Starship Asterisk*

You have to wonder why the Moon's far side is so different from its near side. Does it have anything to do with the fact that the Moon is tidally locked, and always shows the same face to the Earth? Then again, the Earth itself also looks very different in different places.We don't often think of th...

Massive stars form from particularly large disks. It seems likely, at least to me, that large disks are more prone than smaller ones to fragmenting, thus creating massive stars that are born as binaries. Thanks Ann. But what causes this fragmentations? Gravity from a nearby star, or a black hole? O...

Just in case this question was missed earlier (and if it wasn't but just inspired no comments, that's fine!) - are Wolf-Rayet stars the brightest of stars intrinsincally? Supposedly THE brightest star currently known is a Wolf-Rayet (R136a 1), but is it also the case with any Wolf-Rayet compared to...

Can't help myself, I've got to show you planetary nebula Abell 78: Inner part of Abell 78 ESA Hubble and NASA M Guerrero Judy Schmidt.png https://cdn.esahubble.org/archives/images/thumb700x/potw2111a.jpg ESA/Hubble wrote: After exhausting the nuclear fuel in their cores, stars with a mass of around ...

I have to show you this new JWST picture of the Ring Nebula: https://www.esa.int/var/esa/storage/images/esa_multimedia/images/2023/08/webb_captures_detailed_beauty_of_ring_nebula_nircam_and_miri_images/25047396-4-eng-GB/Webb_captures_detailed_beauty_of_Ring_Nebula_NIRCam_and_MIRI_images_article.jpg ...

But why they occur in binary systems? And why their companion is most likely a compact object? Given that something like 85% of high mass stars are part of binary systems, maybe the question to ask is why only 50% of WR stars are binaries? OK, so I ask: Why 85% of high mass stars are part of binary...

But why they occur in binary systems? And why their companion is most likely a compact object? Given that something like 85% of high mass stars are part of binary systems, maybe the question to ask is why only 50% of WR stars are binaries? OK, so I ask: Why 85% of high mass stars are part of binary...

a Wolf-Rayet nebula is primarily shaped by the tremendous heat and wind of its own central star Ann I have trouble getting my head wrapped round the way that things work on these scales. If the nebula has something like a 40 light year radius, does that mean that the glow from the nebula has actual...

I find it a little irritating that this APOD is so large that I have to post it here as an attachment! NebulousRealmofWR134_1024[1].png The Nebulous Realm of WR 134. Image Credit & Copyright: Xin Long What I really like about this image is that it doesn't just show us that bright and slightly to...

Wow, what a c o l o r b o m b ! :shock: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2405/EiffelCorona_Binotto_960.jpg Well, I have seen colorful lunar coronas myself, but never anything like this! :shock: And just look at how that intensely blue narrow laser beam of light emitted from the gold-illuminated Eiff...

Or perhaps it is NGC 3603 (and maybe NGC 3576) that are the bar-end enhancements of the southern Milky Way? Well, we are still in Carina. Do the distances (from Wikipedia) to NGC 3603 (20,000 ly) and NGC 3576 (9,000 ly) jibe with either or both of them being physically in the "bar-end"? E...

Sa Ji Tario wrote: ↑Wed May 29, 2024 2:19 pm Is the object under the letters "Air Glow" Andromeda?

Yes, it looks like that!

Ann

Yes, that's a nice Milky Way image (with stairs)! :D https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2405/StairwayToMilkyway_Marcin_1080_annotated.jpg Me being me, I obviously love the blue zing of bright star Vega at top! 💙 But I'd also like to call your attention to the reddish patch of nebulosity around Deneb: ...

mjsakers wrote: ↑Tue May 28, 2024 3:17 pm I'm interested in the name of the distant galaxy seen to the right of the cloud in the photo (?)

The galaxy in question may be ESO 38-6.

It is more or less in the right place.

Ann

Thanks for this most interesting link! I wonder if another consideration that might support the idea of stars vanishing into back holes is that of supernovae (type II) as rebounds - what's there to rebound against when a star collapses into a black hole? (might the two even be related - no rebound,...

DID THIS BLACK HOLE FORM WITHOUT A SUPERNOVA? https://dq0hsqwjhea1.cloudfront.net/binary-black-hole-O-star.webp Colin Stuart of Sky & Telescope wrote: Some massive stars may collapse completely into black holes — without the fanfare of a supernova. An international team of astronomers has revea...

Today's APOD is great and so are your wonderful explanations. Thank you very much Ann! https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53750637031_a4164b1742_b.jpg Background picture: Chamaeleon I Molecular Cloud Image Credit & Copyright: Amiel Contuliano https://www.astrobin.com/32d8tb/ https://planetary....

Cederblad111-110_1024[1].jpg Chamaeleon I Molecular Cloud Image Credit & Copyright: Amiel Contuliano No one has had anything to say about today's APOD, eh? Well, it's a nice picture of a very young region of low-mass star formation. Actually I shy away a little from the expression "low-mas...

How about showing the UV Sun as purple? I don't understand those who say that it would be horribly wrong to show the UV Sun as purple, but OK to show it as orange. Here's another pseudocolor palette example, using today's Sun image. I think that, objectively, the palette they've chosen allows us to...

It's not my kind of image either, partly because I tend not to be all that enthusiastic about pictures of the Sun, but mostly because it really irks me that the Sun is shown as orange. The image appears to be constructed from a single channel of data made by selecting the brightest pixels in a stac...

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2405/filament_sdo_960.jpg This image hasn't generated a lot of traffic. It's not my kind of image either, partly because I tend not to be all that enthusiastic about pictures of the Sun, but mostly because it really irks me that the Sun is shown as orange. Again. Co...

Lots of interesting questions arise! How accurate are age estimates? The text says 215 million years, 1 million years plus or minus, so cannot have caused Triassic-Jurassic die-off at 201 million years. Percentage of error possible at that remove, for each estimate? Also, where was Quebec back then...

[...] The purple color of M78 in today's APOD was caused by the artistic choices of the people processing the image. The filters chosen for image may also have something to do with the palette of the final product. [...] Ann ... In principle, the Euclid color palette can be transferred very easily ...

Blue star light does not make purple reflection nebulas! 🤬 Ann The info on the ESA site says The blue, green, red channels capture the Universe seen by Euclid around the wavelength 0.7, 1.1, and 1.7 micron respectively. This gives Euclid a distinctive colour palette: hot stars have a white-blue hue...

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2405/M78_Euclid_960.jpg APOD Robot wrote: ESA's new Sun-orbiting Euclid telescope recently captured the most detailed image ever of the bright star forming region M78. Really? Is that because this is a combined optical and infrared image? The purple tint in M78's ce...