This intergalactic skyscape features a peculiar system of galaxies cataloged as Arp 227 some 100 million light-years distant. Swimming within the boundaries of the constellation Pisces, Arp 227 consists of the two galaxies prominent right of center, the curious shell galaxy NGC 474 and its blue, spiral-armed neighbor NGC 470. The faint, wide arcs or shells of NGC 474 could have been formed by a gravitational encounter with neighbor NGC 470. Alternately the shells could be caused by a merger with a smaller galaxy producing an effect analogous to ripples across the surface of a pond. The large galaxy on the top lefthand side of the deep image, NGC 467, appears to be surrounded by faint shells too, evidence of another interacting galaxy system. Intriguing background galaxies are scattered around the field that also includes spiky foreground stars. Of course, those stars lie well within our own Milky Way Galaxy. The field of view spans 25 arc minutes or about 1/2 degree on the sky. [Roughly the angular size of the moon.]
Hundreds of astronomers warn Elon Musk's Starlink satellites could limit scientific discoveries
SpaceX plans to launch thousands of satellites as part of its Starlink space internet project
Hundreds of astronomers have warned that satellite constellations like Elon Musk‘s Starlink network could prove “extremely impactful” to astronomy and scientific progress.
A report by the Satellite Constellations 1 (Satcon1) workshop found that that constellations of bright satellites will fundamentally change ground-based optical and infrared astronomy and could impact the appearance of the night’s sky for stargazers around the world.
The research brought together more than 250 astronomers, satellite operators and dark-sky advocates to better understand the astronomical impact of large satellite constellations.
“We find that the worst-case constellation designs prove extremely impactful to the most severely affected science programs,” stated the report, which was published on Tuesday.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX plans to launch more than 30,000 Starlink satellites in order to beam high-speed internet down to Earth. The report warned that “Starlink alone may roughly double the number of space-based moving objects detectable by the unaided eye around twilight.”
Options to reduce the impact include “darken them”, “keep them low”, “orient them to reflect less sunlight”, but number one on the list was “don’t launch them”.
All right, hang on, you sure this ain't JW propaganda?
Short story... A glory sunset clouds, sun rays, guy riding a bicycle. He dropped to his knees in what I assume to be prayer.
Truth be told it was kinda awe inspiring
... The stars were suns, but so far away they were just little points of light ... The scale of the universe suddenly opened up to me. It was a kind of religious experience. There was a magnificence to it, a grandeur, a scale which has never left me. Never ever left me.
Carl Sagan
I've always thought that looked like two guys holding their dicks together and a little dog getting in on the action.
... The stars were suns, but so far away they were just little points of light ... The scale of the universe suddenly opened up to me. It was a kind of religious experience. There was a magnificence to it, a grandeur, a scale which has never left me. Never ever left me.
Carl Sagan
Fid wrote: ↑Sun Sep 13, 2020 1:22 am
I've always thought that looked like two guys holding their dicks together and a little dog getting in on the action.
Thanks. Now I can't unsee it.
A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.
William Shakespeare
I apologize for lowering the tone of this august thread to Shemp level.
mine's on the right with the little dog
... The stars were suns, but so far away they were just little points of light ... The scale of the universe suddenly opened up to me. It was a kind of religious experience. There was a magnificence to it, a grandeur, a scale which has never left me. Never ever left me.
Carl Sagan
sparks wrote: ↑Mon Sep 21, 2020 1:58 am
What are the two white blobs top and bottom?
Other galaxies. Much farther away. The Andromeda galaxy is one of the relatively close ones. In fact, other than some dwarf galaxies, I think it's the closest large galaxy.
A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.
William Shakespeare
sparks wrote: ↑Mon Sep 21, 2020 1:58 am
What are the two white blobs top and bottom?
Other galaxies. Much farther away. The Andromeda galaxy is one of the relatively close ones. In fact, other than some dwarf galaxies, I think it's the closest large galaxy.
Not "much farther away": these are satellite galaxies of M31/Andromeda.
Wikipedia wrote:The Andromeda Galaxy (M31) has satellite galaxies just like the Milky Way. Orbiting M31 are at least 13 dwarf galaxies: the brightest and largest is M110, which can be seen with a basic telescope. The second-brightest and closest one to M31 is M32. The other galaxies are fainter, and were mostly discovered only starting from the 1970s.
The Andromeda Galaxy with M110 at upper left and M32 to the right of the core.
Anaxagoras wrote: ↑Mon Sep 21, 2020 2:53 am
Not "much farther away": these are satellite galaxies of M31/Andromeda.
Oh dear, it seems I have spoken ignorantly.
I mistakenly thought they were large elliptical galaxies but far away. I should have checked.
I think they are elliptical, but small ones.
You're forgiven. None of us knows everything, do we?
Shit happens. The older you get, the more often shit happens. So you have to try not to give a shit even when you do. Because, if you give too many shits, you've created your own shit creek and there's no way out other than swimming through the shit. Oh, and fuck.
Photographic stack of the lunar phases obtained every day at the same time, plus 51 minutes of offset to compensate the Earth's translation, in a total period of 29.5 days, carried out at a distance of 8 kilometers from Toledo. This peculiar shape is due to the synodic curve formed by the inclined and elliptical orbit of our satellite, whose aspect changes gradually each lunar cycle.
Due to adverse weather conditions, some of these photos could not be taken during the same period as the rest, so they were obtained from a previous lunar cycle, and to achieve the position at the same time, several of them were taken during the day for what they were digitally treated to give them a nocturnal appearance. Also indicate that, to adapt it to the landscape, the relative dimensions of the complete analema have been reduced proportionally, but maintaining the aspect and the real size of the Moon in relation to the city, as observed at that distance.
Anaxagoras wrote: ↑Mon Sep 21, 2020 2:53 am
Not "much farther away": these are satellite galaxies of M31/Andromeda.
Oh dear, it seems I have spoken ignorantly.
I mistakenly thought they were large elliptical galaxies but far away. I should have checked.
I think they are elliptical, but small ones.
You're forgiven. None of us knows everything, do we?
Speak for yourself.
"It is not I who is mad! It is I who is crazy!" -- Ren Hoek
"what dicking deep shit i produce" -- pillory
Freedom of choice
Is what you got
Freedom from choice
Is what you want
People are shitting themselves to death
Crap so much they fail to take a breath
But even when their kids are starvin'
They thought Trump would throw them Charmin.
The first-ever image of a black hole is now a movie
Pictures created from old observations show the void’s stormy evolution over the past decade.
The historic first image of a black hole unveiled last year has now been turned into a movie. The short sequence of frames shows how the appearance of the black hole’s surroundings changes over years as its gravity stirs the material around it into a constant maelstrom.
The images show a lopsided blob of light swirling around the supermassive black hole at the centre of the galaxy M87. To create them, the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration — which harnesses a planet-wide network of observatories — exhumed old data on the black hole and combined these with a mathematical model based on the image released in April 2019, to show how the surroundings have evolved over eight years. Although it relies partly on guesswork, the result gives astronomers rich insights into the behaviour of black holes, the intense gravity of which sucks in matter and light around them.
“Because the flow of matter falling onto a black hole is turbulent, we can see that the ring wobbles with time,” says lead author Maciek Wielgus, a radio astronomer at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Looks to be a double header. You know me too well sir.
... The stars were suns, but so far away they were just little points of light ... The scale of the universe suddenly opened up to me. It was a kind of religious experience. There was a magnificence to it, a grandeur, a scale which has never left me. Never ever left me.
Carl Sagan
... The stars were suns, but so far away they were just little points of light ... The scale of the universe suddenly opened up to me. It was a kind of religious experience. There was a magnificence to it, a grandeur, a scale which has never left me. Never ever left me.
Carl Sagan
One of our Solar System's most tantalizing worlds, icy Saturnian moon Enceladus appears in these detailed hemisphere views from the Cassini spacecraft. In false color, the five panels present 13 years of infrared image data from Cassini's Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer and Imaging Science Subsystem. Fresh ice is colored red, and the most dramatic features look like long gashes in the 500 kilometer diameter moon's south polar region. They correspond to the location of tiger stripes, surface fractures that likely connect to an ocean beneath the Enceladus ice shell. The fractures are the source of the moon's icy plumes that continuously spew into space. The plumes were discovered by by Cassini in 2005. Now, reddish hues in the northern half of the leading hemisphere view also indicate a recent resurfacing of other regions of the geologically active moon, a world that may hold conditions suitable for life.
At some point these enlarged, throbbing, pulsating fountains of salty water will...
will...
ahem...
astronomy...Mars is at opposition.
... The stars were suns, but so far away they were just little points of light ... The scale of the universe suddenly opened up to me. It was a kind of religious experience. There was a magnificence to it, a grandeur, a scale which has never left me. Never ever left me.
Carl Sagan