Tuesday, April 25, 2017

Black Hole Accreting with Jet

Black Hole Accreting with Jet:

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2017 March 27


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Explanation: What happens when a black hole devours a star? Many details remain unknown, but recent observations are providing new clues. In 2014, a powerful explosion was recorded by the ground-based robotic telescopes of the All Sky Automated Survey for SuperNovae (ASAS-SN) project, and followed up by instruments including NASA's Earth-orbiting Swift satellite. Computer modeling of these emissions fit a star being ripped apart by a distant supermassive black hole. The results of such a collision are portrayed in the featured artistic illustration. The black hole itself is a depicted as a tiny black dot in the center. As matter falls toward the hole, it collides with other matter and heats up. Surrounding the black hole is an accretion disk of hot matter that used to be the star, with a jet emanating from the black hole's spin axis.

King of Wings Hoodoo under the Milky Way

King of Wings Hoodoo under the Milky Way:

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2017 March 28


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King of Wings Hoodoo under the Milky Way

Image Credit & Copyright: Wayne Pinkston (LightCrafter Photography)


Explanation: This rock structure is not only surreal -- it's real. The reason it's not more famous is that it is, perhaps, smaller than one might guess: the capstone rock overhangs only a few meters. Even so, the King of Wings outcrop, located in New Mexico, USA, is a fascinating example of an unusual type of rock structure called a hoodoo. Hoodoos may form when a layer of hard rock overlays a layer of eroding softer rock. Figuring out the details of incorporating this hoodoo into a night-sky photoshoot took over a year. Besides waiting for a suitably picturesque night behind a sky with few clouds, the foreground had to be artificially lit just right relative to the natural glow of the background. After much planning and waiting, the final shot, featured here, was taken in May 2016. Mimicking the horizontal bar, the background sky features the band of our Milky Way Galaxy stretching overhead.

Tomorrow's picture: shooting stars



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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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Nebula with Laser Beams

Nebula with Laser Beams:

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2017 March 29


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Explanation: Four laser beams cut across this startling image of the Orion Nebula, as seen from ESO's Paranal Observatory in the Atacama desert on planet Earth. Not part of an interstellar conflict, the lasers are being used for an observation of Orion by UT4, one of the observatory's very large telescopes, in a technical test of an image-sharpening adaptive optics system. This view of the nebula with laser beams was captured by a small telescope from outside the UT4 enclosure. The beams are visible from that perspective because in the first few kilometers above the observatory the Earth's dense lower atmosphere scatters the laser light. The four small segments appearing beyond the beams are emission from an atmospheric layer of sodium atoms excited by the laser light at higher altitudes of 80-90 kilometers. Seen from the perspective of the UT4, those segments form bright spots or artificial guide stars. Their fluctuations are used in real-time to correct for atmospheric blurring along the line-of-sight by controlling a deformable mirror in the telescope's optical path.

Young Stars and Dusty Nebulae in Taurus

Young Stars and Dusty Nebulae in Taurus:

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2017 March 30


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Young Stars and Dusty Nebulae in Taurus

Image Credit & Copyright: Lloyd L. Smith, Deep Sky West


Explanation: This complex of dusty nebulae lingers along the edge of the Taurus molecular cloud, a mere 450 light-years distant. Stars are forming on the cosmic scene. Composed from almost 40 hours of image data, the 2 degree wide telescopic field of view includes some youthful T-Tauri class stars embedded in the remnants of their natal clouds at the right. Millions of years old and still going through stellar adolescence, the stars are variable in brightness and in the late phases of their gravitational collapse. Their core temperatures will rise to sustain nuclear fusion as they grow into stable, low mass, main sequence stars, a stage of stellar evolution achieved by our middle-aged Sun about 4.5 billion years ago. Another youthful variable star, V1023 Tauri, can be spotted on the left. Within its yellowish dust cloud, it lies next to the striking blue reflection nebula Cederblad 30, also known as LBN 782. Just above the bright bluish reflection nebula is dusty dark nebula Barnard 7.



Tomorrow's picture: 3D67P



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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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NGC 602 and Beyond

NGC 602 and Beyond:

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2017 April 2


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Explanation: Near the outskirts of the Small Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy some 200 thousand light-years distant, lies 5 million year young star cluster NGC 602. Surrounded by natal gas and dust, NGC 602 is featured in this stunning Hubble image of the region, augmented by images in the X-ray by Chandra, and in the infrared by Spitzer. Fantastic ridges and swept back shapes strongly suggest that energetic radiation and shock waves from NGC 602's massive young stars have eroded the dusty material and triggered a progression of star formation moving away from the cluster's center. At the estimated distance of the Small Magellanic Cloud, the Picture spans about 200 light-years, but a tantalizing assortment of background galaxies are also visible in this sharp multi-colored view. The background galaxies are hundreds of millions of light-years or more beyond NGC 602.

Saturn in Infrared from Cassini

Saturn in Infrared from Cassini:

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2017 April 3


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Explanation: Many details of Saturn appear clearly in infrared light. Bands of clouds show great structure, including long stretching storms. Also quite striking in infrared is the unusual hexagonal cloud pattern surrounding Saturn's North Pole. Each side of the dark hexagon spans roughly the width of our Earth. The hexagon's existence was not predicted, and its origin and likely stability remains a topic of research. Saturn's famous rings circle the planet and cast shadows below the equator. The featured image was taken by the robotic Cassini spacecraft in 2014 in several infrared colors -- but only processed recently. In September, Cassini's mission will be brought to a dramatic conclusion as the spacecraft will be directed to dive into ringed giant.

Plane Contrail and Sun Halo

Plane Contrail and Sun Halo:

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2017 April 4


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Explanation: What's happened to the sky? Several common features of the daytime sky are interacting in uncommon ways. First, well behind the silhouetted hills, is the typically bright Sun. In front of the Sun are thin clouds, possibly the home to a layer of hexagonal ice crystals that together are creating the 22 degree halo of light surrounding the Sun. The unusual bent line that crosses the image is a contrail -- a type of cloud created by a passing airplane. Much of the contrail must actually be further away than the thin cloud because it casts a shadow onto the cloud, giving an unusual three-dimensional quality to the featured image. The featured image was taken in late January in the city of Patras in West Greece.

Filaments of Active Galaxy NGC 1275

Filaments of Active Galaxy NGC 1275:

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2017 April 5


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Filaments of Active Galaxy NGC 1275

Image Credit: Hubble Legacy Archive, ESA, NASA; Processing & Copyright: Domingo Pestana


Explanation: What keeps these filaments attached to this galaxy? The filaments persist in NGC 1275 even though the turmoil of galactic collisions should destroy them. First, active galaxy NGC 1275 is the central, dominant member of the large and relatively nearby Perseus Cluster of Galaxies. Wild-looking at visible wavelengths, the active galaxy is also a prodigious source of x-rays and radio emission. NGC 1275 accretes matter as entire galaxies fall into it, ultimately feeding a supermassive black hole at the galaxy's core. This composite image, recreated from archival Hubble Space Telescope data, highlights the resulting galactic debris and filaments of glowing gas, some up to 20,000 light-years long. Observations indicate that the structures, pushed out from the galaxy's center by the black hole's activity, are held together by magnetic fields. Also known as Perseus A, NGC 1275 spans over 100,000 light years and lies about 230 million light years away.

Tomorrow's picture: open space



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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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Dark Nebula LDN 1622 and Barnards Loop

Dark Nebula LDN 1622 and Barnards Loop:

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2017 April 6


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Explanation: The silhouette of an intriguing dark nebula inhabits this cosmic scene. Lynds' Dark Nebula (LDN) 1622 appears below center against a faint background of glowing hydrogen gas only easily seen in long telescopic exposures of the region. LDN 1622 lies near the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy, close on the sky to Barnard's Loop - a large cloud surrounding the rich complex of emission nebulae found in the Belt and Sword of Orion. Arcs along a segment of Barnard's loop stretch across the top of the frame. But the obscuring dust of LDN 1622 is thought to be much closer than Orion's more famous nebulae, perhaps only 500 light-years away. At that distance, this 1 degree wide field of view would span less than 10 light-years.

Zeta Oph: Runaway Star

Zeta Oph: Runaway Star:

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2017 April 8


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Zeta Oph: Runaway Star

NASA, JPL-Caltech, Spitzer Space Telescope


Explanation: Like a ship plowing through cosmic seas, runaway star Zeta Ophiuchi produces the arcing interstellar bow wave or bow shock seen in this stunning infrared portrait. In the false-color view, bluish Zeta Oph, a star about 20 times more massive than the Sun, lies near the center of the frame, moving toward the left at 24 kilometers per second. Its strong stellar wind precedes it, compressing and heating the dusty interstellar material and shaping the curved shock front. What set this star in motion? Zeta Oph was likely once a member of a binary star system, its companion star was more massive and hence shorter lived. When the companion exploded as a supernova catastrophically losing mass, Zeta Oph was flung out of the system. About 460 light-years away, Zeta Oph is 65,000 times more luminous than the Sun and would be one of the brighter stars in the sky if it weren't surrounded by obscuring dust. The image spans about 1.5 degrees or 12 light-years at the estimated distance of Zeta Ophiuchi.



Tomorrow's picture: back again in 4385



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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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Comet Hale Bopp Over Val Parola Pass

Comet Hale Bopp Over Val Parola Pass:

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2017 April 9


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Comet Hale-Bopp Over Val Parola Pass

Image Credit & Copyright: A. Dimai, (Col Druscie Obs.), AAC


Explanation: Comet Hale-Bopp, the Great Comet of 1997, became much brighter than any surrounding stars. It was seen even over bright city lights. Away from city lights, however, it put on quite a spectacular show. Here Comet Hale-Bopp was photographed above Val Parola Pass in the Dolomite mountains surrounding Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy. Comet Hale-Bopp's blue ion tail, consisting of ions from the comet's nucleus, is pushed out by the solar wind. The white dust tail is composed of larger particles of dust from the nucleus driven by the pressure of sunlight, that orbit behind the comet. Comet Hale-Bopp (C/1995 O1) remained visible to the unaided eye for 18 months -- longer than any other comet in recorded history. This year marks the 20th anniversary of Comet Hale-Bopp's last trip to the inner Solar System. The large comet is next expected to return around the year 4385.

Tomorrow's picture: sky hole



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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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Galaxy Cluster Gas Creates Hole in Microwave Background

Galaxy Cluster Gas Creates Hole in Microwave Background:

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2017 April 10


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Galaxy Cluster Gas Creates Hole in Microwave Background

Image Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), Kitayama et al., NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope


Explanation: Why would this cluster of galaxy punch a hole in the cosmic microwave background (CMB)? First, the famous CMB was created by cooling gas in the early universe and flies right through most gas and dust in the universe. It is all around us. Large clusters of galaxies have enough gravity to contain very hot gas -- gas hot enough to up-scatter microwave photons into light of significantly higher energy, thereby creating a hole in CMB maps. This Sunyaev–Zel'dovich (SZ) effect has been used for decades to reveal new information about hot gas in clusters and even to help discover galaxy clusters in a simple yet uniform way. Pictured is the most detailed image yet obtained of the SZ effect, now using both ALMA to measure the CMB and the Hubble Space Telescope to measure the galaxies in the massive galaxy cluster RX J1347.5-1145. False-color blue depicts light from the CMB, while almost every yellow object is a galaxy. The shape of the SZ hole indicates not only that hot gas is present in this galaxy cluster, but also that it is distributed in a surprisingly uneven manner.

Tomorrow's picture: man, dog, sun



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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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Man, Dog, Sun

Man, Dog, Sun:

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2017 April 11


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Man, Dog, Sun

Image Credit & Copyright: Jens Hackmann


Explanation: This was supposed to be a shot of trees in front of a setting Sun. Sometimes, though, the unexpected can be photogenic. During some planning shots, a man walking his dog unexpected crossed the ridge. The result was so striking that, after cropping, it became the main shot. The reason the Sun appears so large is that the image was taken from about a kilometer away through a telephoto lens. Scattering of blue light by the Earth's atmosphere makes the bottom of the Sun appear slightly more red that the top. Also, if you look closely at the Sun, just above the man's head, a large group of sunspots is visible. The image was taken just last week in Bad Mergentheim, Germany.

Tomorrow's picture: open space



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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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Leo Trio

Leo Trio:

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2017 April 12


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Explanation: This group is popular in the northern spring. Famous as the Leo Triplet, the three magnificent galaxies gather in one field of view. Crowd pleasers when imaged with even modest telescopes, they can be introduced individually as NGC 3628 (left), M66 (bottom right), and M65 (top). All three are large spiral galaxies but they tend to look dissimilar because their galactic disks are tilted at different angles to our line of sight. NGC 3628 is seen edge-on, with obscuring dust lanes cutting across the plane of the galaxy, while the disks of M66 and M65 are both inclined enough to show off their spiral structure. Gravitational interactions between galaxies in the group have also left telltale signs, including the warped and inflated disk of NGC 3628 and the drawn out spiral arms of M66. This gorgeous view of the region spans about one degree (two full moons) on the sky. The field covers over 500 thousand light-years at the trio's estimated distance of 30 million light-years.

Moons and Jupiter

Moons and Jupiter:

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2017 April 13


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Moons and Jupiter

Image Credit & Copyright: Göran Strand


Explanation: On April 10, a Full Moon and Jupiter shared this telephoto field of view. Both were near opposition, opposite the Sun in Earth's night sky. Captured when a passing cloud bank dimmmed the bright moonlight, the single exposure reveals the familiar face of our fair planet's own large natural satellite, along with a line up of the ruling gas giant's four Galilean moons. Labeled top to bottom, the tiny pinpricks of light above bright Jupiter are Callisto, Europa, Ganymede, and Io. Closer and brighter, our own natural satellite appears to loom large. But Callisto, Ganymede, and Io are physically larger than Earth's Moon, while water world Europa is only slightly smaller. In fact, of the Solar System's six largest planetary satellites, only Saturn's moon Titan is missing from the scene.



Tomorrow's picture: shadowrise



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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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Luminous Salar de Uyuni

Luminous Salar de Uyuni:

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2017 April 15


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Luminous Salar de Uyuni

Image Credit & Copyright: Stephanie Ziyi Ye


Explanation: A scene in high contrast this thoughtful night skyscape is a modern composition inspired by M. C. Escher's lithograph Phosphorescent Sea. In it, bright familiar stars of Orion the Hunter and Aldebaran, eye of Taurus the Bull, hang in clear dark skies above a distant horizon. Below, faintly luminous edges trace an otherworldly constellation of patterns in mineral-crusted mud along the Uyuni Salt Flat of southwest Bolivia. The remains of an ancient lake, the Uyuni Salt Flat, Salar de Uyuni, is planet Earth's largest salt flat, located on the Bolivian Altiplano at an altitude of about 3,600 meters. Escher's 1933 lithograph also featured familiar stars in planet Earth's night, framing The Plough or Big Dipper above waves breaking on a more northern shore.

Tomorrow's picture: food for enceladus



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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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Life Enabling Plumes above Enceladus

Life Enabling Plumes above Enceladus:

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2017 April 16


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Life-Enabling Plumes above Enceladus

Image Credit: Cassini Imaging Team, SSI, JPL, ESA, NASA


Explanation: Does Enceladus have underground oceans that could support life? The discovery of jets spewing water vapor and ice was detected by the Saturn-orbiting Cassini spacecraft in 2005. The origin of the water feeding the jets, however, was originally unknown. Since discovery, evidence has been accumulating that Enceladus has a deep underground sea, warmed by tidal flexing. Pictured here, the textured surface of Enceladus is visible in the foreground, while rows of plumes rise from ice fractures in the distance. These jets are made more visible by the Sun angle and the encroaching shadow of night. A recent fly-through has found evidence that a plume -- and so surely the underlying sea -- is rich in molecular hydrogen, a viable food source for microbes that could potentially be living there.

Tomorrow's picture: sky alive



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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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Night Glows

Night Glows:

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2017 April 18


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Night Glows

Image Credit & Copyright: Taha Ghouchkanlu


Explanation: What glows in the night? This night, several unusual glows were evident -- some near, but some far. The foreground surf glimmers blue with the light of bioluminescent plankton. Next out, Earth's atmosphere dims the horizon and provides a few opaque clouds. Farther out, the planet Venus glows bright near the image center. If you slightly avert your eyes, a diagonal beam of light will stand out crossing behind Venus. This band is zodiacal light, sunlight scattered by dust in our Solar System. Much farther away are numerous single bright stars, most closer than 100 light years away. Farthest away, also rising diagonally and making a "V" with the zodiacal light, is the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy. Most of the billions of Milky Way stars and dark clouds are thousands of light years away. The featured image was taken last November on the Iranian coast of Gulf of Oman.

Tomorrow's picture: big spider



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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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The Red Spider Planetary Nebula

The Red Spider Planetary Nebula:

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2017 April 19


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The Red Spider Planetary Nebula

Image Credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble, HLA; Reprocessing & Copyright: Jesús M.Vargas & Maritxu Poyal


Explanation: Oh what a tangled web a planetary nebula can weave. The Red Spider Planetary Nebula shows the complex structure that can result when a normal star ejects its outer gases and becomes a white dwarf star. Officially tagged NGC 6537, this two-lobed symmetric planetary nebula houses one of the hottest white dwarfs ever observed, probably as part of a binary star system. Internal winds emanating from the central stars, visible in the center, have been measured in excess of 1000 kilometers per second. These winds expand the nebula, flow along the nebula's walls, and cause waves of hot gas and dust to collide. Atoms caught in these colliding shocks radiate light shown in the above representative-color picture by the Hubble Space Telescope. The Red Spider Nebula lies toward the constellation of the Archer (Sagittarius). Its distance is not well known but has been estimated by some to be about 4,000 light-years.

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Tomorrow's picture: planetary defense



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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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NGC 4302 and NGC 4298

NGC 4302 and NGC 4298:

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2017 April 21


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NGC 4302 and NGC 4298

Image Credit: NASA, ESA, M. Mutchler (STScI)


Explanation: Seen edge-on, spiral galaxy NGC 4302 (left) lies about 55 million light-years away in the well-groomed constellation Coma Berenices. A member of the large Virgo Galaxy Cluster, it spans some 87,000 light-years, a little smaller than our own Milky Way. Like the Milky Way, NGC 4302's prominent dust lanes cut along the center of the galactic plane, obscuring and reddening the starlight from our perspective. Smaller companion galaxy NGC 4298 is also a dusty spiral. But tilted more nearly face-on to our view, NGC 4298 can show off dust lanes along spiral arms traced by the bluish light of young stars, as well as its bright yellowish core. In celebration of the 27th anniversary of the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope on April 24, 1990, astronomers used the legendary telescope to take this gorgeous visible light portrait of the contrasting galaxy pair.



Tonight Watch: The Lyrid Meteor Shower

Tomorrow's picture: light-weekend



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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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Space Station View of Auroras

Space Station View of Auroras: Expedition 50 Flight Engineer Thomas Pesquet of the European Space Agency (ESA) photographed brightly glowing auroras from his vantage point aboard the International Space Station on March 27, 2017. Pesquet wrote, "The view at night recently has been simply magnificent: few clouds, intense auroras. I can’t look away from the windows."


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New Full-hemisphere Views of Earth at Night

New Full-hemisphere Views of Earth at Night: NASA scientists are releasing new global maps of Earth at night, providing the clearest yet composite view of the patterns of human settlement across our planet. This composite image, one of three new full-hemisphere views, provides a view of the Americas at night.


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Illustration of Cassini Spacecraft Diving Through Plume of 'Ocean World' Enceladus

Illustration of Cassini Spacecraft Diving Through Plume of 'Ocean World' Enceladus: This illustration shows NASA's Cassini spacecraft diving through the plume of Saturn's moon Enceladus, in 2015. Two veteran NASA missions are providing new details about icy, ocean-bearing moons of Jupiter and Saturn, further heightening the scientific interest of these and other "ocean worlds" in our solar system and beyond.


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Hubble Sees Starbursts in Virgo

Hubble Sees Starbursts in Virgo: Starburst galaxies contain regions where stars are forming at such a breakneck rate that the galaxy is eating up its gas supply faster than it can be replenished.


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The Arrhythmic Beating of a Black Hole Heart

The Arrhythmic Beating of a Black Hole Heart: At the center of the Centaurus galaxy cluster, there is a large elliptical galaxy called NGC 4696. Deeper still, there is a supermassive black hole buried within the core of this galaxy. New data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and other telescopes has revealed details about this giant black hole.


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NASA's Fleet of Satellites Keep an Eye on Earth

NASA's Fleet of Satellites Keep an Eye on Earth: NASA's fleet of 18 Earth science missions in space, supported by aircraft, ships and ground observations, measure aspects of the environment that touch the lives of every person around the world. This visualization shows the NASA fleet in 2017.


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James Webb Space Telescope Mirror Seen in Full Bloom

James Webb Space Telescope Mirror Seen in Full Bloom: It's springtime and the deployed primary mirror of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope looks like a spring flower in full bloom. Once launched into space, the Webb telescope’s 18-segmented gold mirror is specially designed to capture infrared light from the first galaxies that formed in the early universe.


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