APOD: A Little Drop of Galaxy (2020 Mar 27)

[APOD Robot]

A Little Drop of Galaxy

Explanation: A drop of water seems to hold an entire galaxy in this creative macro-astrophotograph. In the imaginative work of cosmic nature photography a close-up lens was used to image a previously made picture of a galaxy, viewed through a water drop suspended from a stem. A favorite of many telescope-wielding astroimagers, the galaxy is the Andromeda Galaxy, also known as M31. About 100,000 light-years across that majestic galaxy's spiral arms and dust lanes are curved and distorted in the image contained in the centimeter-sized droplet. Andromeda is some 2.5 million light-years distant, but this project was still carried out while spending time indoors.

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[Ann]

I was staring at today's APOD and tried to see the Milky Way in it. I mean, how cool wouldn't it be if the Milky Way looked at itself in a drop of water? Don't we all (or most of us) want to look at ourselves?

Narcissus gazing at his own reflection. Painting: Caravaggio.

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Teenage boy using a selfie stick to photograph himself.

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As I kept staring at today's APOD and tried to understand what part of the Milky Way I was seeing - what part of the Milky Way displays such a long and narrow dust lane? And what is that little bluish blob at the bottom of the drop of water - is that the Large Magellanic Cloud? Okay, it finally dawned on me. The galaxy is Andromeda and the blob - makes that blobs - are Andromeda's satellite galaxies M32 and NGC 205.


So which reflected galaxy is your favorite of the two images below? Take your pick!

The Andromeda Galaxy reflected in a drop of water. Image Credit & Copyright: Massimo Tamajo.

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The Milky Way reflected in the Salar de Uyuni salt flat in Bolivia. Photot: Jheison Huerta.

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[orin stepanek]

Galassiainunagoccia1024.jpg

Reading through the description; I feel the picture is more or less fabricated! Still; beautiful!

[gmPhil]

Reminds me of William Blake's "To See a World...", which begins:

"To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour."

http://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/b ... world.html

[neufer]

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<<drop (n.) : Middle English drope, from Old English dropa "a small, spherical mass of liquid," from Proto-Germanic *drupon (source also of Old Saxon dropo, Old Norse dropi, Dutch drop, Old High German tropfo, German Tropfen (n.)).

Sense of "minute quantity of anything, least possible amount" is from c. 1200. Meaning "an act of dropping" is from 1630s; of immaterial things (prices, temperatures, [stock market] etc.) from mid-19c. Meaning "lozenge, hard candy" is 1723, from resemblance in shape. Meaning "secret place where things can be left illicitly and picked up later" is from 1931. Theatrical meaning "painted curtain dropped between scenes to conceal the stage from the audience" is by 1779.

Drop in the bucket (late 14c.) is from Isaiah xl.15 [KJV]. At the drop of a hat "suddenly" is from 1854. To get the drop on "be prepared before one's antagonist" originally was Old West gunslinger slang (1869).>>

[TheZuke!]

When I clicked on the "Discuss" link in today's APOD, my browser went to yesterday's discussion.
Did that happen with anyone else?

[TheZuke!]

Okay, a "galaxy in a droplet" beats "galaxy in a marble" from Men in Black!

[Ann]

When I clicked on the "Discuss" link in today's APOD, my browser went to yesterday's discussion.
Did that happen with anyone else?

It works for me. Have you tried again?

Ann

[neufer]

The average volume of a water drop is precisely 0.05 mL (20 drops per millilitre).
It turns out that there are over 1.5 sextillion (1.5 x 10²¹) molecules in a water drop.

<<Sagan's number is the number of stars in the observable universe.

• In 1980, Carl Sagan himself estimated it to be 10 sextillion in short scale (10²²).
  
  In 2003, it was estimated to be 70 sextillion (7 × 10²²).
  
  In 2010, it was estimated to be 300 sextillion (3 × 10²³).

[TheZuke!]

It works for me. Have you tried again?

Ann

It worked later.
Thanks for responding!