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Saturday, October 31, 2009

Next APOD: 2009 November 1 -The Average Color of the Universe

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APOD: 2009 November 1 -The Average Color of the Universe

ap091101_html

The Average Color of the Universe
Credit: Karl Glazebrook & Ivan Baldry (JHU)

Explanation: What color is the universe? More precisely, if the entire sky was smeared out, what color would the final mix be? This whimsical question came up when trying to determine what stars are commonplace in nearby galaxies. The answer, depicted above, is a conditionally perceived shade of beige. To determine this, astronomers computationally averaged the light emitted by one of the largest sample of galaxies yet analyzed: the 200,000 galaxies of the 2dF survey. The resulting cosmic spectrum has some emission in all parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, but a single perceived composite color. This color has become much less blue over the past 10 billion years, indicating that redder stars are becoming more prevalent. In a contest to better name the color, notable entries included skyvory, univeige, and the winner: cosmic latte.

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Friday, October 30, 2009

Next APOD: 2009 October 31 - VdB 152: Reflection Nebula in Cepheus

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APOD: 2009 October 31 - VdB 152: Reflection Nebula in Cepheus

ap091024_html

VdB 152: Reflection Nebula in Cepheus
Credit & Copyright: Stephen Leshin

Explanation: Described as a "dusty curtain" or "ghostly apparition", mysterious reflection nebula VdB 152 really is very faint. Far from your neighborhood on this Halloween Night, the cosmic phantom is nearly 1,400 light-years away. Also cataloged as Ced 201, it lies along the northern Milky Way in the royal constellation Cepheus. Near the edge of a large molecular cloud, pockets of interstellar dust in the region block light from background stars or scatter light from the embedded bright star giving parts of the nebula a characteristic blue color. Ultraviolet light from the star is also thought to cause a dim reddish luminescence in the nebular dust. Though stars do form in molecular clouds, this star seems to have only accidentally wandered into the area, as its measured velocity through space is very different from the cloud's velocity. This deep telescopic image of the region spans about 7 light-years.

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Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Next APOD: 2009 October 21 -Martian Dust Devil Trails

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APOD: 2009 October 21 -Martian Dust Devil Trails

ap091021_html

Martian Dust Devil Trails
Credit: HiRISE, MRO, LPL (U. Arizona), NASA

Explanation: Who's been marking up Mars? This portion of a recent high-resolution picture from the HiRISE camera on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows twisting dark trails criss-crossing light colored terrain on the martian surface. Newly formed trails like these had presented researchers with a tantalizing martian mystery but are now known to be the work of miniature wind vortices known to occur on the red planet - martian dust devils. Such spinning columns of rising air heated by the warm surface are also common in dry and desert areas on planet Earth. Typically lasting only a few minutes, dust devils becoming visible as they pick up loose red-colored dust leaving the darker and heavier sand beneath intact. On Mars, dust devils can be up to 8 kilometers high. Dust devils have been credited with unexpected cleanings of mars rover solar panels.

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Monday, October 19, 2009

Next APOD: 2009 October 20 - A Solar Prominence Erupts in STEREO

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APOD: 2009 October 20 - A Solar Prominence Erupts in STEREO

ap091020_html

A Solar Prominence Erupts in STEREO
Credit: STEREO Project, NASA

Explanation: What does a solar prominence look like in three dimensions? To help find out, NASA launched the STEREO satellites to keep a steady eye on the Sun from two different vantage points. The STEREO satellites orbit the Sun nearly along Earth's orbit, but one (dubbed Ahead) currently leads the Earth, while the other (dubbed Behind) currently trails. Three weeks ago, a powerful prominence erupted and remained above the Sun for about 30 hours, allowing the STEREO satellites to get numerous views of the prominence from different angles. Pictured above is a high-resolution image of the event from the STEREO Ahead satellite. A video of the prominence erupting as seen from both spacecraft can be found here. The unusually quiet nature of the Sun over the past two years has made large prominences like this relatively rare. The combined perspective of STEREO will help astronomers better understand the mechanisms for the creation and evolution of prominences, coronal mass ejections, and flares.

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Sunday, October 18, 2009

Next APOD: 2009 October 19 - Nereus Crater on Mars

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APOD: 2009 October 19 - Nereus Crater on Mars

FireShot capture #181 - 'Astronomy Picture of the Day' - apod_nasa_gov_apod

Nereus Crater on Mars
Credit: Mars Exploration Rover Mission, JPL, NASA; Image Processing: Kenneth Kremer

Explanation: It was along the way. The robotic rover Opportunity currently rolling across the Meridiani Plain on Mars has a destination of Endeavour Crater, a large crater over 20 kilometers across which may yield additional clues about the cryptic past of ancient Mars. Besides passing open fields of dark soil and light rock, Opportunity has chanced upon several interesting features. One such feature, pictured above in a digitally stitched and horizontally compressed panorama, is Nereus Crater, a small crater about 10 meters across that is surrounded by jagged rock. Besides Nereus, Opportunity recently also happened upon another unusual rock -- one that appears to be the third large meteorite found on Mars and the second for Opportunity during only this trip. Opportunity has been traveling toward Endeavour Crater for over a year now, and if it can avoid ridged rocks and soft sand along the way, it may reach Endeavour sometime next year.

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Saturday, October 17, 2009

Next APOD: 2009 October 18 - The Star Pillars of Sharpless 171

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APOD: 2009 October 18 - The Star Pillars of Sharpless 171

ap091018_html

The Star Pillars of Sharpless 171
Credit & Copyright: Nicolas Outters (Observatoire d'Orange)

Explanation: Towering pillars of cold gas and dark dust adorn the center star forming region of Sharpless 171. An open cluster of stars is forming there from the gas in cold molecular clouds. As energetic light emitted by young massive stars boils away the opaque dust, the region fragments and picturesque pillars of the remnant gas and dust form and slowly evaporate. The energetic light also illuminates the surrounding hydrogen gas, energize it to glow as a red emission nebula. Pictured above is the active central region of the Sharpless 171 greater emission nebula. Sharpless 171 incorporates NGC 7822 and the active region imaged above. The area above spans about 20 light years, lies about 3,000 light years away, and can be seen with a telescope toward the northern constellation of the King of Ethiopia (Cepheus).

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Friday, October 16, 2009

Next APOD: 2009 October 17 - Bright Nebulae in M33

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APOD: 2009 October 17 - Bright Nebulae in M33

ap091017_html

Bright Nebulae of M33
Credit & Copyright: Ken Crawford (Rancho Del Sol Observatory)

Explanation: Gorgeous spiral galaxy M33 seems to have more than its fair share of bright emission nebulae. In fact, narrow-band and broad-band image data are combined in this beautifully detailed composite to trace the reddish emission nebulae, star forming HII regions, sprawling along loose spiral arms that wind toward the galaxy's core. Historically of great interest to astronomers, M33's giant HII regions are some of the largest known stellar nurseries - sites of the formation of short-lived but very massive stars. Intense ultraviolet radiation from the luminous, massive stars ionizes the surrounding gas and ultimately produces the characteristic red glow. Spanning over 50,000 light-years and a prominent member of the local group of galaxies, M33 is also known as the Triangulum Galaxy. It lies about 3 million light-years distant.

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Thursday, October 15, 2009

Next APOD: 2009 October 16 - Herschel Views the Milky Way

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APOD: 2009 October 16 - Herschel Views the Milky Way

ap091016_html

Herschel Views the Milky Way
Credit: ESA, SPIRE & PACS Consortia

Explanation: With a 3.5 meter diameter mirror, larger than the Hubble Space Telescope, Herschel is ESA's new infrared observatory. The space-based telescope is named for German-born British astronomer Frederick William Herschel who discovered infrared light over 200 years ago. In initial tests, Herschel's cameras have combined to deliver this spectacular view along the plane of the Milky Way in the constellation of the Southern Cross. Spanning some 2 degrees the premier, false-color, far-infrared view captures our galaxy's cold dust clouds in extreme detail, showing a remarkable, connected maze of filaments and star-forming regions. These and planned future Herschel observations are intended to unravel mysteries of star formation by surveying broad areas of the galactic plane.

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Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Next APOD: 2009 October 14 - Pleiades and Stardust

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APOD: 2009 October 14 - Pleiades and Stardust

ap091014_html

Pleiades and Stardust
Credit & Copyright: Rogelio Bernal Andreo (Deep Sky Colors)

Explanation: Have you ever seen the Pleiades star cluster? Perhaps the most famous star cluster on the sky, the Pleiades can be seen without binoculars from even the depths of a light-polluted city. Also known as the Seven Sisters and M45, the Pleiades is one of the brightest and closest open clusters. Hurtling through a cosmic dust cloud a mere 400 light-years away, the Pleiades or Seven Sisters star cluster is well-known for its striking blue reflection nebulae. This remarkable wide-field (3 degree) image of the region shows the famous star cluster near the center, while highlighting lesser known dusty reflection nebulas nearby, across an area that would span over 20 light-years. In this case, the sister stars and cosmic dust clouds are not related, they just happen to be passing through the same region of space.

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Monday, October 12, 2009

Next APOD: 2009 October 13 - Giant Dust Ring Discovered Around Saturn

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APOD: 2009 October 13 - Giant Dust Ring Discovered Around Saturn

ap091013_html

Giant Dust Ring Discovered Around Saturn
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Virginia

Explanation: What has created a large dust ring around Saturn? At over 200 times the radius of Saturn and over 50 times the radius of Saturn's expansive E ring, the newly discovered dust ring is the largest planetary ring yet imaged. The ring was found in infrared light by the Earth-orbiting Spitzer Space Telescope. A leading hypothesis for its origin is impact material ejected from Saturn's moon Phoebe, which orbits right through the dust ring's middle. An additional possibility is that the dust ring supplies the mysterious material that coats part of Saturn's moon Iapetus, which orbits near the dust ring's inner edge. Pictured above in the inset, part of the dust ring appears as false-color orange in front of numerous background stars.

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Sunday, October 11, 2009

Next APOD: 2009 October 12 - Stars Over Easter Island

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APOD: 2009 October 12 - Stars Over Easter Island

ap091012_html

Stars Over Easter Island
Credit & Copyright: Stéphane Guisard (Los Cielos de Chile)

Explanation: Why were the statues on Easter Island built? No one is sure. What is sure is that over 800 large stone statues exist there. The Easter Island statues, stand, on the average, over twice as tall as a person and have over 200 times as much mass. Few specifics are known about the history or meaning of the unusual statues, but many believe that they were created about 500 years ago in the images of local leaders of a lost civilization. Pictured above, a large stone statue appears to ponder the distant Large Magellanic Cloud before a cloudy sky that features the bright stars Canopus and Sirius.

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Saturday, October 10, 2009

Next APOD: 2009 October 11 - Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh

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APOD: 2009 October 11 - Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh

ap091011_html

Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh
Credit: Vincent van Gogh; Digital image courtesy of Wikipedia

Explanation: The painting Starry Night is one of the most famous icons of the night sky ever created. The scene was painted by Vincent van Gogh in southern France in 1889. The swirling style of Starry Night appears, to many, to make the night sky come alive. Although van Gogh frequently portrayed real settings in his paintings, art historians do not agree on precisely what stars and planets are being depicted in Starry Night. The style of Starry Night is post-impressionism, a popular painting style at the end of the nineteenth century. The original Starry Night painting hangs in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, New York, USA.

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    Friday, October 9, 2009

    Next APOD: 2009 October 10 - LCROSS Centaur Impact Flash

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    APOD: 2009 October 10 - LCROSS Centaur Impact Flash [link]

    ap091010_html

    LCROSS Centaur Impact Flash
    Credit: NASA, LCROSS Mission Team

    Explanation: This mid-infrared image was taken in the last minutes of the LCROSS flight mission to the Moon. The small white spot (enlarged in the insets) seen within the dark shadow of lunar crater walls is the initial flash created by the impact of a spent Centaur upper stage rocket. Traveling at 1.5 miles per second, the Centaur rocket hit the lunar surface yesterday at 4:31am UT, followed a few minutes later by the shepherding LCROSS spacecraft. Earthbound observatories have reported capturing both impacts. But before crashing into the lunar surface itself, the LCROSS spacecraft's instrumentation successfully recorded close-up the details of the rocket stage impact, the resulting crater, and debris cloud. In the coming weeks, data from the challenging mission will be used to search for signs of water in the lunar material blasted from the surface.

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    Next APOD: 2009 October 9 - Starburst Galaxy IC 10

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    APOD: 2009 October 9 - Starburst Galaxy IC 10 [link]

     ap091009_html

    Starburst Galaxy IC 10
    Credit & Copyright: Mike Siniscalchi

    Explanation: Lurking behind dust and stars near the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy, IC 10 is a mere 2.3 million light-years distant. Its light dimmed by the intervening dust, the irregular dwarf galaxy still shows off vigorous star-forming regions that shine with a telltale reddish glow in this colorful skyscape. In fact, also a member of the Local Group of galaxies, IC 10 is the closest known starburst galaxy. Compared to other Local Group galaxies, IC 10 has a large population of newly formed stars that are massive and intrinsically very bright, including a luminous X-ray binary star system thought to contain a black hole. Located within the boundaries of the northern constellation Cassiopeia, IC 10 is about 5,000 light-years across.

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    Wednesday, October 7, 2009

    Next APOD: 2009 October 8 - Target Crater Cabeus

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    APOD: 2009 October 8 - Target Crater Cabeus [link]

    ap091008_html

    Target Crater Cabeus
    Image Credit: NMSU/MSFC Tortugas Observatory

    Explanation: About 100 kilometers from the Moon's South Pole, 100 kilometer wide crater Cabeus is the target for two LCROSS mission spacecraft on course to impact the Moon tomorrow. The shadowed crater is strongly foreshortened in this mosaic, a representative view of the region for earthbound telescopes. The impacts are intended to create billowing debris plumes extending into the sunlight above the crater walls, that could reveal signs of water. First to impact will be the mission's Centaur upper stage rocket at 11:30 UT (7:30am EDT). The instrumented LCROSS mothership will image the impact and then fly through the resulting debris plume analyzing the material blasted from the crater floor. Four minutes after the first impact, the LCROSS mothership itself will crash into Cabeus. The plumes are expected to be visible in telescopes about 10 inches in diameter or larger, with the timing favoring Moon watchers in western North America and the Pacific. NASA also plans to broadcast live footage from the LCROSS mission on NASA TV starting at 6:15am EDT / 3:15am PDT on October 9.

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    Tuesday, October 6, 2009

    Next APOD: APOD: 2009 October 7 - A Double Ringed Basin on Mercury

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    APOD: 2009 October 7 - A Double Ringed Basin on Mercury[link]

    ap091007_html

    A Double Ringed Basin on Mercury
    Credit: NASA/JHU APL/CIW

    Explanation: What created the internal second ring of this double ringed basin on Mercury? No one is sure. The unusual feature spans 160 kilometers and was imaged during the robotic MESSENGER spacecraft's swing past our Solar System's innermost planet last week. Double and multiple ringed basins, although rare, have also been imaged in years past on Mars, Venus, Earth, and Earth's Moon. Mercury itself has several doubles, including huge Caloris basin, Rembrandt basin, and enigmatic Raditladi basin. Most large circular features on planets and moons are caused initially by a forceful impact by a single asteroid or comet fragment. Since it is unlikely that a second impact would occur right in the center of the first, large double rings are usually attributed to a subsequent volcanic lava flow inside the impact crater. Possibly, though, a second ring could be caused by the melting and flowing of material upon impact. One clue to the origin of the above-imaged double ring is that the basin center appears much smoother than the region between the rings. MESSENGER has now completed its last flyby of Mercury but will return and attempt to enter orbit in 2011 March.

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    Monday, October 5, 2009

    APOD Next 2009 October 6 Astronomy Picture of the Day

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    APOD: 2009 October 6 - The Lagoon Nebula from GigaGalaxy Zoom [link]

    ap091006_html

    The Lagoon Nebula from GigaGalaxy Zoom
    Credit: ESO

    Explanation: The large majestic Lagoon Nebula is home for many young stars and hot gas. Spanning 100 light years across while lying only about 5000 light years distant, the Lagoon Nebulae is so big and bright that it can be seen without a telescope toward the constellation of Sagittarius. Many bright stars are visible from NGC 6530, an open cluster that formed in the nebula only several million years ago. The greater nebula, also known as M8 and NGC 6523, is named "Lagoon" for the band of dust seen to the left of the open cluster's center. A bright knot of gas and dust in the nebula's center is known as the Hourglass Nebula. The above picture is a newly released, digitally stitched panorama of M8 taken as part of the GigaGalaxy Zoom project by the Wide Field Imager attached to the MPG/ESO 2.2-meter Telescope at the La Silla Observatory in Chile. The vista spans three times the diameter of the Moon, while the highest resolution image version occupies over 350 million pixels. Star formation continues in the Lagoon Nebula as witnessed by the many globules that exist there.

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    Sunday, October 4, 2009

    APOD Next 2009 October 5 Astronomy Picture of the Day

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    Next APOD: 2009 October 5 - The International Space Station Over Earth [link]

    ap091005_html
    The International Space Station Over Earth
    Credit: STS-128 Crew, NASA
    Explanation: After undocking, the space shuttle Discovery crew got a memorable view of the developing International Space Station (ISS). Pictured orbiting high above Earth last month, numerous solar panels, trusses, and science modules of the ISS were visible. The Discovery crew brought mission specialist Nicole Stott to the ISS, and returned astronaut Timothy Kopra to Earth. Among the many mission and expedition accomplishments of the Discovery crew included delivering and placing the Fluids Integrated Rack and the Materials Science Research Rack in the Destiny module as well as the Minus Eighty Degree Laboratory Freezer in the Kibo module. Better known, however, was the delivery of the COLBERT treadmill for keeping astronauts fit. Over this past week the Soyuz TMA-16 spacecraft carrying three more astronauts docked with the ISS as Expedition 21 is set to begin. The next shuttle trip to the ISS is currently scheduled for 2009 November 12.
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