Starship Asterisk*

Epimetheus's chunk is probably Janus; Hyperion's (250km?) chunk may have formed "Xanadu" on nearby Titan: That is a stretch. Titan's escape velocity is only 2.64 km/s so Hyperion's (250km?) chunk would have crashed at a pretty low velocity; perhaps even slow enough to generate a continent...

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap080218.html It is very very very difficult not to imagine that there are at least a few earthlike planets out there with life somewhat similar to ours. <<Vogon poetry is of course the third worst in the Universe. The very worst poetry of all perished along with its creat...

a couple of online papers (and Wikipedia) mention that Rayleigh-Taylor instability gives rise to the Crab Nebula's filamentary "RT fingers" as the pulsar wind catches up with and accelerates the slower-moving supernova ejecta. A Rayleigh-Taylor instability of "steam below ice" m...

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/browse/PIA09813.jpg http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/browse/PIA07761.jpg PIA09813: Epimetheus Revealed PIA07761: Cosmic Blasting Zone Hyperion has an unusually low density and high porosity whereas Epimetheus has been described as having possibly more of a bedrock l...

(emc write:Could Epimetheus be a "chunk" from a much larger source?) Interesting. A good idea to explore. Can they have been one bigger asteroid that have been hit with the right amount of force to split them apart just enough. A slow impact. May be it can explain all those moonlet in the...

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap080217.html WAhat causes the filaments in a nova like this? Orin More of that "fur" again. Synchrotron radiation means magnetic field lines. http://fuse.pha.jhu.edu/~wpb/hstcrab/hstcrab.html <<Although this is a complicated region of filaments, you can see a nu...

What's the overall structure of the nebula? Spherical? Ellipsoidal? Is the prominent dust lane running in toward the center of the view on the "front" side of the nebula from our point of view? Ellipsoidal with the long axis defined by the pulsar jets. http://seds.org/messier/Pics/Jpg/m1p...

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap080217.html WAhat causes the filaments in a nova like this? Orin More of that "fur" again. Synchrotron radiation means magnetic field lines. http://fuse.pha.jhu.edu/~wpb/hstcrab/hstcrab.html <<Although this is a complicated region of filaments, you can see a nu...

It's a very expressive photo, & they're right to call the Crab a "mess" - it looks like a huge, splattered puddle of cosmic puke :) It's even Messier than that! --------------------------- http://seds.org/messier/m/m001.html <<The supernova was noted on July 4, 1054 A.D. by Chinese as...

If a thread is not an APOD but still is of astronomy; It will be mooved to the Cafe so that it may still be discussed. This thread will probably wind up there. So;-- if you start such a thread and want to discuss it you may as well put it in the Cafe to begin with. Orin Thanks, Orin. How does one &...

From time to time various threads are "moved" (into the "cafe"?). As far as I can tell all this does not put a lock on these threads in the sense that more posts can be added. But the board listing does not recognize these new posts such that the thread is allowed to slowly desce...

What does this region look like in visible light (what humans can see)? http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/47/Skorpion_fg10.jpg Antares and the next Scorpius star to it's right (Alniyat) are the bright stars in clouds of yellow & red: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap070903.html ...

Wow... look at the increase in image quality. So the purplish glow is from a mixture of starlight causing blue reflection nebulae and the ultraviolet light causing red emission nebulae? In visible light, yes: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap070903.html The visibly dark dust patches in the above ...

Rho Ophiuchi (oh'-fee-yu-kee) http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap080215.html http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/9709/antrho_aat.jpg Finnegans Wake page 494: Talk about iridecencies! Ruby and beryl and chrysolite, jade, sapphire, jasper and lazul. -- Orca Bellona! Heavencry at earthcall, etnat athos? Ex...

I am a total newbie here, although I have been on APOD for years just as an ordinary reader. My question is this: In many APOD pictures comments a "hot gas" is mentioned, referring to interstellar (molecular) gas, just like it is mentioned in the February 13th picture explanation - "...

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap080214.html Awwwww..... what an awesome sight the Rosette Nebula is! NGC 2237 and NGC 2244 make a great valetine's day pair. =b Now if only this came in a bouquet of a dozen... >.< << The Parliament of Fowles, circa 1380 http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~amtower/parliament.html...

Finnegans Wake: Page 310 This harmonic condenser enginium (the Mole) they caused to be worked from a magazine battery (called the Mimmim Bimbim patent number 1132, Thorpetersen and Synds, Jomsborg, Selverbergen) which was tuned up by twintriodic singulvalvulous pipelines (lackslipping along as if t...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intracluster_medium And what about the Cooling Flow Problem? <<As the ICM in the core of many galaxy clusters is dense, it emits a lot of X-ray radiation (the emission is proportional to the density-squared). In the absence of heating, the ICM should be cooling. As it c...

What puzzles me, why an old elliptical system is emitting so much X-ray radiation. In an elliptical system there is hardly any cold gas left for new stars to be formed ( http://heritage.stsci.edu/2008/07/caption.html ) If there isn't much cold gas, then where does all the hot gas come from? X-rays ...

Finnegans Wake: Page 310 This harmonic condenser enginium (the Mole) they caused to be worked from a magazine battery (called the Mimmim Bimbim patent number 1132, Thorpetersen and Synds, Jomsborg, Selverbergen) which was tuned up by twintriodic singulvalvulous pipelines (lackslipping along as if t...

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap080212.html ----------------------------- Light Echoes Give Accurate Cepheid Distance RS Puppis and surrounding nebula http://www.skyandtelescope.com/news/15548412.html <<For nearly a century now, astronomers have used Cepheid variable stars as "standard candles"...

Neufer, I hope you didn't really expect CC to explain himself. I would've thought by now you would realize that CC and FI don't explain, they "just observe the obvious". Obvious to them, anyway. Think about it. :roll: :lol: Oh, and BTW, welcome aboard. Nice to be aboard, thanks, bystander.

NoelC wrote:Is there a follow-on vehicle in the plans yet? Or is NASA just dropping the ball and walking away from the game?

Back to the Future:

There would have been a constant cooling fire haze from all this that suppressed temperatures before the CO2 had time to build up and reverse this process. I highly doubt that. For many reasons, think about it. I have thought about it already. Could you be a little more specific? [Note: I am not cl...

I would like to refer you to the subject of the "Maunder Minimum." That was a period from around 1645 - 1715 when sunspots were at a minimum or even absent and a mini ice age descended on Europe. Whether or not the 300 year Little Ice Age (1550 to 1850) and the MUCH shorter 70 year Maunde...