🔭What About Space

2020-11-01 20:06:15 Explore Rosetta's Comet

What would it be like to fly around a comet nucleus? To find out, just wait for your WebGL-compatible browser to load a detailed digital model of Comet 67P and then -- go exploring! With a standard mouse, the left button allows you to rotate the comet, the right button allows you to move the comet around, and the scroll wheel allows you to zoom in. ESA's robotic Rosetta spacecraft orbited Comet C67/P Churyumov-Gerasimenko from mid-2014 until last Friday, when, after a remarkable and successful mission, it was intentionally set down on the surface and powered down. Among many notable scientific achievements, Rosetta allowed humanity to better understand where comet jets form on comets as they near the Sun. Transparent Science: Browse 1,350+ codes in the Astrophysics Source Code Library

Date: 2016-10-03

Tags: #randomimages #spacecraft Aprire / Come

2020-11-01 20:06:13 Aprire / Come

2020-11-01 12:06:11 Flaming Star Nebula

A runaway star lights the Flaming Star Nebula in this cosmic scene. Otherwise known as IC 405, the Flaming Star Nebula's billowing interstellar clouds of gas and dust lie about 1,500 light-years away toward the constellation of Auriga. AE Aurigae, the bright star at upper left in the frame, is a massive and intensely hot O-type star moving rapidly through space, likely ejected from a collision of multiple star-systems in the vicinity of the Orion Nebula millions of years ago. Now close to IC 405, the high-speed star's ionizing ultraviolet radiation powers the visible reddish glow as the nebula's hydrogen atoms are stripped of their electrons and recombine. Its intense blue starlight is reflected by the nebula's dusty filaments. Like all massive stars AE Aurigae will be short-lived though, furiously burning through its supply of fuel for nuclear fusion and exploding as a supernova. The colorful telescopic snapshot spans about 5 light-years at the estimated distance of the Flaming Star Nebula.

Date: 2016-12-01

Copyrights: Adam Block

Tags: #randomimages #star #stars Aprire / Come

2020-11-01 12:06:09 Aprire / Come

2020-11-01 04:06:08 Eclipsed in Southern Skies

This stunning panorama in southern skies was recorded on the colorful night of September 27/28 from Carnegie Las Campanas Observatory. A diffuse glow and dark rifts of the central Milky Way hang over domes of the twin 6.5 meter Magellan telescopes. But most eye-catching is the deep red glow of the Moon. Immersed in Earth's shadow during the much anticipated perigee-total-lunar eclipse, the Moon's surface reflects the light of sunsets and sunrises scattered and refracted into the planet's cone-shaped umbra. Along with the dramatic hue of the eclipsed Moon, other colors of that night captured by the sensitive digital camera include the red and green shades of atmospheric airglow. Viewers can also spot the Andromeda Galaxy below the Moon, seen as a tiny smudge through the reddish airglow and lights along the horizon. The Magellanic Clouds, satellite galaxies of the Milky Way, join in at the far left of the full panorama frame.

Date: 2015-10-01

Copyrights: Yuri Beletsky

Tags: #randomimages Aprire / Come

2020-11-01 04:06:06 Aprire / Come

2020-10-25 04:36:28 Perseid Meteors Over China

Comet dust rained down on planet Earth earlier this month, streaking through dark skies in the annual Perseid meteor shower. While enjoying the anticipated space weather above Zhangbei Prairie, Hebei Province, China, astronomer Xiang Zhan recorded a series of 10 second long exposures spanning four hours on the night of August 12/13 using a wide angle lens. Combining frames which captured 68 meteor flashes, he produced the above composite view of the Perseids of summer. Although the sand-sized comet particles are traveling parallel to each other, the resulting shower meteors clearly seem to radiate from a single point on the sky in the eponymous constellation Perseus. The radiant effect is due to perspective, as the parallel tracks appear to converge at a distance. The next notable meteor shower may be the Orionids in late October. Gallery: Highlights of the 2013 Perseids Meteor Shower

Date: 2013-08-21

Copyrights: Xiang ZhanBeijing Planetarium

Tags: #randomimages #planet Aprire / Come

2020-10-25 04:36:26 Aprire / Come

2020-10-24 20:36:25 A New Constellation Takes Hold

A new constellation has taken hold of the sky, much to the surprise of many sky gazers. The constellation of Ollie the Owl has suddenly started dominating the southern hemisphere, as shown above. The constellation is taking the place of Wrinkles the Rhinoceros, who was unexpectedly voted off the sky by the other constellations. Happy April Fools day from the folks at APOD! Pictured above, a bird was photographed taking the Tololo All Sky Camera (TASCA) as a perch, a situation that would be even funnier if the bird's talons hadn't scratched the plastic enclosing dome. TASCA continues to monitor the entire night sky as visible from the Cerro Tololo Inter-american Observatory located in Chile. Given the unusual vantage point, one guess is that the bird is a Great Horned Owl, although it is hoped that a properly under-schooled ornithologist can e-mail Dr. Schwarz with the bird's true species.

Date: 2003-04-01

Tags: #randomimages Aprire / Come

2020-10-24 20:36:23 Aprire / Come