Starship Asterisk*

There seem to be quite a few changes. The most dramatic is, of course, the "island" but there are many others. I assume, since this is radar, that changes in lighting is not an explanation. Very interesting.

BDanielMayfield wrote:Very nice. It even has a U.S.T. (Unidentified Swamp Thing) basking in the moonlight.

Has anyone identified "swamp thing"? Looks like a fox, perhaps 2 (long tail well below the head).
Or maybe it's just a rotting log.

David

There are many strange blue spots in the picture. Many of these blue spots are in close proximity just below star images. What are these blue spots? These are CAMERA ARTIFACTS....my camera makes HEAT speckles...and these look like those... Plus, it is a reprocessed photo....so, they may have been &...

I couldn't find a tail, no how, any way... until I clicked on the cosmic neighbors link. Waa-la, there it was big as day. How come it doesn't show up in the other photos?? Neither could I. Therefore I took the liberty of "enhancing" that part of the image because I really wanted to see it...

From the full Hubble image, http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/1306/ar ... e_3368.jpg, I get the impression of a galaxy swerving to avoid an on coming, jet propelled star!

Lovely! Another enjoyable example of Science meets Art. Good work, Thank you for presenting this video! btw.: Now I've learned, best time to visit San Francisco is obviously around november. :ssmile: Actually the best time is late spring (e.g., May) or early fall (e.g., Sept). This year is an excep...

Since they are interacting, why don't both galaxies show similar distortions? 3169 seems very distorted while 3166 appears very smooth.

revloren wrote:I see jellyfish swimming in a see of kelp.

So what -is- that little jellyfish? It is so well defined and seemingly symmetrical.

This particular perspective seems to exaggerate the apparent height of the Odysseus impact crater walls -- or does it?

Can someone explain a bit more about open cluster formation? I'm puzzled by the 25 LY span. It seems quite a distance over which such a huge coordinated cataclysm could occur. 200 million years would seem a relative blink of the cosmic eye. Could cluster formation occur within a smaller region and t...

Sparky56 wrote:Looks Like a jellyfish. Does anyone else agree?

Yes - that occurred to me too.

I wonder about the apparent great asymmetry. The almost detached straightened arms in the upper left; the differently straightened arm center left; the multiple arms on the right as compared with the left, etc. Could this be the result of several close encounters and/or merger with smaller galaxies?...

There's an interesting looking galaxy in the lower right corner of the image. Looks like 2 galaxies merging and there's a significant halo around it/them. Is this particular object being studied?

I e-mailed a couple of Science teachers I know, and my 12-year-old Grandson with details of the forthcoming Venus transit with many relevant URL links. I included a link to this very image of the previous transit (at http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap040623.html) as an example of what to expect. Alas, as...

Thanks. That was what I wondered - whether they were actually in orbital motion around a center of mass or whether they weren't or weren't moving at the required radial velocity and thus would that indicate the presence of dark energy which, as I've read, has a repulsive effect. So I thank you for c...

Chris, I did allude to that when I mentioned orbiting. Let me answer with another question: can you place a geostationary satellite in orbit over the north pole? I can imagine 300,000 objects orbiting in the same plane - we probably have more that that in our solar system. 300,000 objects in randoml...

Pardon a naive question: why doesn't a globular (essentially spherical) cluster collapse? To counteract gravity there needs to be a repulsive force as well - dark energy perhaps? - or the stars need to be orbiting. If they are orbiting, I would expect a lot of collisions or at least gravitational in...

I'm curious about the "can range up to 1000 kilometers" statement. That's essentially the top of the Thermosphere and about 3 times the altitude of the ISS. The number of "molecules in the Earth's atmosphere" up there is pretty small so I'd guess an aurora would be very hard to s...

Actually it's the remains of an alien spacecraft that crashed landed millions of years ago. Don't lift it up! There may be eggs under there waiting for nourishment!!

Very interestng! Thanks to both of you for elaborating so well on this image. FWIW, here are the 2 objects tht caught my attention in the upper left corner.upper left corner. The semi-circle might be the outer shell of an old supernova that has been disrupted by particle streams. It is interesting t...

This is one of the most interesting galaxies I've seen a picture of. There are so many interesting objects in it. I would think a further exploration/explanation of these objects would be quite instructive. Besides lots of super nova remnant nebulae, here is a greenish nebula(?) near the upper right...

I would be loathe to do anything with color profiles (assuming I even could; I use Graphics Converter to manipulate images), because I would see trying to bring out whatever details as what the imager does. I completely agree. I was merely making the point that replacing is different than convertin...

Ideally, I think, the APOD image editor would preserve whatever profile came in the image or add one that appeared to preserve what the editor sees so that we see a similar image. I agree about ProPhoto; I believe it was developed for a different use case and would not work well for APOD. Here is a ...

I just found this thread and would like to make a serious suggestion for the APOD editors: Please -always- include an embedded color profile for all images, especially the 'full' or original versions. Even if some browsers don't yet support this, many do and those of us who save or print some of the...

91 billion ly is the diameter of the observable Universe, so nothing in the Universe can see that far. The farthest you can see is the radius of the observable Universe, about 46 billion ly. A creature looking at us from that distance would see the same thing we see looking at it: a region of space...