Starship Asterisk*

Image Credit: Petr Horálek / ESO

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ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile is unavoidably photogenic from every angle — including unusual and creative perspectives such as this one!

This unique panoramic view was captured by ESO Photo Ambassador Petr Horálek. “I was wondering if it was possible to capture the mystical colours of the Universe without complicated equipment,” he explained, adding that he was initially inspired by one of the posters released to accompany Christopher Nolan’s film Interstellar. “At La Silla, you can really feel — and capture — interstellar moments!”

Petr evidently succeeded in imaging the Universe in all its beauty. The majestic band of the Milky Way galaxy blazes across the sky, creating a cosmic bridge between two of La Silla’s resident telescopes: the ESO 3.6-metre telescope (left) and the Swedish-ESO Submillimetre Telescope (right). The Large and Small Magellanic Clouds — a duo of nearby galaxies — are captured together sitting “above” the galactic plane in the upper right corner of the image. The bright splash of red in the middle of the frame is the beautiful Gum Nebula, and the particularly bright dot in the lower left of the image is the planet Jupiter.

Image Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA

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A ripple of bright blue threads through this galaxy like a misshapen lake system. The foreground of this image is littered with nearby stars with their gleaming diffraction spikes. A keen eye can also spot a few other galaxies that, while masquerading as stars at first glance, reveal their true nature on closer inspection.

The central galaxy streaked with colour, IC 4870, was discovered by DeLisle Stewart in 1900 and is located approximately 28 million light-years away. It contains an active galactic nucleus, or AGN: an extremely luminous central region so alight with radiation that it can outshine the rest of the galaxy put together. AGNs emit radiation across the complete electromagnetic spectrum, from radio waves to gamma-rays, produced by the action of a central supermassive black hole that is devouring material getting too close to it. IC 4870 is also a Seyfert galaxy, a particular kind of AGN with characteristic emission lines.

IC 4870 has been imaged by Hubble for several studies of nearby active galaxies. By using Hubble to explore the small-scale structures of AGN in nearby galaxies, astronomers can observe the traces of collisions and mergers, central galactic bars, nuclear starbursts, jets or outflows, and other interactions between a galactic nucleus and its surrounding environment. Images such as this can help astronomers understand more about the true nature of the galaxies we see throughout the cosmos.

starsurfer wrote: ↑Tue Jun 05, 2018 2:40 pm NGC 1222
http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1645a/
Copyright: ESA/Hubble & NASA

Click to view full size image

Ann wrote: ↑Tue Jun 05, 2018 5:58 pm

starsurfer wrote: ↑Tue Jun 05, 2018 2:40 pm NGC 1222
http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1645a/
Copyright: ESA/Hubble & NASA

Click to view full size image

Wow, that thing looks like a mean face with a huge mouth chomping down on something, and blue spittle (or something) is coming out of the corners of his mouth! What a slob!

Ann

starsurfer wrote: ↑Wed Jun 06, 2018 9:56 am
I think it looks rather beautiful, a strange but lovely cosmic flower.

Image Credit: A. Russell/ESO

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Many telescopes are formed of multiple mirrors or antennas, not just one. ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), located at ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile, is a prime example. The VLT comprises four main telescopes, and four smaller, movable auxiliary telescopes — eight individual structures in total. However, even this is dwarfed by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), which sits atop the Chajnantor plateau in the Chilean Andes — and comprises a whopping 66 antennas!

Even individually, the ALMA antennas are impressive in size. The Chajnantor plateau itself is also located at an altitude of 5000 metres, with its Operations Support Facility (OSF) at a (still considerable) altitude of 2900 metres. As the antennas are not built up on the plateau, this required an entirely new approach to transporting each of the constituent antennas from the OSF up to Chajnantor. Enter Otto and Lore!

Designed and built especially for the job, Otto and Lore are the names of the two ALMA Transporters — the two yellow vehicles pictured here. The duo possess impressive features; at 20 metres long, 10 metres wide and with 28 wheels each, these machines are built not just to survive in the harsh environment of the Atacama Desert, but to thrive in it! While rugged and powerful, they also possess a delicate touch, and are able to position each antenna with astonishing millimetre accuracy.

Image Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, RELICS

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This sparkling Picture of the Week features a massive galaxy cluster named RXC J0232.2-4420. This image was taken by Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) and Wide-Field Camera 3 (WFC3) as part of an observing programme called RELICS (Reionization Lensing Cluster Survey). RELICS imaged 41 massive galaxy clusters with the aim of finding the brightest distant galaxies for the forthcoming NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to study.

The enormous gravitational influence of such clusters distorts the space around them in such a way that they can be used as giant cosmic lenses that magnify distant background galaxies. Studying some of the earliest galaxies in the Universe will tell us more about our cosmic origins.

RXC J0232.2-4420 also featured in a study that focused on galaxy clusters that are especially luminous sources of X-rays . The study searched for diffuse light around the brightest galaxies in the clusters, among the most massive galaxies in the Universe. This diffuse light comes from intergalactic stars strung out between the constituent galaxies of the cluster and the aim of the study was to explore various theories for the origins of these stars. One theory is that that may have been stripped from their host galaxies during mergers and interactions.