Cool astronomy photos

[Witness]

Orion with Barnard's loop:


Source: https://old.reddit.com/r/Astronomy/comm ... _portrait/

The map, for the names:


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_(constellation)

[Fid]

Way long years ago while snuggling with my dad he pointed out M42. Son, he said that's Orion's balls. I was too young to get the reference but to this day Orion and Canis Major still brings a tear.

[Anaxagoras]

Some sad news to report:

The end is near for famed Arecibo Observatory's damaged telescope

Actually the end seems to have arrived already. All that remains is to demolish the remaining structure and salvage whatever parts may be salvagable.

(CNN)After decades of aiding astronomical discoveries, one of the most powerful telescopes on Earth will cease its observation of the universe after sustaining irreparable damage.
The 305-meter telescope at Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico will be decommissioned, according to an announcement made by the US National Science Foundation on Thursday.
The spherical radio/radar telescope includes a radio dish 1,000 feet across and a 900-ton instrument platform suspended 450 feet above it. Cables connected to three towers hold the telescope in place.

This photo shows damage caused to Arecibo Observatory in August.

An auxiliary cable came loose from a socket on one of the towers in August, creating a 100-foot gash in the dish. Engineers were assessing and working on a plan to repair the damage when another main cable on the tower broke on November 6.
When it broke, the cable crashed into the reflector dish below, causing additional damage.
After the break on November 6, engineers inspected the rest of the cables and discovered new breaks as well as slippage from some of the sockets on the towers. Multiple engineering companies reviewed the damage. They determined that the telescope could collapse because it is "in danger of catastrophic failure" and the cables are weaker than expected.
Even if engineers could safely fix all the damage and add cables to support the telescope, it would likely have stability issues in the future.
The latest review revealed that damage to the telescope could not be stabilized without risking staff and the construction team. This led to the NSF making the decision to decommission the telescope after 57 years.

"NSF prioritizes the safety of workers, Arecibo Observatory's staff and visitors, which makes this decision necessary, although unfortunate," said NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan in a statement.
"For nearly six decades, the Arecibo Observatory has served as a beacon for breakthrough science and what a partnership with a community can look like. While this is a profound change, we will be looking for ways to assist the scientific community and maintain that strong relationship with the people of Puerto Rico."
While no direct cause for the breaks has been identified, corrosion is suspected as the main issue. The observatory has withstood hurricanes, earthquakes and tropical storms over the years.
The observatory, which was featured in the James Bond film "GoldenEye," was completed in 1963 and has been helmed by the NSF since 1970. It is operated and managed by a team at the University of Central Florida, the Universidad Ana G. Méndez and Yang Enterprises Inc.

The telescope has supported and contributed to important discoveries in radio astronomy as well as planetary and solar system research, including gravitational waves.
The Arecibo telescope played a key role in discovering the first planet outside our solar system and has helped astronomers identify potentially hazardous asteroids en route to Earth.
"Until these assessments came in, our question was not if the observatory should be repaired but how. But in the end, a preponderance of data showed that we simply could not do this safely. And that is a line we cannot cross," said Ralph Gaume, director of NSF's Division of Astronomical Sciences, in a statement.

A legacy of discoveries
Over the years, Arecibo Observatory has revealed new details about our planet's ionosphere, the solar system and worlds beyond it.
Observations made by the telescope helped discover the first binary pulsar in 1974 (which led to the 1993 Nobel Prize in physics), supported NASA's Viking mission, produced the first radar maps of Venus' surface and spotted the first exoplanet in 1992.

It had a good run. Perhaps a newer radio telescope will replace it someday.

[Witness]

↑ Now that Arecibo is out:

China has finished building the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST), the world’s largest single-aperture telescope

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five-hu ... _Telescope
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-11-06/C ... index.html

[Anaxagoras]

One capability that Arecibo had which the Chinese dish lacks, at least currently, is radar transmitters which were useful for determining the orbits of near-earth asteroids. Scott Manley mentioned this in a Youtube video:



The importance of determining the orbits of near-earth asteroids is that you can predict whether any of them might be headed our way anytime soon.

[Witness]

NGC 6822: Barnard's Galaxy

Grand spiral galaxies often seem to get all the glory, flaunting their young, bright, blue star clusters in beautiful, symmetric spiral arms. But small galaxies form stars too, like nearby NGC 6822, also known as Barnard's Galaxy. Beyond the rich starfields in the constellation Sagittarius, NGC 6822 is a mere 1.5 million light-years away, a member of our Local Group of galaxies. A dwarf irregular galaxy similar to the Small Magellanic Cloud, NGC 6822 is about 7,000 light-years across. Brighter foreground stars in our Milky Way have a spiky appearance. Behind them, Barnard's Galaxy is seen to be filled with young blue stars and mottled with the telltale pinkish hydrogen glow of star forming regions in this deep color composite image.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap201128.html

[Witness]

Arecibo antennas fall in to dish

[Witness]

South pole of Enceladus, Cassini 2014.

[Witness]

Jupiter and Saturn will come within 0.1 degrees of each other, forming the first visible "double planet" in 800 years

When their orbits align every 20 years, Jupiter and Saturn get extremely close to one another. This occurs because Jupiter orbits the sun every 12 years, while Saturn's orbit takes 30 years — every couple of decades, Saturn is lapped by Jupiter, according to NASA.

However, 2020's conjunction is especially rare — the planets haven't been observed this close together since medieval times, in 1226.

"Alignments between these two planets are rather rare, occurring once every 20 years or so, but this conjunction is exceptionally rare because of how close the planets will appear to one another," Rice University astronomer Patrick Hartigan said in a statement. "You'd have to go all the way back to just before dawn on March 4, 1226, to see a closer alignment between these objects visible in the night sky."

Aligning with the solstice on December 21, 2020, the two planets will be just 0.1 degrees apart — less than the diameter of a full moon, EarthSky says. The word "conjunction" is used by astronomers to describe the meeting of objects in our night sky, and the great conjunction occurs between the two largest planets in our solar system: Jupiter and Saturn.
...
How to watch the great conjunction

Through the entirety of December, skywatchers will easily be able to spot the two planets. For the next three weeks, you can look up each evening to watch them get closer and closer in the sky.

Jupiter currently appears brighter than any star in the sky. Saturn is slightly dimmer, but still just as bright as the brightest stars, with a recognizable golden glow.

Saturn will appear just to the east of Jupiter, and will even look as close to the planet as some of its own moons. Unlike stars, which twinkle, both planets will hold consistent brightness, easy to find on clear nights.

The event is observable from anywhere on Earth, provided the sky is clear. "The further north a viewer is, the less time they'll have to catch a glimpse of the conjunction before the planets sink below the horizon," Hartigan said.

The planets will appear extremely close for about of month, giving skywatchers plenty of time to witness the spectacular alignment throughout the holiday season. The event aligns with the December solstice, marking the shortest day of the year in the Northern hemisphere.

This will be the "greatest" great conjunction for the next 60 years, until 2080. Hartigan said that, following that conjunction, the duo won't make such a close approach until sometime after the year 2400.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jupiter-sa ... cember-21/

[Bruce]

Finally, the Dark Crystal will be made whole.

[robinson]

Tidal forces are going to do interesting things

As will the magnetic fields

[Bruce]

Go on, ask Ogra what's the grand conjunction. Go on, ask. What's the grand conjunction?

THE END OF THE WORLD.......or the beginning.

Hrrmp!

ab02bac1ffefece253903c44fe83d7dc989d3bc3.jpg

I'm actually surprised that the doomsday profits haven't announced the next doomsday as the grand conjunction. Or maybe they have and are preparing the Koolaid party right now.

[Witness]

[Anaxagoras]

[Witness]

Yes, these paths are sunlight - ONE YEAR (!) of exposure in a self-made pinhole camera. You can see cloudy days here, as well as winter days witn no leaves on the tree

https://old.reddit.com/r/spaceporn/comm ... _exposure/

[Bruce]

[Witness]

Edge-On Galaxy NGC 5866

Why is this galaxy so thin? Many disk galaxies are just as thin as NGC 5866, pictured here, but are not seen edge-on from our vantage point. One galaxy that is situated edge-on is our own Milky Way Galaxy. Classified as a lenticular galaxy, NGC 5866 has numerous and complex dust lanes appearing dark and red, while many of the bright stars in the disk give it a more blue underlying hue. The blue disk of young stars can be seen extending past the dust in the extremely thin galactic plane, while the bulge in the disk center appears tinged more orange from the older and redder stars that likely exist there. Although similar in mass to our Milky Way Galaxy, light takes about 60,000 years to cross NGC 5866, about 30 percent less than light takes to cross our own Galaxy. In general, many disk galaxies are very thin because the gas that formed them collided with itself as it rotated about the gravitational center. Galaxy NGC 5866 lies about 44 million light years distant toward the constellation of the Dragon (Draco).

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap201115.html

[Witness]

Spoiler:

It's the sun.

Neutrinos, along with things like electrons and quarks, are fundamental pieces of matter according to physicists' Standard Model. But neutrinos are hard to detect. Readily produced in nuclear reactions and particle collisions, they can easily pass completely through planet Earth without once interacting with any other particle. Constructed in an unused mine in Japan, an ambitious large-scale experiment designed to detect and study neutrinos is known as Super-Kamiokande or "Super-K". Only(!) 500 days worth of data was needed to produce this "neutrino image" of the Sun, using Super-K to detect the neutrinos from nuclear fusion in the solar interior. Centered on the Sun's postion, the picture covers a significant fraction of the sky (90x90 degrees in R.A. and Dec.). Brighter colors represent a larger flux of neutrinos.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap980605.html

Day or night, you can always take a picture of the sun.

[Witness]

Light pollution:

[Fid]

Regarding light pollution. Some years ago I had the pleasant experience of a night at the Kaibab Inn near (in the USA version of near) the Grand Canyon.

Even without my 11x80 binocs at something like 7000 ft above msl I could see many of the Messier objects in Sagittarius and Scorpius. It was a humbling and wonderful experience.

[Witness]

[Witness]

I wanted to push myself a little here and see how detailed an image I could get using just one data run for the Great Conjunction. Here's the result.

This is a single run of color data from my C11 telescope using my .7x reducer to get the whole scene in frame at one time. The image isn't the highest quality out there, but unlike most of those better images, this isn't a composite image put together with other shots. Instead, this is an attempt to recreate the reality of what I saw tonight, flaws and all. Reality is not perfect.

I'm happy to answer any questions, and feel free to check out my Instagram for more of my work.

Gear:

• Celestron 11" EdgeHD telescope
• ZWO ASI290MC astro camera
• .7x reducer

https://old.reddit.com/r/spaceporn/comm ... iter_were/

[Fid]

Well done to whoever did this!
I shall for now refrain from killing the first born Jewish boyos until there's oh... I dunno ...a supernova or something.

Seriously though the scale of that picture is almost unbelievable. It took years for spacecraft to go from one planet to the next.

I consider myself lucky to have seen such an event .

[Fid]

If I was ever to do a Christmas card, brothers this would be it.

[Witness]

[Fid]

My mountains don't ejaculate any thing nearly so cool. Well done.

[Witness]

Big, beautiful spiral galaxy NGC 1055 is a dominant member of a small galaxy group a mere 60 million light-years away toward the aquatically intimidating constellation Cetus. Seen edge-on, the island universe spans over 100,000 light-years, a little larger than our own Milky Way galaxy. The colorful, spiky stars decorating this cosmic portrait of NGC 1055 are in the foreground, well within the Milky Way. But the telltale pinkish star forming regions are scattered through winding dust lanes along the distant galaxy's thin disk. With a smattering of even more distant background galaxies, the deep image also reveals a boxy halo that extends far above and below the central bluge and disk of NGC 1055. The halo itself is laced with faint, narrow structures, and could represent the mixed and spread out debris from a satellite galaxy disrupted by the larger spiral some 10 billion years ago.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html (for large original)

[Witness]

Geminid meteor shower:




Technical details: https://old.reddit.com/r/Astronomy/comm ... or_shower/

[Witness]

Recent Impact near the South Pole of Mars:





And here's an older one on the Moon:

[shemp]

Recent Impact near the South Pole of Mars:

Looks like ed's butthole after a wild night at the bathhouse.

[ed]

How would you know?

[ed]

[Witness]

↑ Wrong thread.

---

[Witness]

Color me surprised:

Puerto Rico commits $8 million to rebuild Arecibo telescope



There’s a glimmer of hope for the collapsed Arecibo Observatory telescope as 2020 draws to a close. El Nuevo Dia reports that Puerto Rico Governor Wanda Vázquez has signed an executive order approving $8 million to help rebuild the radio telescope. Its reconstruction is important as a matter of “public policy” and reestablishing the Observatory as a “world-class educational center,” the Governor’s office said.

The National Science Foundation said it would tear down the Observatory as repairs would be too dangerous, although that doesn’t rule out building a new structure in its place.

We wouldn’t see this as more than a start. The $8 million in funding is unlikely to come anywhere close to reconstructing the telescope. We’ve asked the NSF for comment on the financial pledge, but it’s safe to presume a revival would require additional help.

Still, the funds represent an important step. They signal the territory’s commitment to Arecibo and its space studies despite the loss. They might also spur some in the US government to devote the extra funding needed to resurrect the Observatory. Don’t be surprised if 2021 is a brighter year for the facility, even if any rebuilding effort is likely to take much longer.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/puerto-r ... 54170.html (with noncommital NSF comment)

[Witness]

Jupiter, Saturn, and Mercury Will Be Visible in the Night Sky During a Rare Triple Conjunction This Week

When is the triple conjunction?

The time to go looking for the triple conjunction is just after sunset on Saturday, Jan. 9, Sunday, Jan. 10 and Monday, Jan. 11, 2021. On Saturday and Sunday, the three planets will form a small triangle in the fading light, while on Monday you'll find Mercury next to Jupiter. However, it's not going to be easy to see because it will take place very low on the west-southwest horizon. The best time to look will be about 30 minutes after sunset when it will be dark enough to see the planets shine.

[Witness]

Nasa's Curiosity rover: 3,000 days on Mars

The US space agency (Nasa) is about to put its latest rover, Perseverance, on Mars. But we shouldn't forget that the existing robot, Curiosity, is still there and working well following its landing in equatorial Gale Crater back in 2012. Curiosity celebrates 3,000 Martian days, or Sols, on the surface of the Red Planet on Tuesday. The Mission Science Team has collected together a series of pictures that record some of the rover's major achievements.

We all know Mars as the Red Planet, we see that in the night sky. However, as our drill tailings gallery shows, once we drill just a small depth in to the interior, Mars can be very different. We have drilled successfully 29 times now and the sediments show a range of hues from ochre-red to blue-grey reflecting the minerals and fluids that passed through the ancient rocks. Drilling allows us to get through the top most, oxidized surface that has been most exposed to cosmic radiation.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-55562150 (more pics)

[Witness]

From the Juno image gallery.

[Witness]

Images reveal where lava broke through the wall of a Martian crater and began filling it up

[Bruce]

From the Juno image gallery.

She should probably get that looked at by a doctor.

[Witness]

Jets from Unusual Galaxy Centaurus A

The jets emanating from Centaurus A are over a million light years long. These jets of streaming plasma, expelled by a giant black hole in the center of this spiral galaxy, light up this composite image of Cen A. Exactly how the central black hole expels infalling matter remains unknown. After clearing the galaxy, however, the jets inflate large radio bubbles that likely glow for millions of years. If energized by a passing gas cloud, the radio bubbles can even light up again after billions of years. X-ray light is depicted in the featured composite image in blue, while microwave light is colored orange. The base of the jet in radio light shows details of the innermost light year of the central jet.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html