APOD: Dark Clouds in Aquila (2012 Jun 29)

[APOD Robot]

Dark Clouds in Aquila

Explanation: Part of a dark expanse that splits the crowded plane of our Milky Way galaxy, the Aquila Rift arcs through the northern hemisphere's summer skies near bright star Altair and the Summer Triangle. In silhouette against the Milky Way's faint starlight, its dusty molecular clouds likely contain raw material to form hundreds of thousands of stars and astronomers eagerly search the clouds for telltale signs of star birth. This telescopic close-up looks toward the region at a fragmented Aquila dark cloud complex identified as LDN 673, stretching across a field of view slightly wider than the full moon. In the scene, visible indications of energetic outflows associated with young stars include the small red tinted nebulosity RNO 109 at top left and Herbig-Haro object HH32 above and right of center. The dark clouds in Aquila are estimated to be some 600 light-years away. At that distance, this field of view spans about 7 light-years.

<< Previous APOD

This Day in APOD

Next APOD >>

[/b]

[Boomer12k]

In the lower left is a cloud that looks like a hand and finger pointing up....it looks like it has written the word...."WELL!" complete with exclamation point. Above that is a guy holding an axe, to the right is a lady diving in water...below her is a guy playing a LUTE...There is all sorts of stuff here!!!!

Nice Pic.

:---[===] *

[neufer]

Dark Clouds in Aquila

Explanation: Part of a dark expanse that splits the crowded plane of our Milky Way galaxy,

Part of a dark expanse needs the ".html" : Part of a dark expanse

[owlice]

Thanks, Art; I dropped the editor a line about it (and a missing period).

[Beyond]

Thanks, Art; I dropped the editor a line about it (and a missing period).

Not to be 'picky', but isn't it a 'dot' rather than a 'period'?

[Moonlady]

In the lower left is a cloud that looks like a hand and finger pointing up....it looks like it has written the word...."WELL!" complete with exclamation point. Above that is a guy holding an axe, to the right is a lady diving in water...below her is a guy playing a LUTE...There is all sorts of stuff here!!!!

Nice Pic.

:---[===] *

Interesting that you can make APOD to Rorschach-Tests

I see lots of golden sparkle on velvet darkness and I love this APOD!

[just a visitor]

I'm routinely curious about how far away from the scene being depicted would a viewer be to actually see these wondrous sights as they are presented in APOD. So would today's image fill our night sky if we were 10 light years away? 5?

Thanks

[Ann]

It's an interesting image. We can see both the dust, which is thick and coal-black in places and attenuated in other places, as well as actively ongoing star formation and the distant starry background of the Milky Way. My impression is that parts of the yellow bulge are peaking through in the lower part of the picture.

Like Boomer12k, I too can see the hand and the finger which appears to have written the word "Well" in dust. Talk about writing on the wall, make that writing on the sky... and talk about a deep, mysterious message!

But I like it!

Ann

[guest kreigor426]

.
absolutely gorgeous...
.
keep 'em coming...
.
special 'thanks' to all who have contributed to this outstanding "INFO' " point...

[neufer]

[b][color=#0000FF]NASA's Pioneer 11 space probe, which flew by Jupiter and Saturn in the 1970s, is expected to pass near the star Lambda (λ) Aquilae in about 4 million years.[/color][/b]

---

[b][color=#0000FF]Aquila, with the now-obsolete figure of Antinous, as depicted in Urania's Mirror, a set of constellation cards published in London c.1825. At left is Delphinus.[/color][/b]

---

<<Antinous is an obsolete constellation no longer in use by astronomers, having been merged into Aquila, which it bordered to the North. The constellation was created by the emperor Hadrian in 132. According to legend, Hadrian was told by an oracle that only death of his most beloved person would save him from a great danger. Sure enough, Antinous, a beautiful youth loved by Hadrian, died while saving the Emperor from drowning in the Nile. For his memory Hadrian identified an asterism in the sky with Antinous.

Tycho Brahe was originally given credit for inventing Antinous, but current finds include a celestial globe by the cartographer Caspar Vopel from 1536 that contains Antinous, so Brahe simply measured up the sky according to modern cartographer traditions and decided to give Antinous a separate table in his star catalogue.>>

[Guest]

Hi,

I wonder about the makeup of the mysterious dark dust; are the dust clouds (from which I'm told, stars are born) made up of dust similar to what is on my floor and furniture or are they perhaps huge boulders of materials like rocks, boulders, or other basic elements? Could a human-built space ship fly through them safely?

Questions like these keep me returning to APOD daily - almost like an opening poem to begin each day.

JPS in Santa Fe, NM

[Chris Peterson]

I'm routinely curious about how far away from the scene being depicted would a viewer be to actually see these wondrous sights as they are presented in APOD. So would today's image fill our night sky if we were 10 light years away? 5?

Given that the field is about 7 light-years across, assuming a naked eye view from 10 light-years away is reasonable. But to your eyes it would look nothing like this. What you 'd see would be virtually indistinguishable from what you see when you go outside and look at the sky. You might notice a subtle variation in the density of stars, similar to what you see in sections of the Milky Way. But no color and no significant contrast- the same thing you'd see if you took a small telescope out and looked at this region at 60X.

[Chris Peterson]

I wonder about the makeup of the mysterious dark dust; are the dust clouds (from which I'm told, stars are born) made up of dust similar to what is on my floor and furniture or are they perhaps huge boulders of materials like rocks, boulders, or other basic elements?

Most of the dust in your house is the dead skin of you and any pets you have. The condensed dust we see in space is typically of submicron size, and consists mostly of silicates in many mineral forms, containing many different elements (C, O, N, Al, Fe, etc).

Could a human-built space ship fly through them safely?

Certainly. Indeed, if you were flying through one of these clouds you would not be able to see it, and it would require extremely sensitive instruments to even detect its presence. The particle density inside a dust cloud corresponds to what would be considered a very hard vacuum in any laboratory.

[neufer]

I wonder about the makeup of the mysterious dark dust; are the dust clouds (from which I'm told, stars are born) made up of dust similar to what is on my floor and furniture or are they perhaps huge boulders of materials like rocks, boulders, or other basic elements?

Most of the dust in your house is the dead skin of you and any pets you have.

<<How would you feel if you were forced to sit next to a dead body for nearly ten hours? Apparently Swedish resident Lena Pettersson was none too pleased with having to endure such an experience during her recent aerial adventure. After complaining to Kenya Airways about the uncomfortable situation, the airline refunded Pettersson 5000 kronor, which is roughly half of the price of her ticket.

According to the International Business Times, Pettersson was on a flight from Amsterdam to Tanzania when the man in the seat across the aisle starting looking a little wonky. Despite the fact that the poor guy was sweating and experiencing seizures, the plane took off anyway. Although attempts were made to save the man’s life — one passenger even performed a cardiac massage — the passenger died mid-flight.

Those seated next to the body were moved to other areas of the plane. The flight staff, seemingly unprepared to handle such an unfortunate turn of events, laid his body across three seats and covered it with a blanket. Petersson, none too thrilled with having to spend the rest of the flight seated next to a corpse, asked if she could be moved to a different location, as well. Since there weren’t any available spots, she was forced to sit next to the dead body for the remainder of her trip.

“Of course it was unpleasant,” Pettersson explained to a local newspaper, “But I am not a person who makes a fuss.” When asked about the amount of her refund, she added, “This feels much better. It is reasonable.”>>

Could a human-built space ship fly through them safely?

Certainly. Indeed, if you were flying through one of these clouds you would not be able to see it, and it would require extremely sensitive instruments to even detect its presence. The particle density inside a dust cloud corresponds to what would be considered a very hard vacuum in any laboratory.

You wouldn't want to fly too fast through it, however:

<<A major issue with traveling at extremely high speeds is that interstellar dust and gas may cause considerable damage to the craft, due to the high relative speeds and large kinetic energies involved. Larger objects (such as macroscopic dust grains) are far less common, but would be much more destructive.>>

[Guest]

What is the reddish crescent of light in the bottom right quadrant of the image? More specifically, this crescent of light is located at the mouth of a gap in the right side of the large dust cloud in the image bottom right...or near the halfway point between the two brightest stars in the image.

[starsurfer]

What is the reddish crescent of light in the bottom right quadrant of the image? More specifically, this crescent of light is located at the mouth of a gap in the right side of the large dust cloud in the image bottom right...or near the halfway point between the two brightest stars in the image.

The red crescent is a Herbig Haro object, a jet released by a protostar. It is catalogued as HH 250 and was discovered in 1997 by the astronomers Bo Reipurth and John Bally.