Astronomy Picture of the Day

NASA ^ | T. Rector, H. Schweiker

[sig226]

Pickering's Triangle from Kitt Peak
Credit & Copyright: T. Rector (U. Alaska Anchorage), H. Schweiker, WIYN, NOAO, AURA, NSF

Explanation: Wisps like this are all that remain visible of a Milky Way star. About 7,500 years ago that star exploded in a supernova leaving the Veil Nebula, also known as the Cygnus Loop. At the time, the expanding cloud was likely as bright as a crescent Moon, remaining visible for weeks to people living at the dawn of recorded history. Today, the resulting supernova remnant has faded and is now visible only through a small telescope directed toward the constellation of Cygnus. The remaining Veil Nebula is physically huge, however, and even though it lies about 1,400 light-years distant, it covers over five times the size of the full Moon. In images of the complete Veil Nebula, studious readers should be able to identify the Pickering's Triangle component pictured above, a component named for a famous astronomer and the wisp's approximate shape. The above image is a mosaic from the 4-meter Mayall telescope at the Kitt Peak National Observatory located in Arizona, USA.

[sig226]

This is actually yesterday's image, which I did not post, and today's image has a load of crap about global warming. They can keep it. If you really feel a need to vomit, you can read it here.

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[Coffee200am]

Why in hell did they put that one little sentence in there?

[Domandred]

yeeesh todays would have been perfectly fine if they didn’t include that single sentence :(.

[Resolute Conservative]

God is just awesome!

[Redcloak]

Curious when one considers that such clouds may be a sign of global cooling instead. (The theory is that the Sun's quiet magnetic field is allowing more cosmic rays to reach the Earth. These, in turn, cause more clouds in the upper atmosphere, increasing Earth's albedo.)

[True Republican Patriot]

Those demorat looneytoons are going to be praying for some global warming in the next several years as the Sun ree mains in it’s placid cooling mode. They are going to be freezing their as*es off and screaming about dieing from the cold! The idiots will not get one darn BTU fron me, not one!!!! Let em turn blue and shiver all the way to hell where they will fry like bacon for eternity:-)

[True Republican Patriot]

AMEN! GOD IS AWESOME and ALL BEING, HIS POWER AND CREATION SO GREAT That it is Incomprehensible to Us Mortals, HIS CHILDREN!

[clinkclink]

Thank you for that!! A beautiful break from the politics of the day never hurts.

[MtnClimber]

The democRATS could also claim this was caused by global warming. Forget the time frames involved. Their core constituency would not understand anyway.