Space and Astronomy Megathread (MERGED) - Part 1

[InCali]

MyCn 18: The Engraved Hourglass Planetary Nebula
Image Credit & Copyright: NASA, ESA, Hubble, HLA; Processing & Copyright: Harshwardhan Pathak

Explanation: Do you see the hourglass shape -- or does it see you? If you can picture it, the rings of MyCn 18 trace the outline of an hourglass -- although one with an unusual eye in its center. Either way, the sands of time are running out for the central star of this hourglass-shaped planetary nebula. With its nuclear fuel exhausted, this brief, spectacular, closing phase of a Sun-like star's life occurs as its outer layers are ejected - its core becoming a cooling, fading white dwarf. In 1995, astronomers used the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) to make a series of images of planetary nebulae, including the one featured here. Pictured, delicate rings of colorful glowing gas (nitrogen-red, hydrogen-green, and oxygen-blue) outline the tenuous walls of the hourglass. The unprecedented sharpness of the Hubble images has revealed surprising details of the nebula ejection process that are helping to resolve the outstanding mysteries of the complex shapes and symmetries of planetary nebulas like MyCn 18.

Next Marvel villain. Time for Dr. Strange to up his game.

 

[Morg]

Annular solar eclipse will turn the sun into a spectacular 'ring of fire' this week


and I noticed I have rain all day on that date

 

[Brutikus]

Hidden Orion from Webb
Image Credit & License: NASA, ESA, CSA, JWST; Processing: M. McCaughrean & S. Pearson

Explanation: The Great Nebula in Orion has hidden stars. To the unaided eye in visible light, it appears as a small fuzzy patch in the constellation of Orion. But this image was taken by the Webb Space Telescope in a representative-color composite of red and very near infrared light. It confirms with impressive detail that the Orion Nebula is a busy neighborhood of young stars, hot gas, and dark dust. The rollover image shows the same image in representative colors further into the near infrared. The power behind much of the Orion Nebula (M42) is the Trapezium - a cluster of bright stars near the nebula's center. The diffuse and filamentary glow surrounding the bright stars is mostly heated interstellar dust. Detailed inspection of these images shows an unexpectedly large number of Jupiter-Mass Binary Objects (JuMBOs), pairs of Jupiter-mass objects which might give a clue to how stars are forming. The whole Orion Nebula cloud complex, which includes the Horsehead Nebula, will slowly disperse over the next few million years.

 

[Brutikus]

Mu Cephei
Image Credit & Copyright: David Cruz

Explanation: Mu Cephei is a very large star. An M-class supergiant some 1500 times the size of the Sun, it is one of the largest stars visible to the unaided eye, and even one of the largest in the entire Galaxy. If it replaced the Sun in our fair Solar System, Mu Cephei would easily engulf Mars and Jupiter. Historically known as Herschel's Garnet Star, Mu Cephei is extremely red. Approximately 2800 light-years distant, the supergiant is seen near the edge of reddish emission nebula IC 1396 toward the royal northern constellation Cepheus in this telescopic view. Much cooler and hence redder than the Sun, this supergiant's light is further reddened by absorption and scattering due to intervening dust within the Milky Way. A well-studied variable star understood to be in a late phase of stellar evolution, Mu Cephei is a massive star too, destined to ultimately explode as a core-collapse supernova.

 

[:eek:]

Mysterious 'fountain of youth' near Milky Way's central black hole is full of newborn stars that shouldn't exist

New James Webb Space Telescope observations might be able to explain why clusters of young stars keep turning up near the Milky Way’s central black hole.

www.livescience.com

 

[:eek:]

New 'galactic atlas' offers stunning details of 400,000 galaxies near the Milky Way

The Siena Galaxy Atlas is a treasure trove of information for scientists studying the structure of the universe — and, it's free for the public to access.

www.space.com

 

[Brutikus]

Galaxies and a Comet
Image Credit & Copyright: Dan Bartlett

Explanation: Galaxies abound in this sharp telescopic image recorded on October 12 in dark skies over June Lake, California. The celestial scene spans nearly 2 degrees within the boundaries of the well-trained northern constellation Canes Venatici. Prominent at the upper left 23.5 million light-years distant is big, beautiful spiral galaxy NGC 4258, known to some as Messier 106. Eye-catching edge-on spiral NGC 4217 is above and right of center about 60 million light-years away. Just passing through the pretty field of view is comet C/2023 H2 Lemmon, discovered last April in image data from the Mount Lemmon Survey. Here the comet sports more of a lime green coma though, along with a faint, narrow ion tail stretching toward the top of the frame. This visitor to the inner Solar System is presently less than 7 light-minutes away and still difficult to spot with binoculars, but it's growing brighter. Comet C/2023 H2 Lemmon will reach perihelion, its closest point to the Sun, on October 29 and perigee, its closest to our fair planet, on November 10 as it transitions from morning to evening northern skies.

 

[Brutikus]

Ghost Aurora over Canada
Image Credit & Copyright: Yuichi Takasaka, TWAN

Explanation: What does this aurora look like to you? While braving the cold to watch the skies above northern Canada early one morning in 2013, a most unusual aurora appeared. The aurora definitely appeared to be shaped like something, but what? Two ghostly possibilities recorded by the astrophotographer were "witch" and "goddess of dawn", but please feel free to suggest your own Halloween-enhanced impressions. Regardless of fantastical pareidolic interpretations, the pictured aurora had a typical green color and was surely caused by the scientifically commonplace action of high-energy particles from space interacting with oxygen in Earth's upper atmosphere. In the image foreground, at the bottom, is a frozen Alexandra Falls, while evergreen trees cross the middle.

 

[squeekness]

Very cool.

 

[:eek:]

Curiosity rover discovers new evidence Mars once had 'right conditions' for life

"We're finding evidence that Mars was likely a planet of rivers."

www.space.com

 

[Monsieur Xavier]

Voyager 1 code has been patched.

 

[:eek:]

Eerie 'face' haunts Jupiter in creepy photo from NASA's Juno probe

Jupiter's swirling clouds form an eerie image that resembles a face.

www.livescience.com

 

[Brutikus]

The Ghosts of Gamma Cas
Image Credit & Copyright: Guillaume Gruntz, Jean-François Bax

Explanation: Gamma Cassiopeiae shines high in northern autumn evening skies. It's the brightest spiky star in this telescopic field of view toward the constellation Cassiopeia. Gamma Cas shares the ethereal-looking scene with ghostly interstellar clouds of gas and dust, IC 59 (top left) and IC 63. About 600 light-years distant, the clouds aren't actually ghosts. They are slowly disappearing though, eroding under the influence of energetic radiation from hot and luminous gamma Cas. Gamma Cas is physically located only 3 to 4 light-years from the nebulae. Slightly closer to gamma Cas, IC 63 is dominated by red H-alpha light emitted as hydrogen atoms ionized by the star's ultraviolet radiation recombine with electrons. Farther from the star, IC 59 shows proportionally less H-alpha emission but more of the characteristic blue tint of dust reflected star light. The cosmic stage spans over 1 degree or 10 light-years at the estimated distance of gamma Cas and friends.

 

[squeekness]

Beautiful.

 

[Brutikus]

The Fornax Cluster of Galaxies
Image Credit & Copyright: Marcelo Rivera

Explanation: Named for the southern constellation toward which most of its galaxies can be found, the Fornax Cluster is one of the closest clusters of galaxies. About 62 million light-years away, it's over 20 times more distant than our neighboring Andromeda Galaxy, but only about 10 percent farther along than the better known and more populated Virgo Galaxy Cluster. Seen across this three degree wide field-of-view, almost every yellowish splotch on the image is an elliptical galaxy in the Fornax cluster. Elliptical galaxies NGC 1399 and NGC 1404 are the dominant, bright cluster members toward the bottom center. A standout, large barred spiral galaxy, NGC 1365, is visible on the upper right as a prominent Fornax cluster member.

 

[Morg]

NASA is launching a streaming service on November 8

 

[:eek:]

Watch NASA build Artemis 2 astronaut moon rocket boosters ahead of 2024 launch (video)

Cranes, towers and more are helping move these massive pieces around.

www.space.com

 

[MagnarTheGreat]

CNN - Scientists say they’ve finally found remnants of Theia, an ancient planet that collided with Earth to form the moon

Mysterious Lumps in Earth's Mantle May Be Remains of the Crash That Formed the Moon

Chunks of a protoplanet called Theia became lodged within Earth after the two worlds smashed together, new computer simulations suggest

www.smithsonianmag.com

Now, researchers say remnants of this impact are lodged deep within our planet, according to a new paper published Wednesday in the journal Nature. Two continent-sized lumps of material in Earth’s lower mantle have baffled scientists for decades, but the new computer modeling suggests they could be left over from Theia’s mantle.

The theory that these lumps originated with the moon-forming collision is not new, Robin Canup, a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute who did not contribute to the findings, says to Nature News’ Anil Oza. “But this paper is the first in my mind to really take that notion seriously,” she tells the publication.

In the new study, the researchers tested whether these lumps could be from Theia. Evidence from the Apollo missions supports the collision theory of the moon’s formation: Rock samples suggest the moon was molten at first and was covered in a magma ocean for at least tens of millions of years, a sign that it formed from a high-energy impact, per NASA.

“This moon-forming giant impact is maybe one of the most important factors for why Earth is so different from any other rocky planet we’ve found,” Qian Yuan, a co-author of the study and geophysicist at the California Institute of Technology, tells New Scientist’s Leah Crane. “This impact changed the atmosphere, changed the crust, changed the mantle, changed the core—so it was really probably the most important event in Earth’s history.”

Theia (hypothetical planet) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I think we need origin stories for all the moons of the solar system and beyond. Are/Why are they different, are they similar? Why and why not.

Ganymede (moon) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[MagnarTheGreat]

NASA just launched a free streaming channel called NASA+

NASA has just launched a new ad-free channel called NASA+ that offers original shows and live content for space fans around the world.

www.digitaltrends.com

 

[:eek:]

Powerful new thrusters for NASA's moon-orbiting Gateway space station get a test (photo)

The AEPS engines are more than twice as powerful as current in-space ion thrusters.

www.space.com

 

[MagnarTheGreat]

Astronomers Spot the Oldest Black Hole Ever Seen, Shedding Light on the Early Universe

Dating to just 470 million years after the Big Bang, the ancient cosmic structure could help researchers understand how the first black holes formed

www.smithsonianmag.com

 

[Morg]

Lost in space: astronaut’s toolbag orbits Earth after escaping during spacewalk

 

[squeekness]

Lost in space: astronaut’s toolbag orbits Earth after escaping during spacewalk

Oops! I hate it when that happens!

 

[Dr. Evil]

NASA just launched a free streaming channel called NASA+

NASA has just launched a new ad-free channel called NASA+ that offers original shows and live content for space fans around the world.

www.digitaltrends.com

Any streaming service that is free, I will never cancel it. This one is next for me.

 

[squeekness]

I didn't think it would be free. Huh.