Free Republic 4th Qtr 2024 Fundraising Target: $81,000 Receipts & Pledges to-date: $11,664
14%  
Woo hoo!! And our first 14% is in!! Thank you all very much!! God bless.

Astronomy Picture of the Day (General/Chat)

Brevity: Headers | « Text »
  • Astronomy Picture of the Day - NGC 7635: The Bubble Nebula

    10/30/2024 11:30:13 AM PDT · by MtnClimber · 9 replies
    NASA ^ | 30 Oct, 2024 | Credit & Copyright: Chad Leader
    Explanation: What created this huge space bubble? Blown by the wind from a star, this tantalizing, head-like apparition is cataloged as NGC 7635, but known simply as the Bubble Nebula. The featured striking view utilizes a long exposure to reveal the intricate details of this cosmic bubble and its environment. Although it looks delicate, the 10 light-year diameter bubble offers evidence of violent processes at work. Seen here above and right of the Bubble's center, a bright hot star is embedded in the nebula's reflecting dust. A fierce stellar wind and intense radiation from the star, which likely has a...
  • Astronomy Picture of the Day - NGC 602: Stars Versus Pillars from Webb

    10/29/2024 12:34:19 PM PDT · by MtnClimber · 7 replies
    NASA ^ | 29 Oct, 2024 | Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, P. Zeidler, E. Sabbi, A. Nota, M. Zamani (ESA/Webb)
    Explanation: The stars are destroying the pillars. More specifically, some of the newly formed stars in the image center are emitting light so energetic that is evaporating the gas and dust in the surrounding pillars. Simultaneously, the pillars themselves are still trying to form new stars. The whole setting is the star cluster NGC 602, and this new vista was taken by the Webb Space Telescope in multiple infrared colors. In comparison, a roll-over image shows the same star cluster in visible light, taken previously by the Hubble Space Telescope. NGC 602 is located near the perimeter of the Small...
  • Astronomy Picture of the Day - STEVE: A Glowing River over France

    10/28/2024 11:48:59 AM PDT · by MtnClimber · 11 replies
    NASA ^ | 28 Oct, 2024 | Credit & Copyright: Louis LEROUX-GÉRÉ
    Explanation: Sometimes a river of hot gas flows over your head. In this case the river created a Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement (STEVE) that glowed bright red, white, and pink. Details of how STEVEs work remain a topic of research, but recent evidence holds that their glow results from a fast-moving river of hot ions flowing over a hundred kilometers up in the Earth's atmosphere: the ionosphere. The more expansive dull red glow might be related to the flowing STEVE, but alternatively might be a Stable Auroral Red (SAR) arc, a more general heat-related glow. The featured picture, taken...
  • Astronomy Picture of the Day - LDN 43: The Cosmic Bat Nebula

    10/27/2024 12:59:00 PM PDT · by MtnClimber · 17 replies
    NASA ^ | 27 Oct, 2024 | Credit & Copyright: Mark Hanson and Mike Selby; Text: Michelle Thaller (NASA's GSFC)
    Explanation: What is the most spook-tacular nebula in the galaxy? One contender is LDN 43, which bears an astonishing resemblance to a vast cosmic bat flying amongst the stars on a dark Halloween night. Located about 1400 light years away in the constellation Ophiuchus, this molecular cloud is dense enough to block light not only from background stars, but from wisps of gas lit up by the nearby reflection nebula LBN 7. Far from being a harbinger of death, this 12-light year-long filament of gas and dust is actually a stellar nursery. Glowing with eerie light, the bat is lit...
  • Astronomy Picture of the Day - Phantoms in Cassiopeia

    10/26/2024 11:36:42 AM PDT · by MtnClimber · 10 replies
    NASA ^ | 26 Oct, 2024 | Image Credit & Copyright: Christophe Vergnes, Hervé Laur
    Explanation: These brightly outlined flowing shapes look ghostly on a cosmic scale. A telescopic view toward the constellation Cassiopeia, the colorful skyscape features the swept-back, comet-shaped clouds IC 59 (left) and IC 63. About 600 light-years distant, the clouds aren't actually ghosts. They are slowly disappearing though, under the influence of energetic radiation from hot, luminous star gamma Cas. Gamma Cas is physically located only 3 to 4 light-years from the nebulae and lies just above the right edge of the frame. Slightly closer to gamma Cas, IC 63 is dominated by red H-alpha light emitted as hydrogen atoms ionized...
  • Astronomy Picture of the Day - Globular Star Cluster NGC 6752

    10/25/2024 1:19:24 PM PDT · by MtnClimber · 15 replies
    NASA ^ | 25 Oct, 2024 | Image Credit & Copyright: Massimo Di Fusco, Aygen Erkaslan
    Explanation: Some 13,000 light-years away toward the southern constellation Pavo, the globular star cluster NGC 6752 roams the halo of our Milky Way galaxy. Over 10 billion years old, NGC 6752 follows clusters Omega Centauri, 47 Tucanae, and Messier 22 as the fourth brightest globular in planet Earth's night sky. It holds over 100 thousand stars in a sphere about 100 light-years in diameter. Telescopic explorations of NGC 6752 have found that a remarkable fraction of the stars near the cluster's core are multiple star systems. They also reveal the presence of blue straggle stars, stars which appear to be...
  • Astronomy Picture of the Day - NGC 7293: The Helix Nebula

    10/24/2024 12:10:38 PM PDT · by MtnClimber · 10 replies
    NASA ^ | 24 Oct, 2024 | Image Credit & Copyright: Patrick Winkler
    Explanation: A mere seven hundred light years from Earth toward the constellation Aquarius, a star is dying. The once sun-like star's last few thousand years have produced the Helix Nebula. Also known as NGC 7293, the cosmic Helix is a well studied and nearby example of a Planetary Nebula, typical of this final phase of stellar evolution. Combining narrow band data from emission lines of hydrogen atoms in red and oxygen atoms in blue-green hues, this deep image shows tantalizing details of the Helix, including its bright inner region about 3 light-years across. The white dot at the Helix's center...
  • Astronomy Picture of the Day - Caught

    10/23/2024 11:49:20 AM PDT · by MtnClimber · 8 replies
    NASA ^ | 23 Oct, 2024 | Credit & Copyright: SpaceX
    Explanation: What if a rocket could return to its launch tower -- and be caught? This happened for the first time 10 days ago, after a SpaceX Starship rocket blasted off from its pad in Boca Chica, Texas, USA. Starship then split, as planned, with its upper stage landing in the Pacific Ocean. The big difference was the lower stage, Super Heavy Booster 12, was caught by its launch tower about 7 minutes later. Catching a rocket for reuse is a new and innovative way to help reduce the cost of rocket flight by making rockets more easily reusable. Starship...
  • Astronomy Picture of the Day - M16: Pillars of Star Creation

    10/22/2024 11:15:28 AM PDT · by MtnClimber · 12 replies
    NASA ^ | 22 Oct, 2024 | Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; Processing: Diego Pisano
    Explanation: These dark pillars may look destructive, but they are creating stars. This pillar-capturing picture of the Eagle Nebula combines visible light exposures taken with the Hubble Space Telescope with infrared images taken with the James Webb Space Telescope to highlight evaporating gaseous globules (EGGs) emerging from pillars of molecular hydrogen gas and dust. The giant pillars are light years in length and are so dense that interior gas contracts gravitationally to form stars. At each pillar's end, the intense radiation of bright young stars causes low density material to boil away, leaving stellar nurseries of dense EGGs exposed. The...
  • Astronomy Picture of the Day - Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS over California

    10/21/2024 11:27:44 AM PDT · by MtnClimber · 5 replies
    NASA ^ | 21 Oct, 2024 | Credit & Copyright: Brian Fulda
    Explanation: The tails of Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS were a sight to behold. Pictured, C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan–ATLAS) was captured near peak impressiveness last week over the Eastern Sierra Mountains in California, USA. The comet not only showed a bright tail, but a distinct anti-tail pointing in nearly the opposite direction. The globular star cluster M5 can be seen on the right, far in the distance. As it approached, it was unclear if this crumbling iceberg would disintegrate completely as it warmed in the bright sunlight. In reality, the comet survived to become brighter than any star in the night (magnitude -4.9), but...
  • Astronomy Picture of the Day - Dark Matter in a Simulated Universe

    10/20/2024 1:01:17 PM PDT · by MtnClimber · 26 replies
    NASA ^ | 20 Oct, 2024 | Illustration Credit & Copyright: Tom Abel & Ralf Kaehler (KIPAC, SLAC), AMNH
    Explanation: Is our universe haunted? It might look that way on this dark matter map. The gravity of unseen dark matter is the leading explanation for why galaxies rotate so fast, why galaxies orbit clusters so fast, why gravitational lenses so strongly deflect light, and why visible matter is distributed as it is both in the local universe and on the cosmic microwave background. The featured image from the American Museum of Natural History's Hayden Planetarium Space Show Dark Universe highlights one example of how pervasive dark matter might haunt our universe. In this frame from a detailed computer simulation,...
  • Astronomy Picture of the Day - Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS Flys Away

    10/19/2024 12:16:06 PM PDT · by MtnClimber · 8 replies
    NASA ^ | 19 Oct, 2024 | Image Credit & Copyright: Xingyang Cai
    Explanation: These six panels follow daily apparitions of comet C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS as it moved away from our fair planet during the past week. The images were taken with the same camera and lens at the indicated dates and locations from California, planet Earth. At far right on October 12 the visitor from the distant Oort cloud was near its closest approach, some 70 million kilometers (about 4 light-minutes) away. Its bright coma and long dust tail were close on the sky to the setting Sun but still easy to spot against a bright western horizon. Over the following days,...
  • Astronomy Picture of the Day - Most of Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS

    10/18/2024 12:33:53 PM PDT · by MtnClimber · 10 replies
    NASA ^ | 18 Oct, 2024 | Image Credit & Copyright: Adam Block
    Explanation: On October 14 it was hard to capture a full view of Comet C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS. Taken after the comet's closest approach to our fair planet, this evening skyview almost does though. With two telephoto frames combined, the image stretches about 26 degrees across the sky from top to bottom, looking west from Gates Pass, Tucson, Arizona. Comet watchers that night could even identify globular star cluster M5 and the faint apparition of periodic comet 13P Olbers near the long the path of Tsuchinshan-ATLAS's whitish dust tail above the bright comet's coma. Due to perspective as the Earth is...
  • Astronomy Picture of the Day - The Clipper and the Comet

    10/17/2024 2:17:10 PM PDT · by MtnClimber · 17 replies
    NASA ^ | 17 Oct, 2024 | Image Credit & Copyright: Ben Cooper (Launch Photography)
    Explanation: NASA's Europa Clipper is now headed toward an ocean world beyond Earth. The large spacecraft is tucked into the payload fairing atop the Falcon Heavy rocket in this photo, taken at Kennedy Space Center the day before the mission's successful October 14 launch. Europa Clipper's interplanetary voyage will first take it to Mars, then back to Earth, and then on to Jupiter on gravity assist trajectories that will allow it to enter orbit around Jupiter in April 2030. Once orbiting Jupiter, the spacecraft will fly past Europa 49 times, exploring a Jovian moon with a global subsurface ocean that...
  • Astronomy Picture of the Day - Colorful Aurora over New Zealand

    10/16/2024 12:44:51 PM PDT · by MtnClimber · 31 replies
    NASA ^ | 16 Oct, 2024 | Image Credit & Copyright: Tristian McDonald
    Explanation: Sometimes the night sky is full of surprises. Take the sky over Lindis Pass, South Island, New Zealand one-night last week. Instead of a typically calm night sky filled with constant stars, a busy and dynamic night sky appeared. Suddenly visible were pervasive red aurora, green picket-fence aurora, a red SAR arc, a STEVE, a meteor, and the Moon. These outshone the center of our Milky Way Galaxy and both of its two satellite galaxies: the LMC and SMC. All of these were captured together on 28 exposures in five minutes, from which this panorama was composed. Auroras lit...
  • Astronomy Picture of the Day - Animation: Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS Tails Prediction

    10/15/2024 1:05:04 PM PDT · by MtnClimber · 7 replies
    NASA ^ | 15 Oct, 2024 | Credit & Copyright: Nico Lefaudeux
    Explanation: How bright and strange will the tails of Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS become? The comet has brightened dramatically over the few weeks as it passed its closest to the Sun and, just three days ago, passed its closest to the Earth. C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan–ATLAS) became of the brightest comets of the past century over the past few days, but was unfortunately hard to see because it was so nearly superposed on the Sun. As the comet appears to move away from the Sun, it is becoming a remarkable sight -- but may soon begin to fade. The featured animated video shows...
  • Astronomy Picture of the Day - Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS Over the Lincoln Memorial

    10/14/2024 11:20:40 AM PDT · by MtnClimber · 3 replies
    NASA ^ | 14 Oct, 2024 | Credit & Copyright: Brennan Gilmore
    Explanation: Go outside at sunset tonight and see a comet! C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan–ATLAS) has become visible in the early evening sky in northern locations to the unaided eye. To see the comet, look west through a sky with a low horizon. If the sky is clear and dark enough, you will not even need binoculars -- the faint tail of the comet should be visible just above the horizon for about an hour. Pictured, Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS was captured two nights ago over the Lincoln Memorial monument in Washington, DC, USA. With each passing day at sunset, the comet and its...
  • Astronomy Picture of the Day - Aurora Timelapse Over Italian Alps

    10/13/2024 12:47:16 PM PDT · by MtnClimber · 2 replies
    NASA ^ | 13 Oct, 2024 | Video Credit & Copyright: Cristian Bigontina
    Explanation: Did you see last night's aurora? This question was relevant around much of the world a few days ago because a powerful auroral storm became visible unusually far from the Earth's poles. The cause was a giant X-class solar flare on Tuesday that launched energetic electrons and protons into the Solar System, connecting to the Earth via our planet's magnetic field. A red glow of these particles striking oxygen atoms high in Earth's atmosphere pervades the frame, while vertical streaks dance. The featured video shows a one-hour timelapse as seen from Cortina d'Ampezzo over Alps Mountain peaks in northern...
  • Astronomy Picture of the Day - Northern Lights, West Virginia

    10/13/2024 11:50:18 AM PDT · by MtnClimber · 6 replies
    NASA ^ | 12 Oct, 2024 | Image Credit & Copyright: Jonathan Eggleston
    Catching up after the power and internet outage due to Hurricane MiltonExplanation: A gravel country lane gently winds through this colorful rural night skyscape. Captured from Monroe County in southern West Virginia on the evening of October 10, the starry sky above is a familiar sight. Shimmering curtains of aurora borealis or northern lights definitely do not make regular appearances here, though. Surprisingly vivid auroral displays were present on that night at very low latitudes around the globe, far from their usual northern and southern high latitude realms. The extensive auroral activity was evidence of a severe geomagnetic storm triggered...
  • Astronomy Picture of the Day - Ring of Fire over Easter Island

    10/13/2024 6:54:05 AM PDT · by MtnClimber · 4 replies
    NASA ^ | 11 Oct, 2024 | Image Credit & Copyright: Yuri Beletsky (Carnegie Las Campanas Observatory, TWAN)
    Catching up from the power and internet outage from Hurricane MiltonExplanation: The second solar eclipse of 2024 began in the Pacific. On October 2nd the Moon's shadow swept from west to east, with an annular eclipse visible along a narrow antumbral shadow path tracking mostly over ocean, making its only major landfall near the southern tip of South America, and then ending in the southern Atlantic. The dramatic total annular eclipse phase is known to some as a ring of fire. Also tracking across islands in the southern Pacific, the Moon's antumbral shadow grazed Easter Island allowing denizens to follow...