[fuozzy69]

Amazing pictures.

[neilep]

Amazing pictures.

Thank you..and welcome !!...please feel free to contribute too.

Thanks again for your kind comment.

[neilep]

The Chameleon's Dark Nebulae
Credit & Copyright: Andrey Kuznetsov


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Biggy Piccy Herey






 The Chameleon is a small constellation near the south celestial pole. Boasting no bright stars, it blends inconspicuously with the starry southern sky. But, taken in dark skies over Namibia, this image reveals a stunning aspect of the shy constellation -- a field of dusty nebulae and colorful stars. Blue reflection nebulae are scattered through the scene, but most eye-catching is the complex of silvery dust clouds that only faintly reflect starlight, punctuated by dense dark nebulae. The dark nebulae stand out because they block out background stars. This view of the cosmic dust clouds spans about 4 degrees on the sky.

[neilep]

The Big Corona
Credit & Copyright: Koen van Gorp




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Most photographs don't adequately portray the magnificence of the Sun's corona. Seeing the corona first-hand during a total solar eclipse is best. The human eye can adapt to see features and extent that photographic film usually cannot. Welcome, however, to the digital age. The above picture is a combination of thirty-three photographs that were digitally processed to highlight faint features of a total eclipse that occurred in March of 2006. The images of the Sun's corona were digitally altered to enhance dim, outlying waves and filaments. Shadow seekers need not fret, though, since as yet there is no way that digital image processing can mimic the fun involved in experiencing a total solar eclipse. Last week, a spectacular total solar eclipse occurred over southern Asia, while the The next total solar eclipse will be visible from the South Pacific on 2010 July 11.

[om]

The Big Corona
Credit & Copyright: Koen van Gorp



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Most photographs don't adequately portray the magnificence of the Sun's corona. . . .

Thanks for this beautiful and informative photo of the solar corona!

Even in these times of low solar activity - between the end of solar cycle #23 and the long awaited start of solar cycle #24 - the violent and erratic nature of material above the solar photosphere is obvious.

Earth glides through the Sun's next higher level of material - the heliosphere - in the annual journey around the Sun that produces our four seasons - Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter.

Earth is directly connected to the Sun, orbiting through this invisible sheath of solar wind particles and solar magnetic and electric fields that extends more that 100 AU above the normally invisible corona and the visible solar photosphere.

Earth and the Sun are mistakenly perceived as separate entities, in large part because visible light from the photosphere produces the illusion of a solar "surface" that separates Earth from the Sun.

Thank you, neilep, for posting an observation that will be of interest to taxpayers who were told that anthropologic CO2 (from fossil fuels) has a greater impact than the Sun on global climate change.

My favorite climatologist - Dr. Timo Niroma of Helsinki, Finland - has a couple of web sites that look at the historical record of the link of Earth's climate with solar activity.

http://www.kolumbus.fi/tilmari/gwuppsala.htm
http://personal.inet.fi/tiede/tilmari/sunspots.html

With kind regards
Oliver K. Manuel
http://www.omatumr.com

[neilep]

A Floral Aurora Corona
Credit & Copyright: Zoltan Kenwell (Infocus Imagery)





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 Few auroras show this level of detail. Above, a standard digital camera captured a particularly active and colorful auroral corona that occurred last week above Alberta, Canada. With a shape reminiscent of a flower, the spectacular aurora had an unusually high degree of detail. The vivid green and purple auroral colors are caused by high atmospheric oxygen and hydrogen reacting to a burst of incoming electrons. Many photogenic auroras have been triggered from a solar wind stream that recently passed the Earth. The auroras were unexpected because the initiating Sun has been unusually quiet of late.

[neilep]

SARYCHEV PEAK VOLCANO



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This photo was taken from the International Space Station by an astronaut who just happend to be passing at the right time.

amazing eh ?

[om]

ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL!

How little we know about the object beneath our feet!

The material that it continues to collect every day from outer space.

Material that squirts out in volcanos and cracks in the deep ocean floor.

Fifty years ago I started a scientific investigation of Earth's Genesis.

The journey has been rewarding beyond my wildest dreams.

What a beautiful laboratory for those who want to learn!

With kind regards,
Oliver K. Manuel
http://www.omatumr.com

PS - I will be 73 years old in a couple of months, approaching the end of life.  I hope to write a biography on the fifty (50) year anniversary of the start of my effort in 1960 to rewrite the Biblical story of Genesis from a scientific point of view [See: "My Journey to the Core of the Sun", in preparation].

The late Nuclear Geochemistry Professor (Paul) Kazuo Kuroda, convinced me to undertake this study in 1960 with reports that the nuclear reactions that produced our elements were still visible as decay products of extinct iodine-129, extinct palladium-107, and extinct plutonium-244, as well as poorly mixed isotopes of element #54 (xenon) in meteorites and in the Earth.  All of these findings have been confirmed, and many other records of the birth of the solar system five billion years (5 Gyr) ago from fresh supernova debris!   

The late Physics Professor John H. Reynolds developed and in 1962-1964 showed me how to operate the mass spectrometer that revealed other recordings of element synthesis in the supernova debris that orbits the Sun and an unmistakable clue to the compact, energetic object at the core of the Sun.   

[neilep]

Saturn's Iapetus: Painted Moon
Credit: Cassini Imaging Team, SSI, JPL, ESA, NASA



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What has happened to Saturn's moon Iapetus? Vast sections of this strange world are dark as coal, while others are as bright as ice. The composition of the dark material is unknown, but infrared spectra indicate that it possibly contains some dark form of carbon. Iapetus also has an unusual equatorial ridge that makes it appear like a walnut. To help better understand this seemingly painted moon, NASA directed the robotic Cassini spacecraft orbiting Saturn to swoop within 2,000 kilometers in 2007. Pictured above, from about 75,000 kilometers out, Cassini's trajectory allowed unprecedented imaging of the hemisphere of Iapetus that is always trailing. A huge impact crater seen in the south spans a tremendous 450 kilometers and appears superposed on an older crater of similar size. The dark material is seen increasingly coating the easternmost part of Iapetus, darkening craters and highlands alike. Close inspection indicates that the dark coating typically faces the moon's equator and is less than a meter thick. A leading hypothesis is that the dark material is mostly dirt leftover when relatively warm but dirty ice sublimates. An initial coating of dark material may have been effectively painted on by the accretion of meteor-liberated debris from other moons. This and other images from Cassini's Iapetus flyby are being studied for even greater clues.

[neilep]

Diamonds in a Cloudy Sky
Credit & Copyright: Óscar Martín Mesonero (OSAE), SAROS Group



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 Cloudy skies over Wuhan, China hid the delicate solar corona during July's total eclipse of the Sun. Still, the Moon's silhouette was highlighted by these glistening diamonds as the total eclipse phase ended. Caused by bright sunlight streaming through dips and valleys in the irregular terrain along the Moon's edge, the effect is known as Baily's Beads, named after Francis Baily who called attention to the phenomenon in 1836. The dramatic appearance of the beads at the beginning or end of a total solar eclipse is also known as the Diamond Ring effect. In this remarkable image, a small, pinkish solar prominence can also be seen along the edge, below the diamonds.

[neilep]

The Star Clusters of NGC 1313
Credit: NASA, ESA, Anne Pellerin (STScI)


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Biggy Piccy HERE


 Like grains of sand on a cosmic beach, individual stars of barred spiral galaxy NGC 1313 are resolved in this sharp composite from the Hubble Space Telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS). The inner region of the galaxy is pictured, spanning about 10,000 light-years. Hubble's unique ability to distinguish individual stars in the 14 million light-year distant galaxy has been used to unravel the fate of star clusters whose bright young stars are spread through the disk of the galaxy as the clusters dissolve. The exploration of stars and clusters in external galaxy NGC 1313 offers clues to star formation and star cluster evolution in our own Milky Way

[neilep]

The Milky Way Over the Badlands
Credit & Copyright: Wally Pacholka (AstroPics.com, TWAN)


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 Why take a picture of just the Badlands when you can take one that also shows the spectacular sky above it? Just such a picture, actually a digital stitched panorama of four images, was taken in late June near midnight, looking southwest. In the foreground, the unusual buttes of the Badlands Wall, part of the Badlands National Park in South Dakota, USA, were momentarily illuminated by flashlight during a long duration exposure of the background night sky. The mountain-like buttes visible are composed of soft rock that show sharp erosion features from wind and water. The South Dakota Badlands also contain ancient beds rich with easy-to-find fossils. Some fossils are over 25 million years old and hold clues to the evolutionary origins of the horse and the saber-toothed tiger. Bright Jupiter dominates the sky on the left just above the buttes, while the spectacular Milky Way Galaxy runs down the image right.

[neilep]

The Gum Nebula
Credit & Copyright: Axel Mellinger


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Named for Australian astronomer Colin Stanley Gum (1924-1960), The Gum Nebula is so large and close it is actually hard to see. In fact, we are only about 450 light-years from the front edge and 1,500 light-years from the back edge of this cosmic cloud of glowing hydrogen gas. Covered in this 41 degree-wide mosaic of H-alpha images, the faint emission region is otherwise easy to lose against the background of Milky Way stars. The complex nebula is thought to be a supernova remnant over a million years old, sprawling across the southern constellations Vela and Puppis. Sliding your cursor over this spectacular wide field view will reveal the location of objects embedded in The Gum Nebula, including the Vela supernova remnant.

[neilep]

NGC 7822 in Cepheus
Credit & Copyright: Don Goldman


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 Pillars of gas, dust, and young, hot stars fill the center of NGC 7822. At the edge of a giant molecular cloud toward the northern constellation Cepheus, the glowing star forming region lies about 3,000 light-years away. Within the nebula, bright edges and tantalizing shapes are highlighted in this colorful skyscape. The image includes data from both broadband and narrowband filters, mapping emission from atomic oxygen, hydrogen, and sulfur into blue, green, and red hues. The atomic emission is powered by the energetic radiation from the hot stars, whose powerful winds and radiation also sculpt and erode the denser pillar shapes. Stars could still be forming inside the pillars by gravitational collapse, but as the pillars are eroded away, any forming stars will ultimately be cutoff from their reservoir of star stuff. This field spans around 30 light-years at the estimated distance of NGC 7822.

[neilep]

The Butterfly Nebula from Upgraded Hubble
Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team


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 The bright clusters and nebulae of planet Earth's night sky are often named for flowers or insects, and NGC 6302 is no exception. With an estimated surface temperature of about 250,000 degrees C, the central star of this particular planetary nebula is exceptionally hot though -- shining brightly in ultraviolet light but hidden from direct view by a dense torus of dust. This dramatically detailed close-up of the dying star's nebula was recorded by the newly upgraded Hubble Space Telescope. Cutting across a bright cavity of ionized gas, the dust torus surrounding the central star is near the center of this view, almost edge-on to the line-of-sight. Molecular hydrogen has been detected in the hot star's dusty cosmic shroud. NGC 6302 lies about 4,000 light-years away in the arachnologically correct constellation Scorpius.

[neilep]

To Fly Free in Space
Credit: STS-41B, NASA

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 At about 100 meters from the cargo bay of the space shuttle Challenger, Bruce McCandless II was farther out than anyone had ever been before. Guided by a Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU), astronaut McCandless, pictured above, was floating free in space. McCandless and fellow NASA astronaut Robert Stewart were the first to experience such an "untethered space walk" during Space Shuttle mission 41-B in 1984. The MMU works by shooting jets of nitrogen and has since been used to help deploy and retrieve satellites. With a mass over 140 kilograms, an MMU is heavy on Earth, but, like everything, is weightless when drifting in orbit. The MMU was replaced with the SAFER backpack propulsion unit.

[neilep]

Gigagalaxy Zoom: Galactic Center
Credit: ESO / Stéphane Guisard - Copyright: Stéphane Guisard
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 From Sagittarius to Scorpius, the central Milky Way is a truly beautiful part of planet Earth's night sky. The gorgeous region is captured here, an expansive gigapixel mosaic of 52 fields spanning 34 by 20 degrees in 1200 individual images and 200 hours of exposure time. Part of ESO's Gigagalaxy Zoom Project, the images were collected over 29 nights with a small telescope under the exceptionally clear, dark skies of the ESO Paranal Observatory in Chile. The breathtaking cosmic vista shows off intricate dust lanes, bright nebulae, and star clusters scattered through our galaxy's rich central starfields. Starting on the left, look for the Lagoon and Trifid nebulae, the Cat's Paw, the Pipe dark nebula, and the colorful clouds of Rho Ophiuchi and Antares (right).

[neilep]

Nasa telescope discovers largest-ever ring around Saturn... big enough to contain one billion Earths

By Daily Mail Reporter


Saturn's biggest and never-been-seen before ring has been discovered.

The 'super-sized' halo was found by Nasa's Spitzer Space Telescope. To get a sense of its size it has a vertical height which is about 20 times the diameter of the planet, which is nine times the size of our planet. Furthermore, the entire volume of the ring could hold about one billion Earths.

The bulk of the ring starts about 3.7million miles from Saturn itself and extends outward about another 7.4million miles.

With it being so huge many will ask how come it was not seen before. This is because the ring is extremely diffuse and doesn't reflect much visible light but its dusty particles, despite being very cold, shine with infrared light, or heat radiation which Spitzer is able to see.
The biggest but never-before-seen ring around Saturn




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King of the rings: This artist's illustration simulates an infrared view of the giant ring. Saturn appears as just a small dot within the band of ice and dust.
 The ring's diameter is equivalent to roughly 300 Saturns lined up side to side

Read more: http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1218675/NASA-telescope-discovers-largest-ring-Saturn.html#ixzz0TFesfiUJ

[neilep]

Great Observatories Explore Galactic Center
Credit: NASA, ESA, SSC, CXC, and STScI



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Biggy PIccy HERE

 Where can a telescope take you? Four hundred years ago, a telescope took Galileo to the Moon to discover craters, to Saturn to discover rings, to Jupiter to discover moons, to Venus to discover phases, and to the Sun to discover spots. Today, in celebration of Galileo's telescopic achievements and as part of the International Year of Astronomy, NASA has used its entire fleet of Great Observatories, and the Internet, to bring the center of our Galaxy to you. Pictured above, in greater detail and in more colors than ever seen before, are the combined images of the Hubble Space Telescope in optical light, the Spitzer Space Telescope in infrared light, and the Chandra X-ray Observatory in X-ray light. A menagerie of vast stars fields are visible, along with dense star clusters, long filaments of gas and dust, expanding supernova remnants, and the energetic surroundings of what likely is our Galaxy's central black hole. Many of these features are labeled on a complementary annotated image. Of course, a telescope's magnification and light gathering ability creates only an image of what a human could see if visiting these places. To actually go requires rockets.

[neilep]

M78 Wide Field
Credit & Copyright: Thomas V. Davis (tvdavisastropix.com)




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 Interstellar dust clouds and glowing nebulae abound in the fertile constellation of Orion. One of the brightest, M78, is centered in this colorful, wide field view, covering an area north of Orion's belt. At a distance of about 1,500 light-years, the bluish reflection nebula is around 5 light-years across. Its tint is due to dust preferentially reflecting the blue light of hot, young stars. Reflection nebula NGC 2071 is just to the left of M78. To the right of M78 and much more compact in appearance, the intriguing McNeil's Nebula is a recently recognized variable nebula associated with the formation of a sun-like star. The remarkably deep exposure also brings out the region's faint but pervasive reddish glow of atomic hydrogen gas.