#February2011
The Full Milky Way Over Switzerland Is Space Erotica.
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Good lord is this ever the shining paradigmatic example of space porn. That is the Milky Way galaxy and much, much more shining across the night sky in Switzerland.
What’s visible in the night sky during this time of year? To help illustrate the answer, a beautiful land, cloud, and skyscape was captured earlier this month over Neuchâtel, Switzerland. Visible in the foreground were the snow covered cliffs of the amphitheater shaped Creux du Van, as well as distant trees, and town-lit clouds. Visible in the night sky (at midnight) were galaxies including the long arch of the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy, the Andromeda galaxy (M31), and the Triangulum galaxy (M33). Star clusters visible included NGC 752, M34, M35, M41, the double cluster, and the Beehive (M44). Nebulas visible included the Orion Nebula (M42), NGC 7822, IC 1396, the Rosette Nebula, the Flaming Star Nebula, the California Nebula, the Heart and Soul Nebulas, and the Pacman Nebula.
I need to be wherever this picture can be taken. Almost too gorgeous to fathom as real.
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Launch Photo From International Space Station Is Swag.
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Fuck church, how about some existential masturbation on a Sunday? We are currently on a Blue Rock, floating through the cosmos. This launch photo from the International Space Station underlines such a righteous fact.
The launch photo shows the rising exhausttrail from the rocket just minutes after blast off of the Ariane booster on Feb. 16 from the ESA rocket base in Kourou, French Guiana, South America. The rocket was still on a vertical ascent trajectory to orbit.
Outstanding. So say we all.
Footage of the Sun’s X-class Solar Flare. Snap.
The Sun’s pissed off this week. It must be a bit angsty regarding the fact that it doesn’t have any binary star to share Fabricated Marketing Event Day with, because on Valentine’s Day it unleashed its largest solar flare in years.
Bad Astronomy:
Sunspot 1158 is an active region on the Sun, with a lot of magnetic energy stored up. That energy got released with a bang on Tuesday, creating a solar flare – essentially a magnetic bomb on the surface of the Sun – and a coronal mass ejection (CME) – a huge eruption of subatomic particles blasting outward from the Sun.
The flare can be seen as the sudden bright flash just below and to the right of the center of the Sun’s disk. At the same time you can see an expanding circle of light centered on the Sun. That last bit is the CME. We see these launching off the Sun quite often; usually headed off to the side, looking like a big loop or light-bulb shape moving off. When they head straight Earth, though, they look like a circle that expands as it approaches. That’s how you can tell we’re in the way!
Hit a jump for this cosmic boom in motion.
The Spiral Galaxy NGC 2841 Isn’t Productive, But It’s Sexy.
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Hubble dropped an image today of NGC 2841, a pretty swank spiral galaxy. This galaxy has some poor self-esteem though, ’cause it’s remarkable for a sad reason. They note in the article that it “currently has a relatively low star formation rate compared to other spirals.” Impotence. I know it all too well. Don’t get down dude. NGC 2841, you’re still beautiful to me. If you’re interested in breaking down this galaxy further, Bad Astronomy got yo ass covered.
Phil Plait: There’s No Proof of A Giant Ninth Planet.
If you’re an astronomy geek like myself, Phil Plait is the man. His blog Bad Astronomy features daily space porn, and more than that, it features dissections and explanations of said space porn. When I mentioned the possible ninth planet Tyche a couple of days ago, I used the disclaimer, “I’m telling you to take everything I’m about to blather about as more than likely science fiction.”
According to Phil Plait, I’m probably right.
See The Sun Vent Excess Gas Through Two Gaping Holes. Awesome.
Astronomers Find Evidence of Ninth Planet, “Tyche” In The Oort Cloud?
I’m not going to pull your pants down and slap your ass, okay? Unless you ask me. So I’m telling you to take everything I’m about to blather about as more than likely science fiction. Okay? Astronomers have found “evidence” of a a hypothesized 9th planet in the hypothesized Oort Cloud.
Sounds about astronomy as usual, right?
Colliding Galaxies Give Birth To Ring of Black Hole Awesome.
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Arp 147 is a straight-up galactic collective. It is composed of two galaxies that collided way back in the past, the results of which have set off a ring of awesome.
New Scientist:
[The galaxies collided in the past which triggered] a wave of star formation (blue ring in galaxy at right). A number of these stars exploded as supernovae, producing black holes. Some of these, thought to weigh 10 to 20 times as much as the sun, shine brightly in X-rays (pink blobs) as they rob matter from companion stars.
Arp 147 is currently the dopest one-two galactic punch in the universe. That I know about.
Nebulae NGC 2174 Is A Cosmic Battleground!
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NGC 2174 ain’t your average nebulae. No sir. Instead it’s the stomping grounds. A battlefield where cosmic forces are throwing down.
NASA:
The energetic light and winds from massive newly formed stars are evaporating and dispersing the dark stellar nurseries in which they formed. The structures of NGC 2174 are actually much thinner than air and only appear as mountains due to relatively small amounts of opaque interstellar dust. A lesser known sight in the nebula-rich constellation Orion, NGC 2174 can be found with binoculars near the head of the celestial hunter.
About 6,400 light-years distant, the entire glowing cosmic cloud covers an area larger than the full Moon and surrounds loose open clusters of young stars. The above image from the HubbleSpace Telescope shows a dense interior region which spans only about three light years while adopting a color map that portrays otherwise red hydrogen emission in green hues and emphasizes sulfur emission in red and oxygen in blue. Within a few million years, the stars will likely win out completely and the entire dust mountain will be dispersed.
C’est La Vie. Or uh, C’est La Existence or something.
NASA’s STEREO Spacecraft Gives Gorgeous Video Of Solar Eclipse.
Phil Plait over at Bad Astronomy posted a gorgeous video today of solar eclipse seen from NASA’s STEREO spacecraft.
In a previous post, Plait explained what NASA’s STEREO spacecraft was:
STEREO – SolarTErrestrial RElations Observatory – they traveled in opposite directions, one ahead and the other behind the Earth in its orbit around the Sun. The goal was to get a wide, stereoscopic view of the Sun which would provide 3D information on our star.
Hit the jump for the video, and go here to read Plait’s more detailed description of STEREO.
