Space images thread

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NGC 6543, nicknamed the Cat's Eye Nebula, is one of the most complex of the planetary class nebula, stars that throw of spheres of gas at the end of their lives. It is located in the constellation Draco and is thought to have been created 1000 years ago by two stars orbiting each other.

Sparkling at the center of this beautiful image is a Wolf-Rayet star known as WR 31a, located ~ 30 000 ly away in the constellation of Carina.

The distinctive blue bubble is a Wolf-Rayet nebula - an interstellar cloud of dust, hydrogen, helium and other gases. Created when speedy stellar winds interact with the outer layers of hydrogen ejected by WR stars, these nebulae are frequently ring-shaped or spherical. The bubble - estimated to have formed around 20 000 years ago - is expanding at a rate of around 220 000 km/h.

Unfortunately, the lifecycle of a WR star is only a few hundred thousand years. Despite beginning life with a mass at least 20 times that of the Sun, WR stars typically lose half their mass in less than 100 000 years. And WR 31a is no exception to this case. It will, therefore, eventually end its life as a spectacular supernova, and the stellar material expelled from its explosion will later nourish a new generation of stars and planets.

 

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Another interesting image of Cat's Eye Nebula [NGC 6543]

The image from Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) shows a bull's eye pattern of eleven or even more concentric rings, or shells, around the Cat's Eye. Each 'ring' is actually the edge of a spherical bubble seen projected onto the sky - that's why it appears bright along its outer edge.

Observations suggest the star ejected its mass in a series of pulses at 1500-year intervals. These convulsions created dust shells, each of which contain as much mass as all of the planets in our solar system combined (still only 1% of the Sun's mass). These concentric shells make a layered, onion-skin structure around the dying star. The view from Hubble is like seeing an onion cut in half, where each skin layer is discernible.

 

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Scores of baby stars shrouded by dust are revealed in this infrared image of the star-forming region NGC 2174, as seen by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope. Some of the clouds in the region resemble the face of a monkey in visible-light images, hence the nebula's nickname: the "Monkey Head." However, in infrared images such as this, the monkey disappears. That's because different clouds are highlighted in infrared and visible-light images.

Found in the northern reaches of the constellation Orion, NGC 2174 is located ~ 6400 ly away. Columns of dust, slightly to the right of center in the image, are being carved out of the dust by radiation and stellar winds from the hottest young stars recently born in the area.

Spitzer’s infrared view provides us with a preview of the next clusters of stars that will be born in the coming millennia. The reddish spots of light scattered through the darker filaments are infant stars swaddled by blankets of warm dust. The warm dust glows brightly at infrared wavelengths. Eventually, these stars will pop out of their dusty envelopes and their light will carve away at the dust clouds surrounding them.

In this image, infrared wavelengths have been assigned visible colors we see with our eyes. Light with a wavelength of 3.5 microns is shown in blue, 8.0 microns is green, and 24 microns in red. The greens show the organic molecules in the dust clouds, illuminated by starlight. Reds are caused by the thermal radiation emitted from the very hottest areas of dust.

Areas around the edges that were not observed by Spitzer have been filled in using infrared observations from NASA’s Wide Field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE.

 

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RCW 120 is a region where an expanding bubble of ionized gas ~ 10 ly across is causing the surrounding material to collapse into dense clumps that are the birthplaces of new stars.

This magnificent poster of the starburst galaxy M82 obtained with the XMM-Newton observatory was released in order to celebrate the International Year of Astronomy (in 2009), and as part of the 100 Hours of Astronomy cornerstone project.

 

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The blast of an enormous star created and powers supernova remnant Puppis A as it expands into the cosmic realm around it, 7000 ly from us. Oxygen atoms glow in a greenish blue and hydrogen and nitrogen give off a red flare. Earth would have received the light from the explosion close to 4000 years ago.

NGC 2174, aka Monkey Head Nebula

 

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Spiral galaxy NGC 4424, located in the constellation of Virgo. Along the central region of the galaxy, clouds of dust block the light from distant stars and create dark patches. To the left of NGC 4424 there are two bright objects in the frame. The brightest is another, smaller galaxy known as LEDA 213994 and the object closer to NGC 4424 is an anonymous star in our Milky Way.

NGC 772 is a startling example of the dramatic alteration a galaxy suffers through a gravitational interaction with another one.
The spiral arms have been severely pulled apart while faint remnants of the most external spiral arm scatter in the intergalactic medium.


Yeah I remember, Aqua told me about this

 

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Antlia and Phoenix dwarf galaxies.

Antlia Dwarf Galaxy is > 4 million ly from Earth
Phoenix Dwarf Galaxy is 1.4 million ly away from Earth.

Younger stars are found in the central regions and older ones are found in the outer areas.

 

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New breathtaking image:

The vast nebula where massive stars were born, known as RCW 106, is captured here in fine detail. This sprawling cloud of gas and dust located ~ 12 000 ly away in the southern constellation of Norma.

Many other interesting objects are also captured in this wide-field image. For example the filaments to the right of the image are the remnants of an ancient supernova (SNR G332.4-00.4, also known as RCW 103), and the glowing red filaments at the lower left surround an unusual and very hot star (RCW 104, surrounding the Wolf-Rayet star WR 75). Patches of dark obscuring dust are also visible across the entire cosmic landscape.

Download original image (1.7 GB)

 

[Ahhzz]

Now that's a huge file......

edit: apparently, a little too noisy for a background tho lol

 

[Drone]

edit: apparently, a little too noisy for a background tho lol

looks good anyway

 

[Drone]

This wide-field image shows the patch of sky around the galaxy NGC 1433. This view was created from photographs forming part of the Digitized Sky Survey 2. The prominent red star to the left of the galaxy is HD 23719, which is just bright enough to be seen with the naked eye on a dark night.

 

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NGC 1433 is so cool. That's why I post some more of that galaxy:

 

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Image of NGC 772 by Skycenter Arizona

This spectacular skyscape was captured during the study of the giant galaxy cluster Abell 2744 [aka Pandora's Box]. While one of Hubble's cameras concentrated on Abell 2744, the other camera viewed this adjacent patch of sky near to the cluster.

 

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Invisibly buried in the center of this colorful swirl of gas is a dying star Kohoutek 4-55, roughly the same mass as the Sun. It's located 4600 ly from us, in the direction of the constellation Cygnus.

As a star ages, the nuclear reactions that keep it shining begin to falter. This uncertain energy generation causes the star to pulsate in an irregular way, casting off its outer layers into space. As the star sheds these outer gases, the super-hot core is revealed. It gives off huge quantities of UV light, and this radiation causes the gas shells to glow, creating the fragile beauty of the nebula. Red signifies nitrogen gas, green shows hydrogen and blue represents oxygen.

The image shows a small dim part of the supernova SN 1006 remnant , which was discovered on May, 1st 1006 - almost 1010 years ago! WOWWW!

 

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Time to feel so small

 

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Fornax Cluster of galaxies, a complex of > 50 galaxies located ~ 60 million ly away.

Fornax cluster has an example of cataclysmic galaxy evolution in progress. Fornax appears to be a quiet place, even a bit dull, being dominated by old galaxies, ellipticals and S0's mostly. This appearance is deceiving, however; X-ray images reveal a more turbulent picture of a cluster in the late stages of a recent merger of a sizable subgroup with the main cluster. A closer look at the relative motions of the galaxies has revealed additional evidence for not one but two subunits of galaxies colliding with the main group.

Astronomers find clear evidence for an active history of galaxy-galaxy interactions, for example in bridges between galaxies, elongated groupings, and other unusual arrangements.

 

[64K]

Sometimes it boggles my mind just what is out there in the universe waiting to be found. This group of superclusters is one billion light years across and it's the biggest object found to date.

http://www.sciencealert.com/astrono...e-biggest-thing-in-ever-found-in-the-universe

 

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In archived NASA data, researchers have discovered "super spiral" galaxies that dwarf our Milky Way, and compete in size and brightness with the largest galaxies in the Universe. The unprecedented galaxies have long hidden in plain sight by mimicking the appearance of typical spirals.

2MASX J08542169+0449308, contains two galactic nuclei, instead of just the usual one, and thus looks like two eggs frying in a pan.

2MASX J16014061+2718161 also contains the double nuclei.

SDSS J094700.08+254045.7 stands as one of the biggest and brightest super spirals. The mega-galaxy's starry disk and spiral arms stretch ~ 320 000 ly across, or > 3 times the breadth of the Milky Way.

These double nuclei, which are known to result from the recent merger of two galaxies, could offer a vital hint about the potential origin of super spirals. Researchers speculate that a special merger involving two, gas-rich spiral galaxies could see their pooled gases settle down into a new, larger stellar disk - a super spiral.

 

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Wolf-Lundmark-Melotte is quite small and lacks structure, hence its classification as a dwarf irregular galaxy. It spans ~ 8000 ly at its greatest extent.
This small galaxy features an extended halo of very dim red stars, which stretches out into the inky blackness of the surrounding space. This reddish hue is indicative of advanced stellar age.

The dark cloud, known as LDN 1768, snaking across this spectacular image of a field of stars in the constellation of Ophiuchus is not quite what it appears to be. Although it looks as if there are no stars here, they are hidden behind this dense cloud of dust that blocks out their light.

 

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UFO hunter says face appearing in nebula NGC 3324 was created by aliens. lolwut?! This is really amusing, beautiful picture nonetheless

 

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Dark nebulae:

LDN 673

This Herschel image shows the Serpens Core, the heart of a giant molecular cloud. The Core is the bright clump towards the upper right, with a more diffuse secondary cluster, named Ser G3-G6, shown at the bottom right. Also visible as a faint yellow glow towards the upper left of the frame is a region known as LDN 583 that shines brightly in the far-infrared.

Giant molecular clouds contain up to 10 million times the mass of the Sun, and can stretch for hundreds of light-years. Compared to the rest of space they are dense, holding up to a thousand atoms per cubic cm – and even more in star-forming regions. However, these properties are relative: even at their densest, these clouds are more than 10 times emptier than the best laboratory vacuums we can produce on Earth.

These giant clouds are complex formations, most often made up of filaments mixed with clumpy and irregular folds, sheets and bubble-like structures. A typical spiral galaxy like the Milky Way can contain thousands of them, accompanied by many of their smaller relatives.

 

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Irregular dwarf galaxy UGC 4459

 

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I think I am the only still alive

This image shows a cold cloud filament, known to astronomers as G82.65-2.00. The blue filament is the coldest part of the cloud and contains 800 times as much mass as the Sun. The dust in this filament has a temperature of –259ºC. At this low temperature, if the filament contains enough mass it is likely that this section will collapse into stars.

 

[Ahhzz]

http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astr...r_hit_by_asteroid_or_comet_in_march_2016.html

 

[Drone]

This image shows the optical and radio morphology of the radio galaxy 3C31 (NGC 383), the dominant galaxy of a prominent chain of galaxies. In this image, red colors depict radio emission measured with the VLA, and blue colors depict the optical emission from starlight. This system is a powerful radio source, with conical inner jets developing into wiggling jets and irregularly shaped plumes.

Astronomers believe that the jets are fueled by material accreting onto a supermassive black hole. The high energy particles are shot into extragalactic space at speeds approaching the speed of light, where they eventually balloon into massive radio plumes.