Starship Asterisk*

I'm pretty sure that it's larger than our solar system by a good margin.

I would say by a very good margin! Can anyone hazard a guess as to the diameter of the disk? Considering angular size and distance from us.. I would guess maybe hundreds of times as big as our solar system!

yeah looks like a photo to me
if only they would go and take some photos of the super earths themselves

thats incredible! Its seems bigger than I would expect considering the distance to it. I take it the bright patch is the protostar?

can anybody tell me what this is?
http://img52.imageshack.us/img52/4810/whatis5sg.jpg

I cant see why they posted such an old picture for todays APOD when there is a new one from just a few days ago available... and yes I agree! It is unnerving just how many pass so close to earth! (though, they cant be *that* close because i notice their paths of travel are not visibly altered by Ear...

http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/newsde ... age/a+zoom

This is fantastic! Is it possible to download the full hi res image seperately?

Hi Robin,
Welcome to the APOD forums. Yes this is the same phenomenon. Pillars occur from any light source as long as the orientation of the light source relative to the observer is correct and if the weather conditions are suitable.

See this one for example.

Apologies if this is right off topic, but: http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/starsgalaxies/spitzer-20060316.html Would it be concievably possible for the gas in, say, a solarsystem / galaxy sized region of space to be packed dense enough to remove the need for a spacesuit? (perhaps following some ...

image wont display for me

Wow! You guys don't give up, do you? You actually WANT to display your ignorance? Better to be quiet and learn, rather than let people realize how little you know (factually) and how weird your opinions are.

that is a rant.

Error 1:"yours is a remarkably inane post" There are a great many varied opinions on the worth and merit of this thread, you should not use such a flat-out statement of fact. [I am not denying the possibility that "jfgecik"s post is inane, just saying we should be careful how we ...

what is the actual difference between the two ?

http://asterisk.apod.com/vie ... php?t=1023

agreed
i come to APOD to see fantastic images of REAL things

Links mean nothing if they don't contain anything more than opinion..

I'd say its almost possible in this day and age to convince yourself water isnt wet and then go and find 50 links on the internet to prove it!

Either way Harry im looking forward to your next barrage of links!

this is indeed caused by the light being reflected off dust and gas present around the star which is not uniformly distributed, whether this gas and dust has been ejected from the same star is debatable

A common technique is to take photos of one object in many different wavelengths, assign a colour to each wavelength and then blend all the different images together to create the stunning images we see so often on APOD

An example

Who cares if it’s art or not?

hear hear!

harry, the spiral galaxy I am refering to is about two thirds of the way down the expanded image where there appears to be a bright streak coming from the center. It is far less significant that the tadpole 'tail' but it is there. Be sure to the check the expanded image in the link I posted rather t...

In this expanded view of todays APOD

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/ ... st_big.jpg

underneath the tadpole galaxy itself there is another spiral galaxy which (I assume) is in the background - sporting a similar 'tail'

is this a result of the same process? thoughts?

well, for the purposes of showing the rover to scale with the landscape, yes that is a little picky :p

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/mer/2005 ... 23-540.gif

I see what you mean though.
I expect the main reason is that diffuse shadows are easier to draw onto the existing image.

Oops! Perhaps I should have checked this link instead
well I'm happy at least that I thought of it...

Those enormous expensive detectors to try and measure gravity waves might be useful for testing if there is a 'speed of gravity.' If there are patterns of gravitational fluctuation associated with a super nova and gravity has a limited 'speed' then we should detect these fluctuations at the same tim...

even more amazing that it can be seen from earth based observatories! I wonder how it would look through hubble...

yeah but that was only a fly-by
i mean a REAL mission - landers, damnit, landers and rovers!!