Starship Asterisk*

bystander wrote:

Fred the Cat wrote:And of course while you're watching...

Needs a dash of Worcestershire, sea salt and fresh ground pepper, olives for garnish

Num num num

Nitpicker wrote:Not enough Moon shots.

You are correct but that is about to change. Moon Shot one is available now. Two and three too.

And of course while you're watching...

It's so hard to evaluate the true shape of a cloud of gas and dust. I would be curious if the same technique that they used on the Eta Carinae Homunculus Nebula could be applied to this most well-known area of our galaxy to evaluate its 3D characteristics.

Ok so we see Mercury's shadow but could we see "a" Mercury too? If it's expected a telescope might spot planets by blocking out a sun's light is there any chance we could really do it? By the way – Thanks for the time and trouble Thierry. You nailed it again and APOD was nice enough to sho...

Haha, I love that guy's work. Humans aren't as good as we should be in our capacity to enthalpize with feelings and thoughts of others, be they humans or other animals on Earth. So maybe part of our formal education should be training in enthalpy. Imagine how different the world would be if, in fac...

In case your days is all messed up this might untangle it

[img3=" Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA Acknowledgement: Judy Schmidt (geckzilla) "]http://cdn.spacetelescope.org/archives/images/screen/potw1619a.jpg[/img3][hr][/hr] Nice pick Geck! Talk about spiral symmetry . They could call this one – the Fibonacci galaxy . It looks in perfect ratio. :c...

That might even better than Fred's the Star You & Lynx already have a constellation: And you have Tralfamadore and Montana. I wouldn't mind that concept in perpetuity a bit! Some might be concerned about being put in a zoo . Not me. I just worry about over curiosity :( or being put in a box! :(...

You might think the IAU could come up with a plan to designate stars for a fee that would go to a charitable organization (or fund the process itself) so that the name of a star could be given to someone or someone's loved one. It could even be a lesser known crater on the moon or other celestial bo...

How appropriate that today's APOD comes via Spain. Happy Cinco de Mayo everyone! The Canary Islands look like a good place to celebrate the festivities.

I wish I had the skill for this but maybe a real astrophotographer can take on the challenge. (Besides that I'm working on Monday) Wouldn't it be a great image to catch our sun with both Mercury and the ISS in transit? That way Sol can have both perforations and a zipper. :ssmile: Who knows maybe a ...

Ridgeview Astronomy wrote:Why is the sky blue in this image, instead of orange/red?

Here's one site that answers the question for both planets.

neufer wrote:

• But... CERN was directly responsible for killing off the last snail male

Tim may be the reason we're all here and, inadvertently, made direct communication obsolete but you're wrong about the demise of the last snail male. There are a few of us around - still.

I wonder how much it would take to power today's aurora. A quadrillion fireflies? :ssmile: <<The slug (~32.174 lb m ) is a unit of mass that accelerates by 1 ft/s 2 when a force of one pound is exerted on it. The blob is the inch version of the slug (1 blob = 12 slugs). This unit is also called a s...

Speaking of electrons. First it was MeV, then a GeV, then a TeV. Now CERN announces its heavy ions are colliding at the astonishing energy of a PeV – a quadrillion electron volts . I think we should start worrying. :ohno: How much energy is really a PeV's-worth in a down-to-Earth measurement? “This ...

Not A Crank wrote:

geckzilla wrote:

alex_ag wrote:Absolutely. Looks like official propaganda to indulge inhabited missions to planet mars. Mars sky is definitely not blue.

I don't know about the sky but, according to Jim, the pen is.

It's not the destination, it's the journey.
(From Mount Sharp)

But the view from the destination should be marvelous!

http://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-just-discovered-a-monster-black-hole-formed-by-3-colliding-spiral-galaxies At some point in time they are going to have to find a larger and scarier term than "monster". Maybe they could call it a "Donster" black hole!! Of course - that won...

http://earthsky.org/tonight/spica-guide ... a-centauri

Just in case anyone wants to look.

To spin today's topic in a different way - that the motion of the stars of a globular cluster differs from that of a spiral galaxy begs the question does the motion of the black hole at their centers offer a clue to their fundamental differences and disposition of energy over time . If Omega Centaur...

Is the proper motion of Omega Centauri the akin to digging up dinosaur bones? Apparently we are studying globular clusters to unravel our early galaxy. Perhaps other studies are under way to determine the origin of galactic species tracing our universal roots?

It's seems surprising, to me, that the smaller galaxy is not as distorted as the larger one. https://arxiv.org/pdf/astro-ph/0701291v1 "We have used simulations to investigate the evolution of gas and stars in such a close encounter, examine the influence of the dark matter halo and of the geom...

I didn't realize the leftovers of today's Astronomy Pasta of the Day were so hot and such a source of cosmic by-products. Does that mean supernovas could tell us as much about the surrounding interstellar medium as it does about the type of star that went " pastal " ? (Maybe that's a bette...

Hey. Today's APOD looks more like a Super Noodle remnant.
Sure it's not a M pasta? Though the color looks more indicative Spaghetti O's...

Now that's a quantum loop if I've ever seen one.

Happy Monday!!

Nice Rob but I immediately thought it was the opening line of a joke. The Comet, The Owl, and the Galaxy were sitting at the bar. The Comet said, "I sure like it when I get close to a sun. It's so warming." The Owl said, "I remember those days when comets came around. I sure miss them...