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This Sparkling Galaxy Hides A Stellar Secret
This spiral galaxy, NGC 2841, is helping NASA solve a huge mystery: why do galaxies look so smooth, with such an even distribution of stars? More »
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Comment by crashedpc : ゴキブリ and 蟑螂 division: Mmmm... strawberry/blueberry black milk. 5 Responses | Other threads
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A Wounded Galaxy Sings With Light
Another galaxy smashed through the heart of the Cartwheel Galaxy 100 million years ago, and today the Cartwheel remains one of the most powerful UV-emitting galaxies near us, as that blue outer ring shows. More »
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Comment by chumia40_El_Señor_Justicia: La belleza de nuestro universo es inmensamente mas grande que cualquier retorica religiosa de la creacion de este. Brindo por el... 14 Responses | Other threads
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Look Into The Heart Of A Stellar Collision Zone
They call this the Swan nebula, but don't let the serene nickname fool you. It's a battlezone, where solar winds from super-massive stars collide, creating "bow shocks" like the wake of a speedboat.
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Comment by Grey_Area: Does anyone else think the greenish shape in the center looks like a sleestak? 2 Responses | Other threads
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The New Hottest Spot in the Milky Way
Two days ago, NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope revealed an image of what could be the brightest star in our galaxy: Wolf-Rayet star WR 102ka or, more fondly, the "Peony nebula" star. Astronomers say that it burns with the light intensity of 3.2 million suns — but that's a rough estimate, and one that might even stretch to 4 or 5 million suns. More »
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Comment by travelina: I hate to disappoint y'all, but I believe that photo was actually taken by the Hubble Space Kaleidoscope: [www.theonion.com] more » | Other threads
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Our Future Galactic Overlords Glow Red With Power Lust
Do you notice anything funny about this picture of NGC 6946, the "Fireworks Galaxy"? Like that lurid wealth of red splotches, for example? The bright red areas represent regions in the galaxy that are actively forming new stars, and there do seem to be an awful lot of them. Could we be facing a star-formation gap with this malevolent galaxy, which is a mere 100 million light years away from us? Could all those bonus stars be the breeding ground for the invaders who will subjugate our descendants in a mere billion years or so? We'd better start preparing for the worst. To help you prepare, here's a rogues gallery of the many faces of the Fireworks Galaxy. (Even its name is violent!) More »
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Comment by maliciousfallacy: That looks a lot like the God Person Galaxy Thing from that really good episode of Futurama! more » | Other threads
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Look into the Black Hole at the Center of Our Galaxy
No it's not some Heidiggerian metaphor, that pushpin really does mark the black hole at the center of our lives. Meet Sagittarius A, the ginormous black hole that resides in mega-gravitational splendor at the center of the Milky Way, sucking up energy and spitting it back out in the form of X-rays and even hotter, crazier particles too. Do you dare look more closely at its firey depths? More » -
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300 Baby Stars In Our Nearest Star-Factory
Newborn stars are surrounded with dust in the Rho Ophiuchi dark cloud, in this new image from the Spitzer Space Telescope. Only about 407 light years from Earth, Rho Oph is one of the closest star-forming regions to us. There are more than 300 young stellar objects within the central cloud, which contains the crucial molecular hydrogen needed to form new stars from cosmic gas. Click through for another Rho Oph image, plus a picture of the galaxy that ended the dark ages.
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Comment by UncleJack: For a better experience, goto:[www.spitzer.caltech.edu]You can download mp4 movies. more » | Other threads
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The Biggest Space Explosions Ever Recorded
You can still see the shock wave from the explosion of supernova Cassiopeia A in this color-enhanced image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. The blue glow around the dead star is the "forward shock," material blasted with energy by the shock wave when the star blew. Click through for a gallery of the biggest space detonations ever, including a deep-space eruption that released thousands of suns' worth of energy in a few seconds. More »
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By charliejaneComment by riffraff: @demonwolf: i plan to live forever too. so far so good. more » | Other threads
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Exploding Space Gas Gets A Makeover
The discs of hot gas around binary stars and black holes are much, much bigger than scientists had previously thought. This new illustration shows the disc around a super-dense white dwarf star. The disc sends off asteroid-sized eruptions of space dust, which are drawn towards the dwarf star's bigger companion star. It's a far cry from the well-manicured disc that scientists had expected to find. Click through for an image of the neat, Saturn-like grooves that scientists had originally predicted. Which do you think looks cooler? More »
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By charliejaneComment by Habu: @Eac_o_System: Centrifugal force, my friend. The material in those disks is hurtling around the white dwarf at unbelievable velocity..... And the... more » | Other threads
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Comet Vs. Comet Around A Dead Star
A planetary system seems to have survived the death of its star, judging photos released last August from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. The Helix Nebula, 700 light years from Earth, is the unraveling remains of a star not unlike our sun. It's also one of the few nebulae to show any evidence of bodies that survived that disaster. More nebula pics, including one that shows battling comets that outlasted the sun's death, after the jump. More »
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