Space and Astronomy Megathread (MERGED) - Part 1

[squeekness]

Up to half black holes that rip apart stars and devour them 'burp back up' stellar remains years later | Live Science

The great recycler, lol.

 

[Brutikus]

SN 1006: A Supernova Ribbon from Hubble
Credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble Heritage (STScI/AURA); Acknowledgement: W. Blair et al. (JHU)

Explanation: What created this unusual space ribbon? The answer: one of the most violent explosions ever witnessed by ancient humans. Back in the year 1006 AD, light reached Earth from a stellar explosion in the constellation of the Wolf (Lupus), creating a "guest star" in the sky that appeared brighter than Venus and lasted for over two years. The supernova, now cataloged at SN 1006, occurred about 7,000 light years away and has left a large remnant that continues to expand and fade today. Pictured here is a small part of that expanding supernova remnant dominated by a thin and outwardly moving shock front that heats and ionizes surrounding ambient gas. The supernova remnant SN 1006 now has a diameter of nearly 60 light years.

 

[Morg]

‘Once-in-a-lifetime’ chance to see newly found comet with naked eye

 

[Brutikus]

Star Factory Messier 17
Image Credit & Copyright: Kim Quick, Terry Hancock, and Tom Masterson (Grand Mesa Observatory)

Explanation: Sculpted by stellar winds and radiation, the star factory known as Messier 17 lies some 5,500 light-years away in the nebula-rich constellation Sagittarius. At that distance, this 1/3 degree wide field of view spans over 30 light-years. The sharp composite, color image highlights faint details of the region's gas and dust clouds against a backdrop of central Milky Way stars. Stellar winds and energetic light from hot, massive stars formed from M17's stock of cosmic gas and dust have slowly carved away at the remaining interstellar material, producing the cavernous appearance and undulating shapes. M17 is also known as the Omega Nebula or the Swan Nebula.

 

[:eek:]

NASA's Perseverance rover produces oxygen on Mars | Live Science

 

[squeekness]

https://www.nasa.gov/goddard/2023/webb-discovers-methane-carbon-dioxide-in-atmosphere-of-k2-18b

 

[Morg]

 

[squeekness]

Small meteor for sure. Still pretty wild.

 

[Brutikus]

Galaxy Cluster Abell 370 and Beyond
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, Jennifer Lotz and the HFF Team (STScI)

Explanation: Some 4 billion light-years away, massive galaxy cluster Abell 370 is captured in this sharp Hubble Space Telescope snapshot. The cluster of galaxies only appears to be dominated by two giant elliptical galaxies and infested with faint arcs. In reality, the fainter, scattered bluish arcs, along with the dramatic dragon arc below and left of center, are images of galaxies that lie far beyond Abell 370. About twice as distant, their otherwise undetected light is magnified and distorted by the cluster's enormous gravitational mass, overwhelmingly dominated by unseen dark matter. Providing a tantalizing glimpse of galaxies in the early universe, the effect is known as gravitational lensing. A consequence of warped spacetime, lensing was predicted by Einstein almost a century ago. Far beyond the spiky foreground Milky Way star at lower right, Abell 370 is seen toward the constellation Cetus, the Sea Monster. It was the last of six galaxy clusters imaged in the Frontier Fields project.

 

[Brutikus]

NGC 7331 and Beyond
Image Credit & Copyright: Ian Gorenstein

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 images that evokes a strong sense of depth. The effect is further enhanced in this sharp image by galaxies that lie beyond the gorgeous island universe. The most prominent background galaxies are about one tenth the apparent size of NGC 7331 and so lie roughly ten times farther away. Their close alignment on the sky with NGC 7331 occurs just by chance. Lingering above the plane of the Milky Way, this striking visual grouping of galaxies is known to some as the Deer Lick Group.

 

[:eek:]

James Webb telescope sees potential signs of alien life in the atmosphere of a distant 'Goldilocks' water world | Live Science

 

[Morg]

Abandoned Apollo 17 lunar lander module is causing tremors on the moon

 

[Brutikus]

Venus, Moon, and the Smoking Mountain
Image Credit & Copyright: Luis Miguel Meade Rodríguez

Explanation: Venus has returned, now appearing in planet Earth's predawn skies as a brilliant morning star. From a window seat on a flight to Mexico City, the bright celestial beacon was captured just before sunrise in this astronomical snapshot, taken on September 12. Venus, at the upper right, shared the early twilight with an old crescent Moon. Seen from this stratospheric perspective, mountain peaks and clouds appear in silhouette along a glowing eastern horizon. The dramatic, long, low cloud bank was created by ongoing venting from planet Earth's active volcanoPopocatépetl.

 

[Brutikus]

HH 211: Jets from a Forming Star
Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Webb; Processing: Tom Ray (DIAS Dublin)

Explanation: Do stars always create jets as they form? No one is sure. As a gas cloud gravitationally contracts, it forms a disk that can spin too fast to continue contracting into a protostar. Theorists hypothesize that this spin can be reduced by expelling jets. This speculation coincides with known Herbig-Haro (HH) objects, young stellar objects seen to emit jets -- sometimes in spectacular fashion. Pictured is Herbig-Haro 211, a young star in formation recently imaged by the Webb Space Telescope (JWST) in infrared light and in great detail. Along with the two narrow beams of particles, red shock waves can be seen as the outflows impact existing interstellar gas. The jets of HH 221 will likely change shape as they brighten and fade over the next 100,000 years, as research into the details of star formation continues.

 

[:eek:]

James Webb Space Telescope detects 1st evidence of carbon on Jupiter's icy moon Europa

The discovery made using NASA's powerful space telescope brings scientists a step closer to determining if the salty water oceans of Europa could support life.

www.space.com

 

[Iceman]

Up to half black holes that rip apart stars and devour them 'burp back up' stellar remains years later | Live Science

Burping up a misplaced star from eons ago. Space is absolutely crazy!

 

[Monsieur Xavier]

Burping up a misplaced star from eons ago. Space is absolutely crazy!

yeah, instead of coming from star dust, we may come from star vomit, far less poetic

 

[:eek:]

Mysterious giant bubble found near our galaxy could be relic from the Big Bang

Astronomers have spotted a gigantic void they believe to be a baryon acoustic oscillation — a relic from when the universe was a fiery plasma soup.

www.livescience.com

 

[Brutikus]

Arp 142: The Hummingbird Galaxy
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble, HLA; Processing & Copyright: Basudeb Chakrabarti

Explanation: What's happening to this spiral galaxy? Just a few hundred million years ago, NGC 2936, the upper of the two large galaxies shown at the bottom, was likely a normal spiral galaxy -- spinning, creating stars -- and minding its own business. But then it got too close to the massive elliptical galaxy NGC 2937, just below, and took a turn. Sometimes dubbed the HummingbirdGalaxy for its iconic shape, NGC 2936 is not only being deflected but also being distorted by the close gravitational interaction. Behind filaments of dark interstellar dust, bright blue stars form the nose of the hummingbird, while the center of the spiral appears as an eye. Alternatively, the galaxy pair, together known as Arp 142, look to some like Porpoise or a penguin protecting an egg. The featured re-processed image showing Arp 142 in great detail was taken recently by the Hubble Space Telescope. Arp 142 lies about 300 million light years away toward the constellation of the Water Snake (Hydra). In a billion years or so the two galaxies will likely merge into one larger galaxy.

 

[squeekness]

Beautiful.

 

[Brutikus]

The Deep Lagoon
Image Credit & Copyright: Josep Drudis, Christian Sasse

Explanation: Ridges of glowing interstellar gas and dark dust clouds inhabit the turbulent, cosmic depths of the Lagoon Nebula. Also known as M8, The bright star forming region is about 5,000 light-years distant. It makes for a popular stop on telescopic tours of the constellation Sagittarius toward the center of our Milky Way Galaxy. Dominated by the telltale red emission of ionized hydrogen atoms recombining with stripped electrons, this deep telescopic view of the Lagoon's central reaches is about 40 light-years across. The bright hourglass shape near the center of the frame is gas ionized and sculpted by energetic radiation and extreme stellar winds from a massive young star.

 

[DaddlerTheDalek]

God. I love those Hubble & JWST pictures!

 

[Brutikus]

MyCn 18: The Engraved Hourglass Planetary Nebula
Image Credit & Copyright: NASA, ESA, Hubble, HLA; Processing & Copyright: Harshwardhan Pathak

Explanation: Do you see the hourglass shape -- or does it see you? If you can picture it, the rings of MyCn 18 trace the outline of an hourglass -- although one with an unusual eye in its center. Either way, the sands of time are running out for the central star of this hourglass-shaped planetary nebula. With its nuclear fuel exhausted, this brief, spectacular, closing phase of a Sun-like star's life occurs as its outer layers are ejected - its core becoming a cooling, fading white dwarf. In 1995, astronomers used the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) to make a series of images of planetary nebulae, including the one featured here. Pictured, delicate rings of colorful glowing gas (nitrogen-red, hydrogen-green, and oxygen-blue) outline the tenuous walls of the hourglass. The unprecedented sharpness of the Hubble images has revealed surprising details of the nebula ejection process that are helping to resolve the outstanding mysteries of the complex shapes and symmetries of planetary nebulas like MyCn 18.

 

[Morg]

Dish botches satellite deorbit, gets hit with FCC’s first space-debris fine

 

[squeekness]

Dish botches satellite deorbit, gets hit with FCC’s first space-debris fine

Oops, lol