Starship Asterisk*

I have to admit that there is a lot I don't understand about this abstract. I like this, however: Dark energy could therefore be a natural consequence of cosmic inflation close to the electroweak energy scale. I like that idea! Surely there has to be some sort of connection between the inflation of ...

I said something, in my first post here, about "falling down a hill". Well, I was referring to what astronomers call a "vacuum".It looks something like this: http://image.absoluteastronomy.com/images/encyclopediaimages/f/fa/falsevacuum.svg.png I rather like the idea that the Big ...

It's a beautiful picture. Happy Birthday, Mizzou!

Ann

Ronnie Warner said: The orange blob on the upper left is the rosette. Okay! On the upper right, I tucked in an eclipsed moon under the master's brushstrokes. An eclipsed Moon, eh? Nice! Oh, yes - now I can see the Lady in the Moon in your Moon! :D In the extreme upper right is Jupiter from a particu...

Thanks, Ronnie, now I found the Witch Head! It's looking good, too. And yes, I guess the brown blob near the Catwheel galaxy could indeed be the Eagle. But what's the big orange blob in the upper left corner? And what about the big yellow and orange "crescent" thing to the right - don't te...

It was hard to pick a favorite, but in the end I chose NGC 1275. The clincher for me was that I suddenly realized that one of the blue tidal tail of clusters thrown out from NGC 1275 is actually interacting with a small yellow galaxy to the upper right of it. Suddenly it became dramatically obvious ...

With the larger image, I found the Cartwheel Galaxy. I also found M104, the Owl, the Cat's Eye, the Eskimo, Thor's Helmet and an Einstein Cross.I also found what really just looked like a pink rose - would that be the Rosette? I found what I guess is the Ants, but I'm no great fan of planetary nebul...

I love all your comic strip and obscure Star Trek references, Art! <jumping up and down shouting with joy> So glad to see you back here, for whatever reason! We sure need someone with a terrific sense of nerd humour here! <thumbsup> <thumbsup> <thumbsup> For myself, let me just say that //beginning ...

I can see a number of planetary nebulae in Ronnie's van Gogh image, too, and I think I can spot the Crab nebula on the lower left. But Ronnie, what is that galaxy that you placed below NGC 4038, the dominant part of the Antennae? It's an extremely face on galaxy, and it looks a bit like M100 or M61,...

Well, wow!!! Look at NGC 4038 in the middle of that Vincent van Gogh painting! http://spiralzoom.com/Science/spiralgalaxies/751px-VanGogh-starry_night_edit.jpg Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh. http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/sao/astronomynews/2006S2/NGC4038-4039.jpg NGC 4038 (and 4039) by Nature! :mrg...

There were many nice images here! :D The annotated image of Leo, Cancer and Gemini with their mainstays and visitors was very nice and interesting. Vega and the twisted meteor trail made a nice couple. The Stonehenge image was beautiful and a good reminder of the fact that this monument was built at...

Geckzilla wrote: I know there are a lot of brilliant people out there doing their damnedest to brainstorm and come up with ways to find life out there. I don't think they are really trying to find life out there. I think they are coming up with ways to argue that there could be life in places where ...

Hmmm, imagine if those rockets (or whatever they are) had brought that bug back from wherever they're going.... :mrgreen: And thanks for your birthday greetings, Beyond! No, my ears haven't turned green yet, I think! Spock What, me green and envious? (And Beyond, what you said... it sure isn't easy ...

Well, I'm irritated at this constant "we have not proved that life is impossible here" approach. Just read today's AstronomyNow on line: http://www.astronomynow.com/news/n1006/08exo/ This is how the article starts: Analysis of all 79 star systems known to have transiting exoplanets has rev...

False color. But a very nice image all the same. I agree with others that it would be so much fun to be able to rotate the image and find out this proto-planetary nebula's true geometry!

Ann

You got promoted to Science Officer, Beyond? I'm envious! I want to be Mr Spock, too!

Ann

The thumbnail picture referring to today's APOD is a picture of Alcyone, the brightest star of the Pleiades. The star can be identified by the triangle of fainter stars to one side of it. And because I love the Pleiades, I thought that this was a very nice birthday present for me, since it is my bir...

A good way to make the general public pay attention to astronomy-related news is to hint that astronomers have found life elsewhere. According to this kind of news reporting, the best way to create an interesting news item is to ask atronomers to present proof that life is not there on another plane...

Wow! Now the picture looks so much better.

Ann

I think I have read about a distant quasar whose light has passed through a massive cluster of galaxies (or something) in four different ways, so that we on the Earth see four dfferent quasars close together, when in reality these four points of light emanate form the same source. Interestingly, whe...

You're welcome, Rob. And thanks for your explanations and your input, Chris and alter-ego. In hindsight, I realize that I should have asked Cecilia Jarlskog if inflation isn't necessary to smooth out the irregularities produced by the Big Bang, so that those major irregularities would have been ther...

Well, for me the choice was easy. I apparently lack the equipment to see the Mars image, so I can't vote for that. And while I do find some infrared images stunning, I often find such pictures blurry and short on detail. There isn't too much you can see in that infrared image of NGC 6744, compared w...

Alter ego wrote: The two regions of interest, that I think you are referring to, are NGC 6357 (War and Peace Nebula), nearer the galactic center, and NGC 6334 (Cat's Paw Nebula). Both are in the constellation Scorpius, and NGC 6357 is also home to Pismis 24, an open star cluster containing some of t...

Rob said: My take on what I've read about the subject is that our math only describes what happened after the expansion began Well, that's exactly it. Cecilia Jarlskog and Ulf Danielsson, two Swedish professors of astrophysics, both said at lectures where I was present that it was inflation that sta...

Chris said: Are you sure that's what she said? Well, she actually didn't say that she believed it - she stated it as if it was a fact. And since I was at the lecture, and since I was very surprised at her claim, I asked her if it was really true that inflation came before the Big Bang. She said yes,...