Starship Asterisk*

Thank you Ann and Chris. As always, you help me understand things a bit better.

I wonder what makes the comet get too close to the Sun ? I'd imagine gravity pull .. but then, how long it must have taken that comet to reach that stage (i mean how many times it must have made rounds around Sun and how many years it must have been doing it before finally getting too close and gett...

Couldn't understand one basic aspect. Why the eclipse is seen starting from west coast in US to east coast in US.. Apparent motion of moon from east to waste should be faster than Sun's apparent motion from east to west.. So I was imagining it'd start from east coast and move towards west coast. And...

Beautiful and Amazing. I wish they had mentioned the range of distances to galaxies (e.g. from 170 million to 10 billion light years away etc). Just to get and give a perspective, not everything that's "seen (looks) together and close" isn't so in reality.

"NGC 1365's prominent bar plays a crucial role" .. Sorry, but where is the "bar" ? I zoomed and zoomed.. maybe I am challenged to see shapes OR people who think there's a bar are falling to brain's "looking for shapes and patterns" bias/tendency ?

Maybe the small rover should go and bump into Moon Sniper (a nudge, not a destructive bang/collision) so that it stands on it's feet (thrusters touching ground) normal ? Worth experimenting instead of letting it lay there in "vegetable state".. just wondering..

From bay area California, whenever I saw Pleiades, I saw "Y" shaped star cluster, with 6 stars I can see with naked eye on most nights even from urban location. In this image, I am not able to figure out where's that "Y" shape (that makes it difficult to relate to what I see) and...

Good angle, good view, good perspective. Not so usual. I also like that we are able to see some portion of moon that we never get to see from earth but I wish we could see it better (I'm thinking the cameras on Artemis I don't have good resolution), i've never seen so much large portion of the moon ...

Sorry, what's today's APOD got to do with "A" in "APOD" ? It happens from time to time, I wonder what the person in-charge of posting APOD was drinking last night..

Quick question on Barnard's loop - 1) Why it's called a "loop" when all we can see (at least prominently and obviously) is a C shaped arc ? I did quick Google search and couldn't see an answer in a few clicks :( 2) How do they measure distances to such objects and why it has large margin o...

Thank you Ann and Chris. I can understand the other reasons (not a question of pride anymore, not a military operation anymore.. etc) but with trillions of $$ of spending at federal and state levels in US and with many private companies $$ also coming in, I'm surprised "money (or lack thereof)&...

Tangential question (related to moon) - If NASA managed to land many astronauts on moon till 1972 (they even drove there), after 50 years, achieving same should have been piece of cake (considering that capability/expertise, instruments, technology, money - everything - we have much more/better toda...

Slightly tangential question - if there's BH there (around 1500 ly), then it'd be even closer than the closest we know so far (Gaia BH1/BH2). I wonder if there'd be a BH much closer (e.g. just outside Neptune's orbit) and we just don't have a way (technology, instruments, skills, knowledge) to detec...

I recall somewhere it was mentioned that some star was moving in our direction that is expected to be closer to us than Alpha Centauri is, I'm assuming that star is a runaway star..

Hi Chris, I acknowledge and appreciate your knowledge and thoughts, only thing I have difference of opinion is about "possibility of radically different understanding of universe" that humanity will have in next 100 years if not just 25-50 years. Just imagine how understanding changed/evo...

Hard to fathom that all we see and think we understand comprises only 5% of the universe: https://chandra.harvard.edu/chronicle/0108/universe/pie.jpg But that doesn't mean that our understanding of nature is 95% incomplete! If it means we "understand" that we don't understand 95%, then ye...

It's great experiment and am sure lot of time, money, efforts, knowledge involved in creating this but I can't help resist the thought that maybe all this is moot with latest discoveries James Webb ? I mean, the whole thing was based on 2014, 9 years ago and tons of things have changed since then w...

It's great experiment and am sure lot of time, money, efforts, knowledge involved in creating this but I can't help resist the thought that maybe all this is moot with latest discoveries James Webb ? I mean, the whole thing was based on 2014, 9 years ago and tons of things have changed since then wh...

Thank you Ann and Chris for detailed explanation, thoughts and comments. I always find it useful, it adds to my knowledge (or curiosity).

Hmmm,,, quick questions - 1) Brightest portion in the middle.. is that where the friction with Earth's atmosphere is the strongest (e.g. left origin up above atmosphere, so not that bright, right ending portion after the max burn falling down from sky) ? Or some other reason ? 2) Why blue-green ligh...

Thanks to folks posting video/link of occultation. One question remains - why the brightness of star is seen lowering equally (full 360 deg, round) and not partially just where the occultation happened ? Whenever we see moon/Sun getting eclipsed like that - partially, at an angle, cutting it's visua...

That day I tried to get a "live" video streaming, I looked and searched and searched.. got none. It was disappointing. From the photo (right frame), seems the passing was subtle (not so obvious, not so conspicuous) to naked eyes (or even small binoculars) ? It's strange that people didn't ...

IF we had a telescope that was powerful enough to see all the way into the Andromeda galaxy, and powerful enough to zoom into a planet that harbored some type of life, would we be seeing images from 2 million years ago or current? From over 2 million years ago. What we "see" is what light...

I've never been fan of such artificial mixture of different compositions with different settings and processing.. What's the purpose ? Why make something appear so incorrect from physics and reality perspective.. it's not like we are here at APOD to watch a Sci-fi movie with CGI effects.. It's image...

When the black hole which is supposed to be at the center of galaxy is shown bigger than entire galaxy.. I'm sure it's got to do with different (and digital) zooms of Chandra and JWST just to make it easier for viewers ? It is beyond my capability of understanding how the telescopes and then process...