This Wonderful Universe ~ {ERG}

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Comet Between Fireworks and Lightning

Credit & Copyright: Antti Kemppainen

Explanation: Sometimes the sky itself is the best show in town. Last January, people from Perth, Australia gathered on a local beach to watch a sky light up with delights near and far. Nearby, fireworks exploded as part of Australia Day celebrations. On the far right, lightning from a thunderstorm flashed in the distance. Near the image center, though, seen through clouds, was the most unusual sight of all: Comet McNaught. The photogenic comet was so bright that it even remained visible though the din of Earthly flashes. Comet McNaught has now returned to the outer Solar System and is now only visible with a large telescope. The above image is actually a three photograph panorama digitally processed to reduce red reflections from the exploding firework.

Apollo 15's Home on the Moon

Credit: Apollo 15 Crew, NASA

Explanation: Could you ever call this place home? The lunar module shown above, named "Falcon," served as home for Apollo 15 astronauts David Scott and James Irwin during their stay on the Moon in July and August 1971. Meanwhile, astronaut Alfred Worden circled in the command module overhead. Harsh sunlight on the grey lunar surface lends the image an eerie quality, while the Lunar Apennine Mountains frame the background. Mount Hadley Delta is visible on the right. Visible in the foreground are tracks from the first Lunar Roving Vehicle, an electric car which enabled the astronauts to explore extended areas on the lunar surface. Apollo 15 confirmed that most lunar surface features were created by impacts. Rocks returned by the Apollo 15 crew included green glasses whose formation mechanism is still unclear.

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Apollo 17: VIP Site Anaglyph

Credit: Gene Cernan, Apollo 17, NASA; Anaglyph by Erik van Meijgaarden

Explanation: Get out your red/blue glasses and check out this stereo scene from Taurus-Littrow valley on the Moon! The color anaglyph features a detailed 3D view of Apollo 17's Lunar Rover in the foreground -- behind it lies the Lunar Module and distant lunar hills. Because the world was going to be able to watch the Lunar Module's ascent stage liftoff via the rover's TV camera, this parking place was also known as the VIP Site. In December of 1972, Apollo 17 astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt spent about 75 hours on the Moon, while colleague Ronald Evans orbited overhead. The crew returned with 110 kilograms of rock and soil samples, more than from any of the other lunar landing sites. Cernan and Schmitt are still the last to walk (or drive) on the Moon.

Sizzling Io

Credit: Galileo Project, JPL, NASA

Explanation: What's cooking on Io? This active moon of Jupiter is marked with volcanoes spewing lava that is now known to be hotter than any lava on Earth. Above is the highest resolution color-enhanced image yet composed of the most active surface in our Solar System. Features as small as three kilometers are visible. Sulfur compounds cause many of Io's unusual colors, while darker regions are probably composed of silicate rock.

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The Southern Cross in a Southern Sky

Credit & Copyright: Yuri Beletsky (ESO)

Explanation: This breathtaking patch of sky would be above you were you to stand at the South Pole of the Earth. On the upper left of this image are the four stars that mark the boundaries of the famous Southern Cross. At the top of this constellation, also known as The Crux, is the orange star Gamma Crucis. The band of stars, dust, and gas crossing the middle of the photograph is part our Milky Way Galaxy. Just below the Southern Cross on the far left is the dark Coal Sack Nebula, and the bright nebula on the far right is the Carina Nebula. The Southern Cross is such a famous constellation that it is depicted on the national flag of Australia.

M8: The Lagoon Nebula

Credit & Copyright: D. Malin (AAO), AATB, ROE, UKS Telescope

Explanation: The bright Lagoon Nebula is home to a diverse array of astronomical objects. Particularly interesting sources include a bright open cluster of stars and several energetic star-forming regions. The general red glow is caused by luminous hydrogen gas, while the dark filaments are caused by absorption by dense lanes of dust. The Lagoon Nebula, also known as M8 and NGC 6523, lies about 5000 light-years away. The Lagoon Nebula can be located with binoculars in the constellation of Sagittarius spanning a region over three times the diameter of a full Moon.

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In the Heart of the Virgo Cluster

Credit & Copyright: Günter Kerschhuber (Gahberg Observatory)

Explanation: The Virgo Cluster of Galaxies is the closest cluster of galaxies to our Milky Way Galaxy. The Virgo Cluster is so close that it spans more than 5 degrees on the sky - about 10 times the angle made by a full Moon. With its heart lying about 70 million light years distant, the Virgo Cluster is the nearest cluster of galaxies, contains over 2,000 galaxies, and has a noticeable gravitational pull on the galaxies of the Local Group of Galaxies surrounding our Milky Way Galaxy. The cluster contains not only galaxies filled with stars but also gas so hot it glows in X-rays. Motions of galaxies in and around clusters indicate that they contain more dark matter than any visible matter we can see. Pictured above, the heart of the Virgo Cluster includes bright Messier galaxies such as Markarian's Eyes on the upper left, M86 just to the upper right of center, M84 on the far right, as well as spiral galaxy NGC 4388 at the bottom right.

Mysterious Pluto and Charon

Credit: M. W. Buie (Lowell Observatory), D. J. Tholen (U. Hawaii), and K. Horne (St. Andrews)

Explanation: Pluto is the only planet in our Solar System remaining unphotographed by a passing spacecraft. Distant Pluto and its moon Charon therefore remain somewhat mysterious. In addition to direct imaging by the Hubble Space Telescope, careful tracking of brightness changes that occur as each object eclipses the other have allowed astronomers to build up the above black & white surface maps. These maps depict the face of Pluto (left) that always faces Charon, and the face of Charon that always faces away from Pluto. The rectangular pixels are an artifact of the mapping software. The Pluto-Kuiper Express mission is tentatively planned for launch in 2003 and should encounter Pluto around the year 2012.

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Planets and Fire by Moonlight

Credit & Copyright: Dmitrii Zagorodnov

Explanation: On July 5th, wandering planets, bright stars, and a young crescent Moon graced western skies after sunset. Arrayed along the solar system's ecliptic plane, the three celestial beacons forming this skyscape's eye-catching line-up with the Moon are Saturn (upper left), then Mars, and finally Regulus, alpha star of the constellation Leo. Of course planet Earth itself lies in the foreground, a scene dominated by the city lights of Santa Barbara, California. The smoky haze hanging over the city is from threatening wild fires still burning along the hill at the right. On Thursday evening, Saturn and Mars can be seen in a much closer pairing or conjunction, separated by only about 3/4 degree on the sky.

Hale-Bopp: The Crowd Pleaser Comet

Credit and Copyright: J. Orman

Explanation: In 1997, the bright comet Hale-Bopp may have become the most viewed comet in history -- visible even to casual skywatchers in light polluted cities around the globe. In this picture, taken by photographer Joe Orman on the evening of May 8, 1997, Hale-Bopp easily competes with near twilight skies and a shining, over-exposed, crescent moon above Mobile, Arizona, USA. Where is Hale-Bopp now? Still visible to telescopic observers in the Southern Hemisphere, the comet is outbound, presently about 537 million miles from the Sun. (Jupiter orbits at about 480 million miles.) The long lead time provided by the early discovery of Hale-Bopp has allowed extensive observing campaigns producing a bonanza of information about this primordial chunk of our Solar System.

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Enhanced Color Caloris

Image Credit: Courtesy of Science/AAAS

Explanation: The sprawling Caloris basin on Mercury is one of the solar system's largest impact basins. Created during the early history of the solar system by the impact of a large asteroid-sized body, the basin spans about 1,500 kilometers and is seen in yellowish hues in this enhanced color mosaic. The image data is from the January 14th flyby of the MESSENGER spacecraft, captured with the MDIS instrument. Orange splotches around the basin's perimeter are now thought to be volcanic vents, new evidence that Mercury's smooth plains are indeed lava flows. Other discoveries at Mercury by NASA's MESSENGER mission include evidence that Mercury, like planet Earth, has a global magnetic field generated by a dynamo process in its large core, and that Mercury's surface has contracted significantly as its core cooled.

NGC 1531/2: Interacting Galaxies

Credit: W. Keel, R. White III, and C. Conselice (University of Alabama)

Explanation: This dramatic image of an interacting pair of galaxies was made using the 1.5 meter telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory near La Serena, Chile. NGC 1531 is the background galaxy with a bright core just above center and NGC 1532 is the foreground spiral galaxy laced with dust lanes. The pair is about 70 million light-years away in the southern constellation Eridanus. These galaxies lie close enough together so that each feels the influence of the other's gravity. The gravitational tug-of-war has triggered star formation in the foreground spiral as evidenced by the young, bright blue star clusters along the edge of the front spiral arm. Though the spiral galaxy in this pair is viewed nearly edge-on, astronomers believe the system is similar to the face-on spiral and companion known as M51, the Whirlpool Galaxy.

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The Far 3kpc Arm

Illustration Credit: R. Hurt (SSC), JPL-Caltech, NASA

Explanation: A major discovery was lurking in the data. By accident, while preparing a talk on the Galaxy's spiral arms for a meeting of the American Astronomical Society, Tom Dame (Harvard-Smithsonian CfA) found it - a new spiral arm in the Milky Way. The arm is labeled in this illustration as the Far 3kpc Arm, located at a distance of 3 kpc (kiloparsecs) or about 10,000 light-years from the galactic center, on the opposite side from the Sun. Along with the Near 3kpc Arm whose presence was known since the mid 1950s, the counterpart inner arms now establish that the galaxy has a simple symmetry. The arms are defined by shocked interstellar gas flowing along both sides of the Milky Way's central bar. Dame and his collaborator Patrick Thaddeus recorded the presence of both inner spiral arms in their radio data tracking emission from carbon monoxide molecules along the galactic plane. How much star formation goes on in the counterpart arms? Despite this depiction of stars and star forming regions along the arms, the last attempt to search for star formation in the Near 3kpc Arm was in 1980 and didn't turn up any. The discovery of the Far 3kpc Arm has renewed interest in this and other questions about the center of the Milky Way.

M64: The Sleeping Beauty Galaxy

Credit: W. Keel and A. Zasov (University of Alabama)

Explanation: The Sleeping Beauty galaxy may appear peaceful at first sight but it is actually tossing and turning. In an unexpected twist, recent observations have shown that the center of this photogenic galaxy is rotating in the opposite direction than the outer regions! Stranger still - there is a middle region where the stars rotate in the opposite direction from the surrounding dust and gas. The fascinating internal motions of M64, also cataloged as NGC 4826, are thought to be the result of a collision between a small galaxy and a large galaxy where the resultant mix has not yet settled down.

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NGC 7331 and Beyond

Credit & Copyright: Don Goldman, Sierra Remote Observatories

Explanation: Big, beautiful spiral galaxy NGC 7331 is often touted as an analog to our own Milky Way. About 50 million light-years distant in the northern constellation Pegasus, NGC 7331 was recognized early on as a spiral nebula and is actually one of the brighter galaxies not included in Charles Messier's famous 18th century catalog. Since the galaxy's disk is inclined to our line-of-sight, long telescopic exposures often result in an image that evokes a strong sense of depth. The effect is further enhanced in this well-framed view by the galaxies that lie beyond this gorgeous island universe. The background galaxies are about one tenth the apparent size of NGC 7331 and so lie roughly ten times farther away. Their strikingly close alignment on the sky with NGC 7331 occurs just by chance. The visual grouping of galaxies is also known as the Deer Lick Group.

Asteroid Gaspra's Best Face

Credit: The Galileo Project, NASA

Explanation: Asteroid 951 Gaspra is a huge rock tumbling in space. Gaspra became one of the best-studied asteroids in 1991 when the spacecraft Galileo flew by. In the above photograph, subtle color variations have been exaggerated to highlight changes in reflectivity, surface structure and composition. Gaspra is about 20 kilometers long and orbits the Sun in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

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A Dark Sky Over Death Valley

Credit: Dan Duriscoe, U.S. National Park Service

Explanation: This eerie glow over Death Valley is in danger. Scrolling right will show a spectacular view from one of the darkest places left in the continental USA: Death Valley, California. The above 360-degree full-sky panorama is a composite of 30 images taken two years ago in Racetrack Playa. The image has been digitally processed and increasingly stretched at high altitudes to make it rectangular. In the foreground on the image right is an unusually placed rock that was pushed by high winds onto Racetrack Playa after a slick rain. In the background is a majestic night sky, featuring thousands of stars and many constellations. The arch across the middle is the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy. Light pollution is threatening dark skies like this all across the US and the world, and therefore the International Dark-Sky Association and the US National Parks Service are suggesting methods that can protect them.

GRB 980703: A Reassuring Redshift

Credit: S. G. Djorgovski, S. R. Kulkarni, (Caltech) et al., Keck Observatory

Explanation: In the old days, just over a year ago, astronomers had little idea of the true distance to gamma-ray bursts. Did these enigmatic explosions occur in our outer Galaxy, or in the outer Universe? Last May, a first telling distance measure was made - GRB 970508 showed an absorption line with a redshift of about 0.8 - indicating that this gamma-ray burst (GRB) was an enormous distance away. Skeptics, however, are not always convinced by an unrepeated measurement. Since then, though, other tantalizing coincidences have occurred: GRB 971214 occurred unusually near a galaxy with the enormous redshift of 3.4, and GRB 980425 occurred unusually near a peculiar low-redshift supernova. Skeptics were intrigued. Now, the potentially definitive implications of the above-pictured optical transient might impress even the cautious. GRB 980703's optical transient shows a well-measured redshift from both an absorption line and an emission line: 0.97. The above negative highlights the uncommon transient source with the label "OT", while letters designate common comparison stars.

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Changes in Angular Mars

Credit & Copyright: Richard Bosman

Explanation: Does Mars always appear the same? No. As both Earth and Mars orbit the Sun, the apparent angular size of Mars changes as viewed from the Earth. Pictured above from Enschede, Holland, Mars was captured in 2007 and 2008 with 30 separate images, all taken with the same magnification. When Earth and Mars are on opposite sides of the Sun, Mars appears relatively small. Conversely, when Earth and Mars are near each other, Mars looms large and bright. The largest Mars has appeared in recent history was the opposition of August 2003. Since Mars is always more distant from the Earth from the Sun, Mars never shows a crescent phase to Earthlings. Visible also in the above images are the north polar cap of Mars, dark and light soil, clouds, and, in the early images, a global dust storm. The next opposition, when Earth again passes near to Mars, will occur in early 2010.

At Work on Mars

Credit: IMP Team, JPL, NASA

Explanation: To learn about the history ofMars, just ask the rocks. Last year, that's exactly what the robot rover Sojourner did. Sojouner can be seen, above, analyzing a rock nicknamed Moe, trying to discern its past. One significant discovery of the Mars Pathfinder mission was that of conglomerate rocks, indicating the presence of running water in the past. Such water, in turn, indicates that Mars was much more like watery Earth in the distant past. Visible in the foreground of this color-enhanced mosaic is part of the Sagan Memorial Station, while a hill nicknamed one of the "Twin Peaks" is visible about a kilometer in the distance.

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Gas and Dust of the Lagoon Nebula

Credit & Copyright: Fred Vanderhaven

Explanation: This beautiful cosmic cloud is a popular stop on telescopic tours of the constellation Sagittarius. Eighteenth century cosmic tourist Charles Messier cataloged the bright nebula as M8, while modern day astronomers recognize the Lagoon Nebula as an active stellar nursery about 5,000 light-years distant, in the direction of the center of our Milky Way Galaxy. Striking details can be traced through this remarkable picture, processed to remove stars and hence better reveal the Lagoon's range of filaments of glowing hydrogen gas, dark dust clouds, and the bright, turbulent hourglass region near the image center. This color composite view was recorded under dark skies near Sydney, Australia. At the Lagoon's estimated distance, the picture spans about 50 light-years.

Ghost Galaxy NGC 2915

Credit: G. R. Meurer (Johns Hopkins U.), C. Carignan (U. Montreal), S. Beaulieu and K. Freeman (MSSSO), Radio Image: ATCA, Optical Image: AAT

Explanation: How do you find a nearly invisible galaxy? Pictured above is the blue compact dwarf (BCD) galaxy NGC 2915. In visible light, shown above in yellow, this galaxy appears to be a normal dwarf galaxy, as indicated by the yellow smudge in the image center. Yet when imaged in a very specific color, shown in blue, a whole spiral galaxy appears. This specific color is in the radio band and is preferentially emitted by neutral hydrogen atoms. Much about BCD galaxies remains mysterious, such as how the neutral hydrogen obtained its shape, what drives current star formation, and why there is so much dark matter. NGC 2915 is located at the relatively nearby distance of 15 million light-years - just outside our Local Group of Galaxies.

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Makemake of the Outer Solar System

Credit: R. Hurt (SSC-Caltech), JPL-Caltech, NASA

Explanation: Recently discovered Makemake is one of the largest objects known in the outer Solar System. Pronounced MAH-kay MAH-kay, this Kuiper belt object is only slightly smaller than Pluto, orbits the Sun only slightly further out than Pluto, and appears only slightly dimmer than Pluto. Makemake, however, has an orbit much more tilted to the ecliptic plane of the planets than Pluto. Designated 2005 FY9 soon after its discovery by a team led by Mike Brown (Caltech) in 2005, the outer Solar System orb was recently renamed Makemake for the creator of humanity in the Rapa Nui mythology of Easter Island. Additionally, Makemake has been recently classified as a dwarf planet under the new subcategory plutoid, making Makemake the third cataloged plutoid after Pluto and Eris. Makemake is known to be a world somewhat red in appearance, with spectra indicating it is likely covered with frozen methane. Since no images of Makemake's surface yet exist, an artist's illustration originally meant to depict Sedna has been boldly co-opted above to now illustrate Makemake. A hypothetical moon is visualized above nearly in the direction of our distant Sun.

X-Ray Triple Jet

Credit: ISAS, Yohkoh Project, SXT Group

Explanation: Recorded on July 7, this animation using X-ray images of the Sun shows an amazing event - three nearly simultaneous jets connected with solar active regions. The two frames were taken several hours apart by the Soft X-ray Telescope on board the orbiting Yohkoh observatory. They have a "negative" color scheme, the darker colors representing more intense X-rays from the corona and active regions on the solar surface. The pictures clearly show two curving jets of X-ray hot plasma appearing above the solar equator and one below. A sharp vertical stripe near the jet above center is a digital blemish while the overall shift of the image is due to solar rotation. As the Sun is now approaching the active part of its 11 year cycle, similar single jets are seen every week or so. But the appearance of these three widely separated jets at once is considered an unlikely coincidence and is fueling current speculations about their origins.

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Extra Galaxies

Credit & Copyright: Dietmar Hager

Explanation: (xxxedit and linkxxx) A careful look at the full field of view for this sharp image reveals a surprising number of galaxies both near and far toward the constellation Ursa Major. The most striking is clearly NGC 3718, the warped spiral galaxy right of center. NGC 3718's faint spiral arms look twisted and extended, its bright central region crossed by obscuring dust lanes. A mere 150 thousand light-years to the left is another large spiral galaxy, NGC 3729. The two are likely interacting gravitationally, accounting for the peculiar appearance of NGC 3718. While this galaxy pair lies about 52 million light-years away, the remarkable Hickson Group 56 can also be seen clustered just below NGC 3718. Hickson Group 56 consists of five interacting galaxies and lies over 400 million light-years away.

Hyakutake: Stars Through A Comet's Tail

Credit and Copyright: R. Scott and J. Orman

Explanation: Comets are cosmic icebergs. They follow very elongated orbits which carry them from the frozen, remote outer reaches of the Solar System to close encounters with the Sun. Heated by sunlight, they slough off layers of material as gas and dust, forming their characteristic awe-inspiring comas (heads) and tails. In the spring of 1996, Comet Hyakutake inspired Arizona photographers Rick Scott and Joe Orman to take this picture showing faint stars near the constellation Ursa Minor (the Little Dipper) shining through the comet's long, graceful tail. Blown by the solar wind, comet tails generally point away from the Sun.

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Jupiter over Ephesus

Credit & Copyright: Tunç Tezel (TWAN)

Explanation: A brilliant Jupiter shares the sky with the Full Moon tonight. Since Jupiter is near opposition, literally opposite the Sun in planet Earth's sky, Jupiter will rise near sunset just like the Full Moon. Of course, opposition is also the point of closest approach, with Jupiter shining at its brightest and offering the best views for skygazers. Recorded late last month, this moving skyscape features Jupiter above the southeastern horizon and the marbled streets of the ancient port city of Ephesus, located in modern day Turkey. At the left is a temple dedicated to the Roman emperor Hadrian. The beautiful night sky also includes the arc of the northern summer Milky Way. Lights on the horizon are from the nearby town of Selçuk

Rockets and Robert Goddard

Credit: Esther Goddard, Courtesy NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center PAO

Explanation: Robert H. Goddard, one of the founding fathers of modern rocketry, was born in Worcester Massachusetts in 1882. As a 16 year old, Goddard read H.G. Wells' science fiction classic "War Of The Worlds" and dreamed of spaceflight. By 1926 he had designed, built, and launched the world's first liquid fuel rocket. During his career he was ridiculed by the press for suggesting that rockets could be flown to the Moon, but he kept up his experiments in rocketry supported in part by the Smithsonian Institution and championed by Charles Lindbergh. Pictured above in 1937 in the desert near Roswell, New Mexico, Goddard examines a nose cone and parachute from one of his test rockets. Widely recognized as a gifted experimenter and engineering genius, his rockets were many years ahead of their time. He died in 1945 holding over 200 patents in rocket technology. A liquid fuel rocket constructed on principles developed by Goddard landed humans on the Moon in 1969.

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M16 and the Eagle Nebula

Credit & Copyright: Johannes Schedler (Panther Observatory)

Explanation: Young star cluster M16 is surrounded by natal clouds of cosmic dust and glowing gas also known as The Eagle Nebula. This beautifully detailed image of the region includes fantastic shapes made famous in well-known Hubble Space Telescope close-ups of the starforming complex. Described as elephant trunks or Pillars of Creation, dense, dusty columns rising near the center are light-years in length but are gravitationally contracting to form stars. Energetic radiation from the cluster stars erodes material near the tips, eventually exposing the embedded new stars. Extending from the upper left edge of the nebula is another dusty starforming column known as the Fairy of Eagle Nebula. M16 and the Eagle Nebula lie about 7,000 light-years away, an easy target for binoculars or small telescopes in a nebula rich part of the sky toward the split constellation Serpens Cauda (the tail of the snake).

Globular Cluster M3

Credit & Copyright: P. Challis (CfA), 1.2-m Telescope, Whipple Observatory

Explanation: This huge ball of stars predates our Sun. Long before mankind evolved, before dinosaurs roamed, and even before our Earth existed, ancient globs of stars condensed and orbited a young Milky Way Galaxy. Of the 250 or so globular clusters that survive today, M3 is one of the largest and brightest, easily visible in the Northern hemisphere with binoculars. M3 contains about half a million stars, most of which are old and red. The existence of young blue stars in M3 once posed a mystery, but these blue stragglers are now thought to form via stellar interactions.