Baby the stars shine bright...

[Kgal]

There are so many really mind-blowing astronomical images nowadays that it's easy to think of them as commonplace. They aren't -....We are immensely privileged.

Agreed! I watch a solar report of research papers every morning and today he showed us new images of the Veil Nebula. Wow! I just did a screen shot of the image so as not to hog bandwidth with the ultra high def. The link has a High Def available for download. It's gorgeous!

"....In this image, new processing techniques have been applied, bringing out fine details of the nebula’s delicate threads and filaments of ionized gas...."

https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2021/hubble-revisits-the-veil-nebula

 

[John K]

Agreed! I watch a solar report of research papers every morning and today he showed us new images of the Veil Nebula. Wow! I just did a screen shot of the image so as not to hog bandwidth with the ultra high def. The link has a High Def available for download. It's gorgeous!

That's a gorgeous picture Kgal - like we can see in some photos of Saturn's rings the delicacy of the detail is enchanting. Years ago I used to think of the end of a star as an astronomical death, but it's more like the ripening then sprouting of a seed, as is the case here.

 

[dragulagu]

https://petapixel.com/2021/03/16/ph...years-1250-hours-exposing-photo-of-milky-way/

Finnish astrophotographer J-P Metsavainio has released a Milky Way photo that took him nearly 12 years to create.
The 1.7-gigapixel image has a cumulative exposure time of 1,250 hours.

 

[John K]

https://petapixel.com/2021/03/16/ph...years-1250-hours-exposing-photo-of-milky-way/

This is a fascinating achievement - the guy must have put many years of effort into it!

Did you follow the link from the above article to the 3D map of the galaxy that ESA is working on?
https://petapixel.com/2020/12/07/new-photo-map-of-the-milky-way-shows-never-before-seen-details/

They say there are 1.8 Billion objects in the database, and they have included their motions as well as their positions. This is a simulation of how the galaxy will change over the next 1.6 Million years - the trails show the track of each object over time. Mind blowing!

 

[Kgal]

https://petapixel.com/2021/03/16/ph...years-1250-hours-exposing-photo-of-milky-way/

Finnish astrophotographer J-P Metsavainio has released a Milky Way photo that took him nearly 12 years to create.
The 1.7-gigapixel image has a cumulative exposure time of 1,250 hours.

WoWWwwwww!

 

[dragulagu]

This is a fascinating achievement - the guy must have put many years of effort into it!

Did you follow the link from the above article to the 3D map of the galaxy that ESA is working on?
https://petapixel.com/2020/12/07/new-photo-map-of-the-milky-way-shows-never-before-seen-details/

They say there are 1.8 Billion objects in the database, and they have included their motions as well as their positions. This is a simulation of how the galaxy will change over the next 1.6 Million years - the trails show the track of each object over time. Mind blowing!

I haven't yet, that looks spectacular.

The new telescope is also set for launch this year, if I'm correct? It's going to be interesting times for space photography.

https://earthsky.org/space/james-webb-telescope-hubble-successor-to-launch

 

[Sandie33]

I haven't yet, that looks spectacular.

The new telescope is also set for launch this year, if I'm correct? It's going to be interesting times for space photography.

https://earthsky.org/space/james-webb-telescope-hubble-successor-to-launch

This picture looks almost like a nest

 

[dragulagu]

This picture looks almost like a nest

I do see the resemblance lol. Though the picture means a lot more, it is essentially a map of our far future. From a scientific point of view it's a bit of a miracle that we, with our current primitive technology, are even able to attain this kind detail on a universe scale (albeit being a rough combination of measurements and simulations).

One of the hardest challenges, should we ever evolve to an intergalactic traveling species, would be the ability to map the universe in a realtime perspective as everything is in constant motion. So kudos to ESA's ingenuity.

One of the data points that Gaia collects involves the motion of the stars in the Galaxy, and Gaia was able to predict stellar motion for the next 1.6 million years. The image below is a still photo representation of the motion of stars for the next 400 thousand years, while the video below it actually depicts the animated motion.

 

[John K]

There are some lovely and spectacular images in this video

 

[JennyDaniella]

There are some lovely and spectacular images in this video

The universe never ceases to amaze me.

Born too early to explore the world, born too late to explore the universe. *sigh*

 

[John K]

The universe never ceases to amaze me.

Born too early to explore the world, born too late to explore the universe. *sigh*

Hi Jenny! Good to see you here .

You might get the chance to fly into space in your lifetime though if they succeed in making it a bit more like taking a plane somewhere. That would be a wonderful thing to do. It would be great to fly around the Moon wouldn’t it? Maybe our weird technocrats will actually succeed in getting commercial space travel going in a few decades.

 

[JennyDaniella]

Hi Jenny! Good to see you here .

You might get the chance to fly into space in your lifetime though if they succeed in making it a bit more like taking a plane somewhere. That would be a wonderful thing to do. It would be great to fly around the Moon wouldn’t it? Maybe our weird technocrats will actually succeed in getting commercial space travel going in a few decades.

Oh man I do hope so! That would honestly be so neat Would honestly be a dream to be on the moon and see our home from a distance.

 

[Richardtij]

I love astronomy, I read a lot of encyclopedias as a child

 

[flower]

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/...eads-weave-spectacular-galactic-tapestry.html

Magnetized Threads Weave Spectacular Galactic Tapestry

Threads of superheated gas and magnetic fields are weaving a tapestry of energy at the center of the Milky Way galaxy. A new image of this new cosmic masterpiece was made using a giant mosaic of data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the MeerKAT radio telescope in South Africa.

 

[John K]

Rather worrying:

It will be very sad if they can't get it working again - typical that it's a computer fault! I've just spent months on and off tracing and fixing a weird software fault on my desktop PC.

 

[John K]

This video is a bit twee, but the images are fascinating. If space tourism were possible, the Saturn system is the one I'd most like to visit.

 

[Kgal]

This video is a bit twee, but the images are fascinating. If space tourism were possible, the Saturn system is the one I'd most like to visit.

Wow. Surprising info about Titan in that the moon is similar in its physical dynamics as the Earth planet....with variations in the chemistry. As someone who has worked in a refinery I cringed a bit when seeing the rivers of Methane and the Nitrogen laden atmosphere. Hah....I kept taking extra breaths while watching the video.
Thanks!
PS. I thought I was going to have to ask you what "Twee" meant....but I figured it out. [chuckles] Cool word!!!

 

[John K]

Wow. Surprising info about Titan in that the moon is similar in its physical dynamics as the Earth planet....with variations in the chemistry. As someone who has worked in a refinery I cringed a bit when seeing the rivers of Methane and the Nitrogen laden atmosphere. Hah....I kept taking extra breaths while watching the video.
Thanks!
PS. I thought I was going to have to ask you what "Twee" meant....but I figured it out. [chuckles] Cool word!!!

It's amazing isn't it? I don't think the 'rules' expected a moon to have such a dense atmosphere so I guess they had to rethink the process because of Titan. Makes the Antarctic sound like a sauna doesn't it? I wonder if any form of life could exist in that kind of world.

LOL twee

Spoiler

chiefly British. : affectedly or excessively dainty, delicate, cute, or quaint such a theme might sound twee or corny — The Times Literary Supplement (London)

 

[Kgal]

It's amazing isn't it? I don't think the 'rules' expected a moon to have such a dense atmosphere so I guess they had to rethink the process because of Titan. Makes the Antarctic sound like a sauna doesn't it? I wonder if any form of life could exist in that kind of world.

LOL twee

Spoiler

chiefly British. : affectedly or excessively dainty, delicate, cute, or quaint such a theme might sound twee or corny — The Times Literary Supplement (London)

Well...you know me...I'm going to have a mystical kind of point of view. When I look at the Ingredients and percentages making up the human physical form it suggests with just some minor tweaking of the Human Body Template DNA we could live there and not have to eat very much at all. We could get all the Nitrogen we need for muscle mass etc ....from the air itself.
Yes we also need Carbon....but look at alllll that Methane and Ethane there just for the ready. Lots and lots of Cs, Hs, and Os in those molecular compounds.
For me it's not a stretch at all to consider there are many millions of humanoid life forms scattered throughout our Galaxy.

 

[John K]

Well...you know me...I'm going to have a mystical kind of point of view. When I look at the Ingredients and percentages making up the human physical form it suggests with just some minor tweaking of the Human Body Template DNA we could live there and not have to eat very much at all. We could get all the Nitrogen we need for muscle mass etc ....from the air itself.
Yes we also need Carbon....but look at alllll that Methane and Ethane there just for the ready. Lots and lots of Cs, Hs, and Os in those molecular compounds.
For me it's not a stretch at all to consider there are many millions of humanoid life forms scattered throughout our Galaxy.

View attachment 82219

I came across a science fiction story set on the surface of Jupiter. Well ok, more fantasy than sf because Jupiter hasn’t got a surface - but it was an old story and they didn’t know that then. Anyway the base had a gravity device so that humans could live there in a sealed cabin. The outside was like an opaque freezing raving hell. They had volunteers who were biologically engineered to be able to live outside - but these guys went off and never returned. It looked like none had survived. In the end one of the bio engineers decided to go and see - the others were all against it because it looked like a suicide mission. He got his way in the end. But when the changes were completed and he went outside he found he was in an unimaginable paradise of wonder and great beauty - unmodified human senses were totally unable to experience it. The others hadn’t perished at all - they just didn’t want to go back!