ALL IN ONE - PVGS: February 2014

Thursday, 27 February 2014

Rosette nebula in Monoceros

The common designation NGC 2244 refers to the cluster of stars at the center of this stellar nursery. The nebulous region is described by the designations NGC 2237, 2238 and 2246. This nebula and star cluster is more than 1 degree across. Star formation is still in progress. This object lies about 5,500 light years away, and is about 130 light years in diameter. The open cluster (NGC 2244) was discovered in 1690 by Flamsteed. The nebulous regions were later discovered by John Herschel, Marth, and Swift. posted by pvgs

Eyjafjallajökull

Scientists are actually unsure of the exact reason behind this awe-inspiring phenomenon, but believe it has to do with the immense electrical energy produced during the beginning of a volcanic eruption.

The fact that Volcanic Lightning usually happens only at the beginning of an eruption is one of the reasons that it is so hard to study, and so hard to photograph.

One thing is for sure though, when captured Volcanic Lightning is one of the most spectacular things that can be witnessed on our Earth.

M39: Open Cluster in Cygnus

Lying just at the limit of human perception is a picturesque starfield containing one of the larger open clusters on the northern sky. Spanning an angle larger than the Moon, M39's relatively few stars lie only about 800 light years distant toward the constellation of Cygnus. The above picture of M39 is a mosaic of 33 images taken by the WIYN telescope on Kitt Peak in Arizona, USA. The stars in M39 are all about 300 million years old, much younger than the 5,000 million years of our Sun. Open clusters, also called galactic clusters, contain fewer and younger stars than globular clusters. Also unlike globular clusters, open clusters are generally confined to the plane of our Galaxy.

This is a Galaxy !!!

This is a Galaxy

Friday, 21 February 2014

Night Sky

Here's What John Glenn Saw in 1962

Fifty-two years ago, on February 20, 1962, John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth. He also was one of the first humans to study the planet from space. Just 5 minutes and 44 seconds after launch, Glenn offered his first words about the view from his porthole: “This is Friendship 7. Can see clear back; a big cloud pattern way back across towards the Cape. Beautiful sight.” Three hours later, at the beginning of his third orbit, Glenn photographed this panoramic view of Florida from the Georgia border (right, under clouds) to just north of Cape Canaveral. His American homeland was 162 miles (260 kilometers) below. “I have the Cape in sight down there,” he noted to mission controllers. “It looks real fine from up here. I can see the whole state of Florida just laid out like on a map. Beautiful.”

Thursday, 20 February 2014

NGC 6188 and NGC 6164

Explanation: Fantastic shapes lurk in clouds of glowing gas in NGC 6188, about 4,000 light-years away. The emission nebula is found near the edge of a large molecular cloud unseen at visible wavelengths, in the southern constellation Ara. Massive, young stars of the embedded Ara OB1 association were formed in that region only a few million years ago, sculpting the dark shapes and powering the nebular glow with stellar winds and intense ultraviolet radiation. The recent star formation itself was likely triggered by winds and supernova explosions, from previous generations of massive stars, that swept up and compressed the molecular gas. Joining NGC 6188 on this cosmic canvas is rare emission nebula NGC 6164, also created by one of the region's massive O-type stars. Similar in appearance to many planetary nebulae, NGC 6164's striking, symmetric gaseous shroud and faint halo surround its bright central star near the bottom edge. The impressively wide field of view spans over 3 degrees (six full Moons), corresponding to over 200 light years at the estimated distance of NGC 6188. Narrowband image data has been included in the natural looking color composite, adding to deep red emission from hydrogen and sulfur atoms and the blue-green light of oxygen atoms. — with PVGS

A Particle Beam Jet forms HH 24

Explanation: If you visit HH 24, don't go near the particle beam jet. This potential future travel advisory might be issued because the powerful jet likely contains electrons and protons moving hundreds of kilometers per second. The above image was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope in infrared light in order to better understand turbulent star forming regions known as Young Stellar Objects (YSOs). Frequently when a star forms, a disk of dust and gas circles the YSO causing a powerful central jets to appear. In this case, the energetic jets are creating, at each end, Herbig-Haro object 24 (HH 24), as they slam into the surrounding interstellar gas. The entire star forming region lies about 1,500 light years distant in the Orion B molecular cloud complex. Due to their rarity, jets like that forming HH 24 are estimated to last only a few thousand years. — with PVGS

NGC 2683: Edge-On Spiral Galaxy

Explanation: Does spiral galaxy NGC 2683 have a bar across its center? Being so nearly like our own barred Milky Way Galaxy, one might guess it has. Being so nearly edge-on, however, it is hard to tell. Either way, this gorgeous island universe, cataloged as NGC 2683, lies a mere 20 million light-years distant in the northern constellation of the Cat (Lynx). NGC 2683 is seen nearly edge-on in this cosmic vista combining data and images from the ground-based Subaru telescope and the space-based Hubble Space Telescope. More distant galaxies are seen scattered in the background. Blended light from a large population of old yellowish stars forms the remarkably bright galactic core. Starlight silhouettes the dust lanes along winding spiral arms, dotted with the telltale blue glow of young star clusters in this galaxy's star forming regions. — with PVGS

The Soul Nebula, IC 1805 (SH2-199) is an emission nebula located in the constellation Cassiopeia

The Soul Nebula, IC 1805 (SH2-199) is an emission nebula located in the constellation Cassiopeia and is the eastern neighbor of IC 1805 (Heart nebula). The colors are mapped to Hubble-palette: red = SII, green = H-alpha,

blue = OIII

— with PVGS

The Missing Craters of Asteroid Itokawa

Explanation: Where are the craters on asteroid Itokawa? Missing -- unexpectedly. The Japanese robot probe Hayabusa approached the Earth-crossing asteroid in 2005 and returned pictures showing a surface unlike any other Solar System body yet photographed -- a surface possibly devoid of craters. The leading hypothesis for the lack of common circular indentations is that asteroid Itokawa is a rubble pile -- a bunch of rocks and ice chunks only loosely held together by a small amount of gravity. If so, craters might not form so easily -- or be filled in whenever the asteroid gets jiggled by a passing planet or struck by a massive meteor. Recent Earth-based observations of asteroid Itokawa have shown that one part of the interior even has a higher average interior density than the other part, another unexpected discovery. The Hayabusa mission returned soil samples from Itokawa which are also giving clues the ancient history of the unusual asteroid and our entire Solar System. — with PVGS

Cosmic Exclamation Point

VV 340, also known as Arp 302, provides a textbook example of colliding galaxies seen in the early stages of their interaction. The edge-on galaxy near the top of the image is VV 340 North and the face-on galaxy at the bottom of the image is VV 340 South. Millions of years later these two spirals will merge -- much like the Milky Way and Andromeda will likely do billions of years from now. Data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory (purple) are shown here along with optical data from the Hubble Space Telescope (red, green, blue). VV 340 is located about 450 million light years from Earth.

NGC 2359: Thor's Helmet

Explanation: This helmet-shaped cosmic cloud with wing-like appendages is popularly called Thor's Helmet. Heroically sized even for a Norse god, Thor's Helmet is about 30 light-years across. In fact, the helmet is more like an interstellar bubble, blown as a fast wind from the bright, massive star near the bubble's center sweeps through a surrounding molecular cloud. Known as a Wolf-Rayet star, the central star is an extremely hot giant thought to be in a brief, pre-supernova stage of evolution. Cataloged as NGC 2359, the nebula is located about 15,000 light-years away in the constellation Canis Major. The sharp image, made using broadband and narrowband filters, captures striking details of the nebula's filamentary structures. It shows off a blue-green color from strong emission due to oxygen atoms in the glowing gas.

— with PVGS

ring from of sun

The maganatic ring coming from sun

Indonesia’s Mount Kelut Erupts

NASA satellites detected ash from Mount Kelut nearly 20 kilometers (12 miles) in the atmosphere within two hours of the explosive February 13 eruption.

Space Center in Japan

The Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission held a photography contest this winter. The theme was "unique perspectives" on precipitation. One of the winners was Greg Colacino for this shot of clouds reflecting from a puddle in New Jersey in April 2012. Colacina titled the photograph "Hole in the Earth." Stay tuned for more news about GPM in the next few weeks. The satellite is scheduled to launch on February 27, 2014, from Tanegashima Space Center in Japan.

Canyon del Sumidero, Mexico.by PVGS

The voice of nature Canyon del Sumidero, Mexico.by PVGS

Saturday, 15 February 2014

Storm Cloud Engulfs Great Britain

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this image of an extratropical cyclone bearing down on the United Kingdom on February 12, 2014. Mature extratropical cyclones often feature comma-shaped cloud patterns that are the product of “conveyor belt” circulation. While heavy precipitation is often present near the low-pressure head of the comma, a slot of dry air is generally present to the west of the tail. Read more details at

Black Sand Beach in Iceland

This photograph, taken by Mari Wirta, shows a black sand and pebble beach near the town of Vík í Mýrdal, the southernmost settlement in Iceland. This sand originated from a basalt lava that covers much of the area. Since black sand beaches aren't routinely replenished by storms and tides like most beaches, they generally don't persist as long.

Happy Valentine's Day

Wonderful

Tuesday, 11 February 2014

Horsetail Falls, Yosemite National Park — with PVGS

The outer space of earth watching from moon

Sunday, 9 February 2014

In addition to all the usual Northern Lights green shades, there called Red Lights Aurora painted it in red tone, amazingly beautiful sight

Jupiter

So what’s the whole reason behind the issue of whether a massive, rocky world collided with Jupiter when the solar system was young? Well, the gas giant might be the biggest thing in the solar system besides the Sun, but according to most measurements, it seems to have a relatively small core for its size while Saturn, which is the second biggest planet, has a much heavier core despite basically being a giant puff ball that could float on water due to its low density. So what does that tell us about these planets’ formation? Well, we’re not really sure. That’s why the Jovian anatomy is still being measured and re-measured in planetary science and why a team of scientists in China wanted to see if a big enough collision could shed some light on the issue…

Jupiter and Saturn are thought to have begun life as rocky worlds with the mass of at least a few Earths. Their gravity then pulled in gas from their birth nebula, giving them dense atmospheres. In this picture, all gas giants should have cores of roughly the same size. Yet gravity measurements suggest Jupiter’s core weighs just two to 10 Earth masses, while Saturn’s comes in at 15 to 30.

Simulations by Shu Lin Li of Peking University in China, and colleagues, may explain why. They calculated what would happen when a super-Earth of 10 times the mass of our planet slammed into a gas giant. The rocky body flattened like a pancake when it hit the gas giant’s atmosphere, then barreled into the giant’s core about half an hour later. The energy of the collision could have vaporized much of the core.

Asteroid Impact Could Have Given Rise to Civilization 13,000 Years Ago

Asteroid Impact Could Have Given Rise to Civilization 13,000 Years Ago

It turns out that the collision with heavenly bodies does not always lead only to the destruction of life, but can also lead to its prosperity.

Scientists believe that the defining moment in human evolution could be an asteroid that crashed into the North America, in a place not far from Quebec, 12,900 years ago. The collision resulted in the establishment of a cooler and drier climate on the planet, which led to the birth of agriculture.

Wednesday, 5 February 2014

Sun Dog 2013 by Gabriel Carlson — with PVGS

Jeremy Holmes, storm chaser/photographer, Nebraska — with PVGS

Hurricane in Sydney, Australia. Gorgeous and scary

Angkor Wat, Cambodia.

The night sky over the Himalayas.

Stream around solar system

Imagine a speeding star plowing through the Oort Cloud surrounding our solar system and sending a stream of comets towards the Sun, a number of them smashing into Jupiter or diverted by the Jovian gravity into the inner solar system where the Earth could easily careen into them. The impacts could easily cause the kind of mass extinctions experienced by the dinosaurs. It would be sudden, brutal, and a significant percentage of the planet’s flora and fauna could be wiped out within weeks. No, this isn’t just another doomsday scenario in the spirit of the 2012 mythos, but the implications of a study which used the Hipparcos Star Catalogue to plot the motion of stars within a 98 light year radius of the Sun and found that an orange dwarf named Gliese 710 has an 86% chance of triggering the aforementioned chain of fiery and deadly events in about 1.5 million years.