the correct answer? my understanding is that the disk where Earth resides is the arch to the central disk and not vice versa. I think the correct answer is the third arch is "our vantage point."

what we're looking at is the arch for the center of the galaxy.

Not sure what that means. There is no physical arch structure associated with the galaxy. We reside in what is essentially a disc, and as such, see the Milky Way as a ring-like structure around us. In the night sky, that makes it appear an arch: rising from the horizon, reaching towards the zenith (but not necessarily crossing it), and falling towards another point on the horizon.

[Gliese581d_bound]

hi Chris, thanks for the reply.

The dictionary say an arch is an "upwardly curved construction." so, you are looking up at something that is curved.

my understanding of what today's APOD is saying is that the Milky way is made up of disks. it is like an old 45 RPM record on a turntable. the record is an arch to specific points on the spindle.

if a full length EP is put beneath the 45 RPM record, then points on the edge of the 45 RPM record see the outer, larger record as its arch.

meanwhile, we look up at the center disk of the Milky way. so, we are the larger record and what we see is the 45 RPM record. We are outside of what we see in the sky. So, we are the arch to specific points on the disk that is in the sky. The third arch in the photograph is us, not the disk in the sky.

hopefully i'm getting closer to either understanding where i am wrong or conveying my idea. thanks.

[bystander]

Maybe this will help:

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110509.html

[Chris Peterson]

The dictionary say an arch is an "upwardly curved construction." so, you are looking up at something that is curved.

We are seeing the projection of a disc on the sky, from our vantage point inside that disc. We see that as an arch, although the physical structure itself is not an arch (unlike the rock arches, which are).

my understanding of what today's APOD is saying is that the Milky way is made up of disks. it is like an old 45 RPM record on a turntable. the record is an arch to specific points on the spindle.

No. The Milky Way is a single disc (with a bulge in the center, but that doesn't matter to this discussion). Unless you are exactly on the edge of your record, you see the entire record as a ring around you, no matter where you are on that record, not just the spindle.

meanwhile, we look up at the center disk of the Milky way. so, we are the larger record and what we see is the 45 RPM record. We are outside of what we see in the sky. So, we are the arch to specific points on the disk that is in the sky. The third arch in the photograph is us, not the disk in the sky.

No. We are in the plane of the disc of the Milky Way, so we see it as a complete band, all the way around us. But at any given time, part of that band is below the horizon, so we never see all of it at once. The part we do see- a segment of a complete circle- looks like an arch in the sky. You can see this arch when looking towards the center of the galaxy, or you can see it looking away. It just depends on the time of year and where you are on the Earth.

[Gliese581d_bound]

thanks Chris. i see my mistake now.

[canesvenatici]

Stunning photography!
Re: our vantage point from Earth, I'm still confused on one thing: do we really see only what's around us in the Orion Spur (if that's the one) of the Milky Way? (I thought I read somewhere that the center of the MW lies in the direction of Saggitarius, which to me doesn't seem near the central band visible here in Colorado. Thanks for your patience.

[neufer]

Milky Way Map Courtesy of NASA

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Re: our vantage point from Earth, I'm still confused on one thing: do we really see only what's around us in the Orion Spur (if that's the one) of the Milky Way? (I thought I read somewhere that the center of the MW lies in the direction of Sagittarius, which to me doesn't seem near the central band visible here in Colorado.

Most stars that form the constellations lie in the Orion Spur; however:

The Lagoon Nebula is in the Sagittarius Arm,

The Crab Nebula is in the Perseus Arm and

Globular clusters do not occur in any arms.

[Ann]

Stunning photography!
Re: our vantage point from Earth, I'm still confused on one thing: do we really see only what's around us in the Orion Spur (if that's the one) of the Milky Way? (I thought I read somewhere that the center of the MW lies in the direction of Saggitarius, which to me doesn't seem near the central band visible here in Colorado. Thanks for your patience.

We see more than what's in the Orion Spur. For example, the famous Double Cluster in Perseus is in the Perseus Arm, which is farther from the center than the Orion Spur.

Yes, the center of the Milky Way lies in Sagittarius, from our point of view. In the beautiful Three Arches Above Utah APOD (the one you are commenting on here) you can easily pick out Sagittarius. The brightest yellowish patch that you can see in the band of the Milky Way here is actually the bulge of our galaxy, and it is located in Sagittarius as seen from our Earthly vantage point. The Milky Way's center is hidden behind the dark dust band immediately to the right of the bright yellowish bulge in the picture here. (Don't mistake the light pollution at the horizon for the brightest yellowish patch in the band of the Milky Way - but I don't think you would.)

Ann

[canesvenatici]

Thank you so much for both replies! They really help orient my brain in 3D.
It took a bit but I did find Saggitarius in the APOD image. After which finding Scorpio was a cinch. Thanks a million!!