Found Images: 2018 January

[bystander]

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Have you seen a great image or video somewhere that you think would make a great APOD? Nominate it for APOD! Please post as much information here as you have about the image/video with a link to any source(s) for it you know of here, and the editors will take a look.

When posting the image itself, please do not post anything larger than a thumbnail here; please honor the copyright holder's copyright.

Please keep hotlinked images under 400K.

Thank you!

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[bystander]

Ribbons and Pearls
ESO Picture of the Week | 2018 Jan 01

[img3="Credit: ESO"]https://cdn.eso.org/images/screen/potw1801a.jpg[/img3][hr][/hr]

This week’s picture shows spectacular ribbons of gas and dust wrapping around the pearly centre of the barred spiral galaxy NGC 1398. This galaxy is located in the constellation of Fornax (The Furnace), approximately 65 million light-years away.

Rather than beginning at the very middle of the galaxy and swirling outwards, NGC 1398’s graceful spiral arms stem from a straight bar, formed of stars, that cuts through the galaxy’s central region. Most spiral galaxies — around two thirds — are observed to have this feature, but it’s not yet clear whether or how these bars affect a galaxy’s behaviour and development.

This image comprises data gathered by the FOcal Reducer/low dispersion Spectrograph 2 (FORS2) instrument, mounted on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) at Paranal Observatory, Chile. It shows NGC 1398 in striking detail, from the dark lanes of dust mottling its spiral arms, through to the pink-hued star-forming regions sprinkled throughout its outer regions.

This image was created as part of the ESO Cosmic Gems programme, an outreach initiative to produce images of interesting, intriguing or visually attractive objects using ESO telescopes, for the purposes of education and public outreach. The programme makes use of telescope time that cannot be used for science observations. All data collected may also be suitable for scientific purposes, and are made available to astronomers through ESO’s science archive.

[bystander]

Lasers and Supermassive Black Holes
ESA Hubble Picture of the Week | 2018 Jan 01

[img3="Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA"]https://cdn.spacetelescope.org/archives ... w1801a.jpg[/img3][hr][/hr]

This image, captured by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3), shows a galaxy named UGC 6093. As can be easily seen, UGC 6093 is something known as a barred spiral galaxy — it has beautiful arms that swirl outwards from a bar slicing through the galaxy’s centre. It is classified as an active galaxy, which means that it hosts an active galactic nucleus, or AGN: a compact region at a galaxy’s centre within which material is dragged towards a supermassive black hole. As this black hole devours the surrounding matter it emits intense radiation, causing it to shine brightly.

But UGC 6093 is more exotic still. The galaxy essentially acts as a giant astronomical laser that spews out light at microwave, not visible, wavelengths — this type of object is dubbed a megamaser (maser being the term for a microwave laser). Megamasers such as UGC 6093 can be some 100 million times brighter than masers found in galaxies like the Milky Way.

Hubble’s WFC3 observes light spanning a range wavelengths — from the near-infrared, through the visible range, to the near-ultraviolet. It has two channels that detect and process different light, allowing astronomers to study a remarkable range of astrophysical phenomena; for example, the UV-visible channel can study galaxies undergoing massive star formation, while the near-infrared channel can study redshifted light from galaxies in the distant Universe. Such multi-band imaging makes Hubble invaluable in studying megamaser galaxies, as it is able to untangle their intriguing complexity.

[Ann]

Lasers and Supermassive Black Holes
ESA Hubble Picture of the Week | 2018 Jan 01

[img3="Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA"]https://cdn.spacetelescope.org/archives ... w1801a.jpg[/img3][hr][/hr]

This image, captured by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3), shows a galaxy named UGC 6093. As can be easily seen, UGC 6093 is something known as a barred spiral galaxy — it has beautiful arms that swirl outwards from a bar slicing through the galaxy’s centre. It is classified as an active galaxy, which means that it hosts an active galactic nucleus, or AGN: a compact region at a galaxy’s centre within which material is dragged towards a supermassive black hole. As this black hole devours the surrounding matter it emits intense radiation, causing it to shine brightly.

But UGC 6093 is more exotic still. The galaxy essentially acts as a giant astronomical laser that spews out light at microwave, not visible, wavelengths — this type of object is dubbed a megamaser (maser being the term for a microwave laser). Megamasers such as UGC 6093 can be some 100 million times brighter than masers found in galaxies like the Milky Way.

Hubble’s WFC3 observes light spanning a range wavelengths — from the near-infrared, through the visible range, to the near-ultraviolet. It has two channels that detect and process different light, allowing astronomers to study a remarkable range of astrophysical phenomena; for example, the UV-visible channel can study galaxies undergoing massive star formation, while the near-infrared channel can study redshifted light from galaxies in the distant Universe. Such multi-band imaging makes Hubble invaluable in studying megamaser galaxies, as it is able to untangle their intriguing complexity.

What a spectacularly beautiful galaxy!

Like all highly regular long- and thin-armed spiral galaxies, this one contains only small amounts of star formation. Most of the regions of star formation are laid out like pearls on a string, in most cases slavishly following the geometry of the spiral arms. But one bluish and translucent arm of star formation emanates from the left-hand bar end and appears partly detached from the yellow arm behind it.

None of the sites of star formation are massive or violent enough to disturb the symmetry of the spiral arms.

The dominant color of the arms is yellow. Long stretches of arms appear to lack star formation entirely.

The elegant symmetry of the galaxy is very beautiful!

According to my software, Guide, the distance to UGC 6093 is about 470 million light-years. In view of the fact that the redshift of this galaxy is z=0.036, is 470 million light-years a reasonable distance estimate?

Ann

[starsurfer]

Lasers and Supermassive Black Holes
ESA Hubble Picture of the Week | 2018 Jan 01

[img3="Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA"]https://cdn.spacetelescope.org/archives ... w1801a.jpg[/img3][hr][/hr]

This image, captured by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3), shows a galaxy named UGC 6093. As can be easily seen, UGC 6093 is something known as a barred spiral galaxy — it has beautiful arms that swirl outwards from a bar slicing through the galaxy’s centre. It is classified as an active galaxy, which means that it hosts an active galactic nucleus, or AGN: a compact region at a galaxy’s centre within which material is dragged towards a supermassive black hole. As this black hole devours the surrounding matter it emits intense radiation, causing it to shine brightly.

But UGC 6093 is more exotic still. The galaxy essentially acts as a giant astronomical laser that spews out light at microwave, not visible, wavelengths — this type of object is dubbed a megamaser (maser being the term for a microwave laser). Megamasers such as UGC 6093 can be some 100 million times brighter than masers found in galaxies like the Milky Way.

Hubble’s WFC3 observes light spanning a range wavelengths — from the near-infrared, through the visible range, to the near-ultraviolet. It has two channels that detect and process different light, allowing astronomers to study a remarkable range of astrophysical phenomena; for example, the UV-visible channel can study galaxies undergoing massive star formation, while the near-infrared channel can study redshifted light from galaxies in the distant Universe. Such multi-band imaging makes Hubble invaluable in studying megamaser galaxies, as it is able to untangle their intriguing complexity.

Is UGC 6093 in the galaxy cluster Abell 1142 or is it in the foreground?

[Chris Peterson]

According to my software, Guide, the distance to UGC 6093 is about 470 million light-years. In view of the fact that the redshift of this galaxy is z=0.036, is 470 million light-years a reasonable distance estimate?

Yes. It's what you get using reasonable values for the Hubble constant and other parameters. You can wiggle those values around within their likely range and it doesn't change the distance by more than about 20 million light years either way (taking "distance" as light travel time).

[Ann]

Adam Block: NGC 317

I'm only allowed to show you this thumbnail image. For a full size image, go to Adam Block's own homepage.

NGC 317 consists of an interacting pair. The galaxy at top in the image appears to be a lenticular galaxy, with a bright bulge and a yellow disk. Note however the "wiggly tail" of very blue and hot young stars that seem to "rise" from it like puffs of smoke.

The other galaxy looks like a weird sort of spiral, with a very thick "ring" of mostly intermediate stars surrounding a large yellow bulge, crisscrossed with dust lanes. Note the particularly dark dust lane separating the bulge from the ring. There are pink emission nebulas in that dust lane.

Also note the fantastic tidal tails! The most obvious one at lower left looks like a bow and arrow.

In the full size image, there is a quite lovely barred spiral of Hubble class SBc near bottom of the picture. The galaxy is PGC 3448, a barred spiral galaxy with long broad blue arms, speckled with pink emission nebulas. That's lovely!

Ann

[bystander]

High Above Jupiter’s Clouds
NASA | JPL-Caltech | SwRI | Juno | 208 Jan 04

[img3="Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/Juno
Processing: Gerald Eichstädt and Seán Doran"]https://d2xkkdgjnsfvb0.cloudfront.net/V ... 1514930426[/img3][hr][/hr]

NASA’s Juno spacecraft was a little more than one Earth diameter from Jupiter when it captured this mind-bending, color-enhanced view of the planet’s tumultuous atmosphere.

Jupiter completely fills the image, with only a hint of the terminator (where daylight fades to night) in the upper right corner, and no visible limb (the curved edge of the planet).

Juno took this image of colorful, turbulent clouds in Jupiter’s northern hemisphere on Dec. 16, 2017 at 9:43 a.m. PST (12:43 p.m. EST) from 8,292 miles (13,345 kilometers) above the tops of Jupiter’s clouds, at a latitude of 48.9 degrees.

The spatial scale in this image is 5.8 miles/pixel (9.3 kilometers/pixel).

[starsurfer]

M83
http://www.pbase.com/tango33/image/162738451
Copyright: Kfir Simon

[starsurfer]

Eagle Nebula (M16)
http://cosmicphotos.com/gallery/image.p ... lbum_id=11
Copyright: Jason Jennings

[starsurfer]

LMC
http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/ ... anic_cloud
Copyright: Michael Sidonio

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NGC 6188
http://www.cielaustral.com/galerie/photo70.htm
Copyright: Ciel Austral

[starsurfer]

PK 164+31.1
https://www.hansonastronomy.com/pk-164311-jones-1
Copyright: Mark Hanson

[starsurfer]

Sandqvist 169 and Sandqvist 172
http://astrodonimaging.com/gallery/sandqvist-169172/
Copyright: Don Goldman

[starsurfer]

B312
http://www.atacama-photographic-observa ... .php?id=86
Copyright: Thierry Demange, Richard Galli and Thomas Petit

http://www.atacama-photographic-observa ... .php?id=88

http://www.atacama-photographic-observa ... .php?id=87

[bystander]

Supermoon Beckons in the New Year
ESO Picture of the Week | 2018 Jan 08

[img3="Credit: G.Hüdepohl (atacamaphoto.com)/ESO"]https://cdn.eso.org/images/screen/potw1802a.jpg[/img3][hr][/hr]

The first evening of the new year was beckoned in by a spectacular supermoon, rising up from behind the majestic Cerro Armazones mountain in Chile. A supermoon like this is a magnificent, albeit relatively frequent, occurrence which takes place when a full moon coincides with the point in the lunar orbit that is closest to Earth, its diameter appearing about 14% larger in the sky.

The road zigzagging up Cerro Armazones appears to lead directly to the Moon itself — truly making it a road to the stars. By 2024, the “world’s biggest eye on the sky” will rest on top of this mountain, as its peak will be home to the Extremely Large Telescope. At an altitude of 3046 metres, Cerro Armazones provides a spectacular environment for astronomical observations, in particular because it receives 320 clear nights per year.

This photo was captured by ESO Photo Ambassador Gerhard Hüdepohl. He walked two kilometres from ESO’s nearby Paranal Observatory into the Atacama Desert to find the right position to take this photo. Beforehand, he had calculated the path the Moon would take to know the right time and place for this extraordinary shot.

[bystander]

A Gargantuan Collision
ESA Hubble Picture of the Week | 2018 Jan 08

[img3="Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, RELICS"]https://cdn.spacetelescope.org/archives ... w1802a.jpg[/img3][hr][/hr]

In 2014, astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope found that this enormous galaxy cluster contains the mass of a staggering three million billion Suns — so it’s little wonder that it has earned the nickname of “El Gordo” (“the Fat One” in Spanish)! Known officially as ACT-CLJ0102-4915, it is the largest, hottest, and X-ray brightest galaxy cluster ever discovered in the distant Universe.

Galaxy clusters are the largest objects in the Universe that are bound together by gravity. They form over billions of years as smaller groups of galaxies slowly come together. In 2012, observations from ESO’s Very Large Telescope, NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Atacama Cosmology Telescope showed that El Gordo is actually composed of two galaxy clusters colliding at millions of kilometres per hour.

The formation of galaxy clusters depends heavily on dark matter and dark energy; studying such clusters can therefore help shed light on these elusive phenomena. In 2014, Hubble found that most of El Gordo’s mass is concealed in the form of dark matter. Evidence suggests that El Gordo’s “normal” matter — largely composed of hot gas that is bright in the X-ray wavelength domain — is being torn from the dark matter in the collision. The hot gas is slowing down, while the dark matter is not.

This image was taken by Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) and Wide-Field Camera 3 (WFC3) as part of an observing programme called RELICS (Reionization Lensing Cluster Survey). RELICS imaged 41 massive galaxy clusters with the aim of finding the brightest distant galaxies for the forthcoming NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to study.

http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?t=33227
http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?t=33297
http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?t=33375

[starsurfer]

3C 400.2
http://www.cxielo.ch/gallery/v/nebulae/ ... x.jpg.html
Copyright: Martin Rusterholz

3c-400_2.jpg (302.81 KiB) Viewed 22610 times

[starsurfer]

NGC 6905
http://www.pbase.com/skybox/image/161547316
Copyright: Kevin Quin

[starsurfer]

MBM 47
http://www.astro-austral.cl/imagenes/ne ... s/info.htm
Copyright: José Joaquín Pérez

[starsurfer]

NGC 5963-5
http://deeplook.astronomie.at/ngc%205965.htm
Copyright: Markus Blauensteiner

[starsurfer]

Centaurus A (NGC 5128)
http://www.atscope.com.au/BRO/gallery375.html
Copyright: Peter Ward

[starsurfer]

UGC 4459
http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1613a/
Copyright: ESA/Hubble & NASA
Acknowledgement: Judy Schmidt

[starsurfer]

Abell 2218
http://www.capella-observatory.com/Imag ... ll2218.htm
Copyright: Josef Pöpsel and Stefan Binnewies

Click to view full size image

[starsurfer]

M46 and M47
http://www.glitteringlights.com/Images/ ... 9NNbbzC/X3
Copyright: Marco Lorenzi

M46 is on the left and M47 is on the right.