Starship Asterisk*

Thank you, bystander!

Any educated speculation about the cause of the rusty coloration of the long, curving fractures?

Is gravitational attraction causing the stars to move toward the center of the cluster? If not, why not?

Looks more rectangular to me, with the longer axis vertical in the image. But then what do I know?

Is Jupiter the tiny little dot in the lower left corner of this image? If so, there is no way I'll ever be seeing any of its moons. Sorry, but the effect of this image is disappointing and underwhelming.

Question: Is anyone else surprised that comets are still being discovered by individual astronomers such as in this case? It seems that automated searches are still not fool-proof. https://www.nasa.gov/nasa-soho-comet-search .

I'm surprised no mention was made of the seemingly hexagonal shape of some portions of this image, which are reminiscent of Saturn's polar hexagon. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn%27s_hexagon . Nature seems to like hexagons.

The needlessly sensational and misleading title of this APOD is unwelcome. It's not April Fools Day.

Yes, to all those puzzled by the color business, me too. Among the most interesting features is the "tail," which looks white in the image I'm viewing.

Probably. Thanks again!

Start from the black buoy in the water, go straight up halfway to the height of the sky that you can see in this image. And go a little to the right. There is is, the new Moon. Beautiful image! Ann Yes, it is, and thank you for your help; I'd not have found it without your directions. That said, th...

Thank you!

madtom1999 wrote: ↑Sun May 22, 2022 8:03 am Is this meant to be an animated gif?

This is my question, too. I get a brief, gif-like animation when I first pull up the APOD website, but then there's no way to see it repeated. (No "play" icon).

Chris Peterson, thank you for this excellent reply/clarification! Makes sense! Might have been good to have added a word about this to the original APOD discussion, but glad to have it now.

". . . this comet will likely not return to the inner Solar System." And the reason for this is . . . ? Would be nice to answer this obvious question! Why/how is this comet different from other comets that do return to the inner Solar System?

Thank you for the answer about the little white dots! Much appreciated!

What are all the little white dots?

World's largest Golden Dream cocktail, perhaps? https://www.thespruceeats.com/golden-dr ... ipe-759302 .

Cool, but would have been helpful to have some sort of arrow or pointer pointing to the exact location of the flashes.

johnnydeep wrote: "There may in fact be no "ground" on Jupiter, which may not have a core. And even if it does have a core, it is quite small compared to the height above it that that storm is moving, making a "ground speed" fairly meaningless." Picky, picky, picky! Oka...

Has anyone calculated the "ground speed" at which the storm is traversing the planet? Appears that it would be quite fast, relative to the typical ground speed of hurricanes on earth, for example. Fascinating!

Thanks again, Ann, for your helpful, informative replies to my original question about planets. I'm glad I asked . . . I learned much from your replies.

Ann, thank you for your excellent answer! Just the sort of helpful answer I was looking/hoping for.

So is it no longer possible to get a serious answer to a serious question here?

Is there evidence -- pro or con -- of any planets orbiting Betelgeuse? Thanks.