Starship Asterisk*

Boomer12k wrote: ↑Sat Aug 18, 2018 7:46 pm At first I thought it was a Sun, with some planet representations...glad I read the caption.

Quite the contrast...

:---[===] *

No offense, but I thought of this... a snippet of a joke by Brian Regan, one of the best observational comedians.

Ok, time to change the subject a bit?
Could a Martian ever see the sun eclipsed by the Earth? What about the Earth and Moon?

There's no crater around it, which the impact from even a sub-orbital flight after this boulder was ejected from the surface by a larger impact, would have caused, probably destroying the boulder. So a more likely origin is that this is the first stage in the degradation of Tycho's peak that the bl...

Thanks for the info. So I wonder if the differing solar wind is the explanation for the shape of most planetary nebulae. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1d/Solar_wind_Speed_interplanetary_magnetic_field.jpg :arrow: Ulysses observations of solar wind speed as a function of helio lati...

Looking at the magnetic field lines, I notice a big difference between them near the poles vs equator. It seems like any charged particles escaping the sun near the equator would be moving slower because they would have to cross the magnetic field lines in a more perpendicular direction. And don't t...

Photoshopped!! jk But it really does look a little fake. Why the 'halos' around bright objects? Did they use an iPhone to take the photo? Kind of scary to think that in 10 years or so, even videos will be able to be faked with such believability that it would take an expert to verify their authentic...

Seeing that Earth's moon is slowing the rotation of Earth, and Mars' moon is not (much?), how long will it be before the two planet's days are the same length?

Microwave Popcorn Nebula?

Burning Marshmallow Nebula is my pick. The flames are going in all directions because it's in space. And as the millennia go by, the nebula will STILL look like a burning marshmallow - with a bit of imagination at least.

Another one from me is "The Puffin Nebula". If you turn the picture upside down, you can see the wings, tail, beak, and even the puffin's eye.

My nephew suggested "The Flopping Penguin Nebula". Also "The Fat Seagull Nebula". If that's too PC incorrect, "The Fluffy Seagull Nebula" would work.

Mathgirlgeek wrote:I do agree that it looks like a pillow, but I also think it could be the Marshmallow Nebula

Mathgirlgeek, you gave me an idea for a name... The Burning Marshmallow Nebula!
An alternate: The Flaming Marshmallow Nebula.

Nice photo. It's probably coincidence, but the meteors seem TOO evenly spaced. Randomness (as in a star field) always has areas of high numbers of stars, and areas of no of stars. At least that (and that it's Pareidolia) is what I'm told when I notice lines of stars in many photos of our galaxy's st...

It seems the only habitable place is likely to be on any moons around the outer two planets. I notice the Kepler-90 planets are all labeled, but 'our' planets are not. I guess we can all remember our planets by the silly sentence, "My Very Enthusiastic Mother Just Served Us Noodles!" Keple...

Has anyone compared the crescent moon to a smile before 1900? What about in times BC?

Guest wrote:nice pic.
have to say though, i can usually see why things have been given their names, but i flat-out can't see a tarantula in that one.

I can't either. Maybe it's a cluster of tarantulas? Or a smashed one?

Great photo, but why would the moon being closer (600 million years ago) mean more solar eclipses? The celestial mechanics would be the same. May no annular eclipses, but the frequency of the alignment would not be different. Of course, I could be missing something. I frequently do. Great photo how...

How do they know they are "blades"? The terrain looks to be composed of rolling hills, not blades. Is there a close-up of the knife-like ridges?

Anybody see to the right of the "white thing" the face of a squirrel? Or maybe a porcupine or even a llama. There are distinctive eyes, the fur is light colored, with a darker pinkish nose and a darker open mouth. Even two pointed ears with the right ear about twice as big as the left. It...

Actually, if you click on the "mosaicked close-up" link in the description, they say that there is a "small area of cloning left lower spiral arm for cosmetic purposes." I don't see it... It must be a cosmetic of cosmic quality.

But the field of view of today's APOD is more complete than the view in the small picture you call Hubble's field of view. What happened? Surely someone didn't guess what was there, and paint-in the missing areas..? :? :lol2: Note that the data didn't just come from Hubble. I see. Do you know if th...

http://blogimgc.eximg.jp/i=http%253A%252F%252Fpds.exblog.jp%252Fpds%252F1%252F201003%252F25%252F14%252Fd0063814_1425994.jpg,small=200,quality=75,type=jpg NGC 2442 as photographed by Hubble. NGC 2442 is a fascinating galaxy with a very strange and striking shape. Unfortunately, today's APOD doesn't ...

E Fish wrote:Gnomon is a Greek word. And the plural would be gnomones.

According to sites wordhippo and isplural, gnomons is the plural.

JohnD wrote: ...the gnomons (which sounds just WRONG! "Gnomoi"?)...
John

Is it "Gnomoi" or "Gnomons"?
It's a debate for the future, for sure.
What's harder, Everest or Olympus Mons?
Who determines our nomenclature?

If you look closely, you will see that the two meteor streaks in the first two frames do not line up. Are one of them added for effect, or is it a piece of the meteor that changed direction when the meteor broke up? Also, the orangeish stuff (plasma?) around the streak in the first frame had to have...