Etiqueta: #rs

Periodic comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 has broken up at least twice. A cosmic souffle of ice and dust left over from the early solar system, this comet was first seen to split into several large pieces during the close-in part of its orbit in 1995. However, in the 2006 passage, it disintegrated into dozens of fragments that stretched several degrees across the sky. Since comets are relatively fragile, stresses from heat, gravity and outgassing, for example, could be responsible for their tendency to break up in such a spectacular fashion when they near the hot Sun. The Hubble Space Telescope recorded, in 2006, the featured sharp view of prolific Fragment B, itself trailing a multitude of smaller pieces, each with its own cometary coma and tail. The picture spans over 3,000 kilometers at the comet’s distance of 32 million kilometers from planet Earth. [via NASA] https://ift.tt/c7xUZYC

These cosmic clouds have blossomed 1,300 light-years away in the fertile starfields of the constellation Cepheus. Called the Iris Nebula, NGC 7023 is not the only nebula to evoke the imagery of flowers. Still, this deep telescopic image shows off the Iris Nebula’s range of colors and symmetries embedded in surrounding fields of interstellar dust. Within the Iris itself, dusty nebular material surrounds a hot, young star. The dominant color of the brighter reflection nebula is blue, characteristic of dust grains reflecting starlight. Central filaments of the reflection nebula glow with a faint reddish photoluminescence as some dust grains effectively convert the star’s invisible ultraviolet radiation to visible red light. Infrared observations indicate that this nebula contains complex carbon molecules known as PAHs. The dusty blue petals of the Iris Nebula span about six light-years. [via NASA] https://ift.tt/504SuhW

In 1716, English astronomer Edmond Halley noted, «This is but a little Patch, but it shows itself to the naked Eye, when the Sky is serene and the Moon absent.» Of course, M13 is now less modestly recognized as the Great Globular Cluster in Hercules, one of the brightest globular star clusters in the northern sky. Sharp telescopic views like this one reveal the spectacular cluster’s hundreds of thousands of stars. At a distance of 25,000 light-years, the cluster stars crowd into a region 150 light-years in diameter. Approaching the cluster core, upwards of 100 stars could be contained in a cube just 3 light-years on a side. For comparison, the closest star to the Sun is over 4 light-years away. The remarkable range of brightness recorded in this image follows stars into the dense cluster core. [via NASA] https://ift.tt/kUfoS9V

Not the James Webb Space Telescope’s latest view of a distant galactic nebula, this illuminated cloud of gas and dust dazzled early morning spacecoast skygazers on August 26. The snapshot was taken about 2 minutes after the launch of of a Falcon 9 rocket on the SpaceX Crew-7 mission, the seventh commercial crew rotation mission for the International Space Station. It captures drifting plumes and exhaust from the separated first and second stage illuminated against the still dark skies. Near the center of the image, within the ragged blueish ring, are two bright points of light. The lower one is the second stage of the rocket carrying 4 humans to space in a Crew Dragon spacecraft. The bright point above is the Falcon 9 first stage booster orienting itself for the trip back to Landing Zone-1 at Cape Canaveral, planet Earth. [via NASA] https://ift.tt/hvC8fH3

Near perigee, the closest point in its almost moonthly orbit, a Full Moon rose as the Sun set on August 1. Its brighter than average lunar disk was captured in this dramatic moonrise sequence over dense cloud banks along the eastern horizon from Ragusa, Sicily. Illuminating night skies around planet Earth it was the second supermoon of 2023. Yet again near perigee, the third supermoon of 2023 will also shine on an August night. Rising as the Sun sets tonight this second Full Moon in August will be known to some as a Blue Moon, even though scattered sunlight gives the lunar disk a reddened hue. Defined as the second full moon in a calendar month, blue moons occur only once every 2 or 3 years. That’s because lunar phases take 29.5 days, almost a calendar month, to go through a complete cycle. Tonight an August Blue Moon will find itself beside bright planet Saturn. [via NASA] https://ift.tt/bPu2Yoy

Why isn’t spiral galaxy M66 symmetric? Usually, density waves of gas, dust, and newly formed stars circle a spiral galaxy’s center and create a nearly symmetric galaxy. The differences between M66’s spiral arms and the apparent displacement of its nucleus are all likely caused by previous close interactions and the tidal gravitational pulls of nearby galaxy neighbors M65 and NGC 3628. The galaxy, featured here in infrared light taken by the James Webb Space Telescope, spans about 100,000 light years, lies about 35 million light years distant, and is the largest galaxy in a group known as the Leo Triplet. Like many spiral galaxies, the long and intricate dust lanes of M66 are seen intertwined with the bright stars and intergalactic dust that follow the spiral arms. [via NASA] https://ift.tt/fCZsiNx

Ringed planet Saturn will be at its 2023 opposition, opposite the Sun in Earth’s skies, on August 27. While that puts the sixth planet from the Sun at its brightest and well-placed for viewing, its beautiful ring system isn’t visible to the unaided eye. Still, this sequence of telescopic images taken a year apart over the last six years follows both Saturn and rings as seen from inner planet Earth. The gas giant’s ring plane tilts from most open in 2018 to approaching edge-on in 2023 (top to bottom). That’s summer to nearly the autumn equinox for Saturn’s northern hemisphere. In the sharp planetary portraits, Saturn’s northern hexagon and a large storm system are clearly visible in 2018. In 2023, ice moon Tethys is transiting, casting its shadow across southern hemisphere cloud bands, while Saturn’s cold blue south pole is emerging from almost a decade of winter darkness. [via NASA] https://ift.tt/xm2JVl9

Under dark and mostly moonless night skies, many denizens of planet Earth were able to watch this year’s Perseid meteor shower. Seen from a grassy hillside from Shiraz, Iran these Perseid meteors streak along the northern summer Milky Way before dawn on Sunday, August 13. Frames used to construct the composited image were captured near the active annual meteor shower’s peak between 02:00 AM and 04:30 AM local time. Not in this night skyscape, the shower’s radiant in the heroic constellation Perseus is far above the camera’s field of view. But fans of northern summer nights can still spot a familiar asterism. Formed by bright stars Deneb, Vega, and Altair, the Summer Triangle spans the luminous band of the Milky Way. [via NASA] https://ift.tt/5mAQLZj

It came from outer space. It — in this case a sand-sized bit of a comet nucleus — was likely ejected many years ago from Sun-orbiting Comet Swift-Tuttle, but then continued to orbit the Sun alone. When the Earth crossed through this orbit, the piece of comet debris impacted the atmosphere of our fair planet and was seen as a meteor. This meteor deteriorated, causing gases to be emitted that glowed in colors emitted by its component elements. The featured image was taken last week from Castilla La Mancha, Spain, during the peak night of the Perseids meteor shower. The picturesque meteor streak happened to appear in the only one of 50 frames that also included the Andromeda galaxy. Stars dot the frame, each much further away than the meteor. Compared to the stars, the Andromeda galaxy (M31) is, again, much further away. [via NASA] https://ift.tt/PxFZQYS

This nebula had never been noted before. Newly discovered nebulas are usually angularly small and found by professionals using large telescopes. In contrast, the Pistachio Nebula was discovered by dedicated amateurs and, although faint, is nearly the size of the full Moon. In modern times, amateurs with even small telescopes can create long exposures over sky areas much larger than most professional telescopes can see. They can therefore discover both previously unknown areas of extended emission around known objects, as well as entirely unknown objects, like nebulas. The pictured Pistachio Nebula is shown in oxygen emission (blue) and hydrogen emission (red). The nature of the hot central star is currently unknown, and the nebula might be labeled a planetary nebula if it turns out to be a white dwarf star. The featured image is a composite of over 70 hours of exposure taken in early June under the dark skies of Namibia. [via NASA] https://ift.tt/92dCGR5