Starship Asterisk*

I was curious what the land mass was below the cloud cover. I believe it was the African continent.

I was disturbed by that lack of ending as well. My daughter is a film/video editor. I'll see if she can fix it, e.g., by repeating the last video frame for a few seconds and then adding the Bach sound track.

I like the Dust Gorilla staring at the hot young star that is creating a cavern in the beautiful nebula.

[attachment=0]Gorilla dust cloud.jpg[/attachment]

Is it possible to indicate the location of the M1 pulsar within this image?

Also, it may be pure mental projection but I perceive several 'bow shock waves' near the center of the M1 debris.

Mystery solved! Thanks.

I can't seem to grok this formation.

Is it elevated with respect to the black material or did it form and displace the black material or . . . ?

Just curious.

The Cauliflower Nebula of course!

If you look carefully just above image center you will see a winding road leading from the Mare Imbrium to the top of a peak in the Apennine's arc. Clearly made by aliens, perhaps to try to phone home.

There are also at least 2 meteors, one just right of center.

Beautiful image!

The "teddy bear"-like object above and just right of center has a very interesting texture (and 2 "ears"). Is it known what causes this unusual appearance?

What I like best about today's APOD is the blue nebula with a curved dust lane partly framing it in the lower right corner of the photo. This nebula looks like a massively scaled-up and extremely hot version of reflection nebula M78 in Orion! Ann I quite agree. It appears to have 2 very massive and...

Can someone say more about the small red spot in the elephant's nostril area? It looks like the cavity is formed by strong radiation winds but the red spot seems unusual.

Thanks.

Fast winds from this Wolf-Rayet star create the bubble-shaped nebula as they sweep up slower moving material from an earlier phase of evolution. Would that imply that the irregularities in the bubble such as the hedgehog nose in the upper left indicate something about the distribution of slower mov...

Beautiful! It bring to mind a very well known image of another form of "creation".

Where is Philae with respect to where it was intended to land? I know that speculation was that Philae drifted into a dark and vertical face nearby after bouncing. However the terrain shown in today's APOD seems far too rugged to have been the intended landing area.

I'm curious about the interesting bright object in the upper left of today's image. It seems disconnected from the Tarantula nebula, unlike the various filaments, etc., elsewhere in the image. This is probably just a matter of perception because of it's unique appearance.

[dlw] -- Could this be something like the demise of a super massive "black hole" ? Thanks. [John] -- dlw, I don't think BHs can 'demise', can they? Even the final moments of a micro BH, going out in a blaze of Hawking radiation would be a candle next to this. ---------------- I'm not a phy...

Two thoughts:
-- What is the spectrum like (un-red-shifted)?

-- Could this be something like the demise of a super massive "black hole" ?

Thanks.

Tall mountains are interesting but what is the explanation for the hexagonal craters? As an engineer, I'm reminded of the famous Devil's Postpile basalt columns that appear roughly hexagonal in cross-section. This is due to a "least energy solution" to differential cooling of the top vers...

Right of center appears to be a barred galaxy with a HUGE bar or do my eyes deceive me? Yes, I see it and many others as well throughout the photo though only that one looks barred to me. This is a most interesting APOD. Bravo! Also very simple (apparently) spirals. Should be an interesting case st...

There's an interesting red straight bar shaped blob above a star above M44 M4 in the image. Might it be an artifact or something seen edge-on?
It's curious that it appears to be long and straight.

On a slightly different aspect of this beautiful image, I note that there are "streaks" in the tail appearing to emanate from the coma. I assume these are "thin" areas with less effluent. So, now that we know more about what the core of a comet might look like, do these streaks i...

Please pardon a naive question: why is oxygen the second most often observed spectral line? Is is more abundant or simply emitting more energy than, say, lithium or carbon? As to "Why is it called the Crab Nebula" -- I'm from California. This is what I think a crab looks like. The Crab neb...

I'm wondering why some of the molecular clouds are long and narrow. The large amorphous clouds may be left overs from major events, and perhaps coalescing, seem rather normal. The long narrow ones such as the one in which V1331 Cyg is developing and also other clouds in that area would seem to have ...

There have been studies of impact on spherical bodies containing liquid, e.g., (US) football players' heads. The bottom line is that a significant impact on one side may cause damage on the far side, directly opposite to the impact. If Mimas does have a liquid interior, it might show damage on the o...