Starship Asterisk*

agreed, climax is the correct word to use in this instance.
because crescendo meaning a gradual increase.

climax meaning the actual moment of greatest intensity which is what this particular apod directly means.

sadly, i am going to give up on apod. the last three days and five out of the last ten days had pictures of the good old planet earth. i like it. i'm a resident of it. but, yes, i am complaining. i want to spend 60 to 90 seconds of every jam packed day looking at something other worldly. someplace ...

skippy wrote:Dull---very dull

CGI??

Cmon-dont we have Hubble? ground Based telescopes?
Why do we need to look at pretty CGI pictures?

I dont get it

could not agree with you more

is it possible that the better resolution we use on the heavens could help make points of EM radiation stand out? would these red points of light be missed in other resolutions? not really sure how to word the question. the analogy I am trying to use here is when you use binoculars in semi-darkness....

Measuring slightly over one tenth of a millimeter are we to read between the lines and assume that this ball is a sphere? and if so, does the measurement mean that the ball is just a little over a tenth of a millimeter in diamter? or radius? but also for stopping micro-mechanical machine parts from...

I think the biggest contributions in the future will be to keep this forum accessible and readable in all browsers in all languages. why doesn't a thread like this have its own section of the forum to live in? why aren't questions about features, upgrades, news about the forum, highlights, etc.. bei...

one word came to my mind when I looked at this image.

STEREOGRAM

that likely houses a supermassive black hole

interesting way to describe how a galaxy surrounds the blackhole using the word "houses"

I guess its better than using the word "cocoon"

like that sticker on the passenger side view mirror, "objects are closer than they appear." the sticker on the hubble telescope mirror - "objects are farther than they appear, and may not currently exist." my question is... if the photons reaching the telescope have a redshift of...

Some of the the unusual cratering patterns on Tethys remain less well understood, however.

is it me, or could this be written better?

if I were to just open my eyes and look at the picture for 10 seconds and close them again. I would swear the orange patches were rust and i was looking at some deformed piece of iron.

yep, this is one of those... oops, the APOD image uploader called in sick days.

I was thinking the same thing. but that seems kind of trivial after the caption explains that there are stars in the forefront which obviously block our view to what is behind them.

the image is beautiful.
the question I have isn't so beautiful.

Why choose two lines at 90 degrees to point out the region where the event was happening and not an arrow? or perhaps a circle?

did the originator of the image eliminate the two opposite lines from the cross hairs?

I like images like this becuase it gives texture to something I can't otherwise see with my own eyes. I get the same sensation about this image as I did when I first saw an scanning electron microscope image of a molecule of iron.

is it just me or do all crater pics have the same monotone colorish feel to them?
I mean, we get breathtaking colors in nebulas... we get colorful pics of saturn's rings, jupiter's red spot, etc...
take a pic of a crater and we get, yep, black and white ??
reason for this?

I guess its only truthful and factual to point out that illusions do exist when looking at the sky with the naked eye/through a telescope, etc... and I guess its only logical to NOT misinterpret these illusions so as to better understand our surroundings. I am thankful, nonetheless, that knowing the...

Assuming I'm in a nice shielded spacecraft and I took a picture of the Butterfly Nebula with my handy digital camera with no zoom. How far would I be from the Nebula to get the same picture that the Hubble did? http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap090910.html "reflections are closer than they appear&qu...

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap090908.html umm, yeah. I thought I had to download a newer version of flash or something. I seriously thought there was some malfunction with the image. usually I like to view the picture first and get an idea of what the explanation is talking about. needless to say I wa...

so umm, are there guesses in the astronomical and astrophysical community as to the answers to the last questions? why are we moving so fast?

this is one of those APOD images that reemphasizes the reality of the passage of time. And at the same time demonstrates just how great a name saturn really is. in my mind, it demonstrates the continual march of time that doesn't skip a beat, that saturn is just going about its journey and will even...

is the earth ever in all three planetary ring system planes at the same time? three meaning uranus, neptune, saturn. in other words, is there ever a point in time where all three ring planes are level with the earth at the same time? Maybe you should include Jupiter, as well, since it also has a ri...

crazy question, and I am not sure just how to ask it so here goes. is the earth ever in all three planetary ring system planes at the same time? three meaning uranus, neptune, saturn. in other words, is there ever a point in time where all three ring planes are level with the earth at the same time?...

could it be argued that the study of astronomy would almost imply that a foundation of knowledge of our initial surroundings (ie. some geography, some meteorology, topography, etc) at least be studied also? what use is studying the sky if we don't also study our very own surroundings first? isn't it...

I know, I know, not trying to convince. just trying to make a point. even a kid can see that this impact that the object had on jupiter is at the bottom of the impact scale, if there is such a scale. the event is insulting to the word "impact". if I were the word impact, and I knew the typ...