A Cosmic Snake for Chinese New Year

"Gong Hey Fat Choy! Today marks the beginning of the Chinese New Year and what better way to celebrate the Year of the Black Snake than with a look at an enormous shadowy cosmic serpent, the Snake Nebula!" 

"The Introduction of 2013 Year of Snake: 
 2013, the year of the black Snake, begins on February 10th shortly after the New moon in Aquarius, the humanitarian of the zodiac. This 2013 year of Snake is meant for steady progress and attention to detail. Focus and discipline will be necessary for you to achieve what you set out to create. The Snake is the sixth sign of the Chinese Zodiac, which consists of 12 Animal Signs. It is the enigmatic, intuitive, introspective, refined and collected of the Animals Signs. Ancient Chinese wisdom says a Snake in the house is a good omen because it means that your family will not starve."

via universetoday.com


Electromagnetic Nebulae : The Rotten Egg Nebula

The Universe behaves according to the laws of plasma dynamics.

"In every science journal discussing the behavior of planetary nebulae, the prevailing opinion usually involves gases and dust “blowing” through them, as well as “winds” created by “shock waves” from exploding stars. In many cases, the nebula is described as “star forming,” because intense X-ray radiation, or extreme ultraviolet light, are thought to indicate that nuclear fusion reactions are occurring within the cloud."

via thunderbolts.info

 

Yosemite Winter Night

"In this evocative night skyscape a starry band of the Milky Way climbs over Yosemite Valley, Sierra Nevada Range, planet Earth. Jupiter is the brightest celestial beacon on the wintry scene, though. Standing nearly opposite the Sun in the constellation Taurus, the wandering planet joins yellowish Aldebaran and the Hyades star cluster. Below, Orion always comes up sideways over a fence of mountains. And from there the twin stars of Gemini rise just across the Milky Way. As this peaceful winter night began, they followed Auriga the charioteer, its alpha star Capella near the top of the frame."
via apod.nasa.gov

 

Orion Revisited: Astronomers Find New Star Cluster in Front of the Orion Nebula

"Precise distances are difficult to gauge in space, especially within the relatively local regions of the Galaxy. Stars which appear close together in the night sky may actually be separated by many hundreds or thousands of light-years, and since there’s only a limited amount of space here on Earth with which to determine distances using parallax, astronomers have to come up with other ways to figure out how far objects are, and what exactly is in front of or “behind” what."
via universetoday.com


Venus in Transition

"Venus and Earth describe a unique orbital configuration with respect to the Sun. The resonance between the two planets is readily apparent when a plot of their movements is made over the course of eight years.

Every couple of centuries, the two planets are in close enough alignment that Venus crosses the face of the Sun twice in eight years. Between that pair of crossings, there is a gap of 121.5 years, then two transits in eight years, then a gap of 105.5 years, then two transits, then a gap of 121.5 years, and so on. Why this odd time interval?

Beginning with a transit alignment, as Venus and Earth orbit the Sun, Venus laps Earth in its orbit after 1.6 Earth years, or 2.6 Venusian years. The fifth time that Venus catches up with Earth, after eight years, they are back at their starting point again. The reason there is no transit every eight years is that the orbit of Venus is inclined to the plane of the ecliptic, taking it slightly above or below a line-of-sight with Earth.

After five Venus-Earth conjunctions, they are also slightly clockwise from their starting positions. It takes 105.5 and 121.5 years for them to regress to their eight year transit pairs and shift from June to December. In 2117, Venus will perform during early December.

Thus, Venus is in near resonance with Earth. In order for an exact orbital resonance to exist, Venus would have to revolve in 243.16 days, but its actual period is 243.01 days. This close alignment suggests that it might be moving out of a resonant pattern that once was more precise."

read more via thunderbolts.info

 

The Red Spider Planetary Nebula

"Oh what a tangled web a planetary nebula can weave. The Red Spider Planetary Nebula shows the complex structure that can result when a normal star ejects its outer gases and becomes a white dwarf star. Officially tagged NGC 6537, this two-lobed symmetric planetary nebula houses one of the hottest white dwarfs ever observed, probably as part of a binary star system. Internal winds emanating from the central stars, visible in the center, have been measured in excess of 1000 kilometers per second. These winds expand the nebula, flow along the nebula's walls, and cause waves of hot gas and dust to collide. Atoms caught in these colliding shocks radiate light shown in the above representative-color picture by the Hubble Space Telescope. The Red Spider Nebula lies toward the constellation of the Archer (Sagittarius). It's distance is not well known but has been estimated by some to be about 4,000 light-years."
via apod.nasa.gov


Amazing Images of the "Gradient Sun"

An image filter helps researchers find patterns in the sun's violent weather systems.
By Emily Elert Posted 10.25.2012 at 12:32 pm 1 Comment

Scientists who study solar weather try to find patterns in the violent, chaotic motion of magnetic field lines above the sun's surface. Though the lines aren't actually visible, their patterns are illuminated by the streams of hot plasma that travel along them. But, while the giant coronal loops that form during major solar storms are easy to pick out, the field lines are generally so tangled up that it's hard to pick any one of them out.

To help solve that problem, researchers can apply a gradient filter to the images. The filter increases contrast, bringing the solar weather patterns into focus.

 

And check out NASA's excellent visualization of the gradient sun here.

via popsci.com

 

"A True Image from False Kiva"

Wally Pacholka/Astropics.com

"As seen on Astronomy Picture of the Day : the magnificent beauty of the night sky as photographed from the giant window of False Kiva in Canyonlands National Park in eastern Utah, USA. The park preserves a colorful landscape eroded into countless canyons, mesas and buttes by the Colorado River and its tributaries. As described by the photographer "The America Southwest is home to thousands of caves that were once home for millenniums of various Indian cliff dwellers. Few are as hauntingly beautiful as False Kiva, given its name for the round stone circle structure. The hidden cave sits half way down a mesa cliff and has a stunning "room with a view" of rock formations in Canyonlands. One can only imagine the thousands of times individuals through the ages saw the same view of Jupiter and the Milky Way parade across the heavens from their very own back yard... False Kiva is by far the most magical place I have ever been to and everyone that has been there says it is a hauntingly beautiful place lost in a time. Since the cave is so large, even with my 24mm lens I was not able to get the whole cave in view without doing a panoramic image with 4 shots. During the exposures the crescent Moon lit up the canyons and I artificially lit the inside of the cave. If the photo looks unreal, believe me that place looks like the most unreal scene time wrapped place I have ever been to. I have gotten unbelievably spooked at times being in there alone at night while I was just waiting for a mountain lion to return to its den!"
via twanight.org

 

 

Dying Star Blows Surprising Spiral Bubble

"Sometimes what we can’t see is just as surprising as what lies directly in front of us. This especially holds true in a new finding from the astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/sumbillimeter Array, or ALMA, in Chile. A surprising and strange spiral structure surrounding the old star R Sculptoris is likely being created by an unseen companion, say astronomers."
via universetoday.com