The Glow of the Lagoon Nebula
Gas and dust condense, beginning the process of creating new stars in this image of Messier 8, also known as the Lagoon Nebula. Located four to five thousand light-years away, in the constellation of Sagittarius (the Archer), the nebula is a giant interstellar cloud, one hundred light-years across. It boasts many large, hot stars, whose ultraviolet radiation sculpts the gas and dust into unusual shapes. Two of these giant stars illuminate the brightest part of the nebula, known as the Hourglass Nebula, a spiralling, funnel-like shape near its centre. Messier 8 is one of the few star-forming nebulae visible to the unaided eye, and was discovered as long ago as 1747, although the full range of colours wasn’t visible until the advent of more powerful telescopes. The Lagoon Nebula derives its name from the wide lagoon-shaped dark lane located in the middle of the nebula that divides it into two glowing sections.View high resolution at: http://www.eso.org/public/images/potw1016a/
Credit: ESO/IDA/Danish 1.5 m/ R. Gendler, U.G. Jørgensen, K. Harpsøe
New Infrared Image of Swan Nebula
M17, or the Swan nebula
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Wisc.
Two extremely bright stars illuminate a greenish mist in this and other images from the new “GLIMPSE360” survey from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope. This fog is comprised of hydrogen and carbon compounds called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), which are found right here on Earth in sooty vehicle exhaust and on charred grills. In space, PAHs form in the dark clouds that give rise to stars. These molecules provide astronomers a way to visualize the peripheries of gas clouds and study their structures in great detail. They are not actually “green;” but are color coded in these images to let scientists see their glow in infrared.
(credit: jpl.nasa.gov)
Light dawns on dark gamma-ray bursts
Gamma-ray bursts are among the most energetic events in the universe, but some appear curiously faint in visible light. The biggest study to date of these dark gamma-ray bursts, using the GROND instrument on the 2.2-meter MPG/ESO telescope at La Silla in Chile, has found that these gigantic explosions don’t require exotic explanations. Their faintness is now fully explained by a combination of causes, the most important of which is the presence of dust between Earth and the explosion.
credit: astronomy news
Streaker (by Biswaroop Mukherjee)
NGC 2100 star cluster
Pacman (NGC0281) tricolor TEST (by dave halliday)
Space: You Are Here poster series by Mike Gottschalk
Space is all big and shit, yo. I know most people are already aware of this, but sometimes you just need to put things in perspective.
oh, did you plan on feeling significant today?
(Source: ianbrooks)
oh my heart.