This exciting and unfamiliar view of the Orion Nebula is a visualization based on astronomical data and movie rendering techniques. Up close and personal with a famous stellar nursery normally seen from 1,500 light-years away, the digitally modeled frame transitions from a visible light representation based on Hubble data on the left to infrared data from the Spitzer Space Telescope on the right. The perspective at the center looks along a valley over a light-year wide, in the wall of the region’s giant molecular cloud. Orion’s valley ends in a cavity carved by the energetic winds and radiation of the massive central stars of the Trapezium star cluster. The single frame is part of a multiwavelength, three-dimensional video that lets the viewer experience an immersive, three minute flight through the Great Nebula of Orion.

from NASA http://ift.tt/2B5EHUd
via IFTTT

With image data from telescopes large and small, this close-up features the dusty Elephant’s Trunk Nebula. It winds through the emission nebula and young star cluster complex IC 1396, in the high and far off constellation of Cepheus. Also known as vdB 142, the cosmic elephant’s trunk is over 20 light-years long. The colorful view highlights bright, swept-back ridges that outline the region’s pockets of cool interstellar dust and gas. Such embedded, dark, tendril-shaped clouds contain the raw material for star formation and hide protostars within. Nearly 3,000 light-years distant, the relatively faint IC 1396 complex covers a large region on the sky, spanning over 5 degrees. This dramatic scene spans a 1 degree wide field, about the size of 2 Full Moons.

from NASA http://ift.tt/2Db580z
via IFTTT

By starlight this eerie visage shines in the dark, a crooked profile evoking its popular name, the Witch Head Nebula. In fact, this entrancing telescopic portrait gives the impression that the witch has fixed her gaze on Orion’s bright supergiant star Rigel. More formally known as IC 2118, the Witch Head Nebula spans about 50 light-years and is composed of interstellar dust grains reflecting Rigel’s starlight. The blue color of the Witch Head Nebula and of the dust surrounding Rigel is caused not only by Rigel‘s intense blue starlight but because the dust grains scatter blue light more efficiently than red. The same physical process causes Earth’s daytime sky to appear blue, although the scatterers in Earth’s atmosphere are molecules of nitrogen and oxygen. Rigel, the Witch Head Nebula, and gas and dust that surrounds them lie about 800 light-years away.

from NASA http://ift.tt/2DdfY5t
via IFTTT

Diffuse starlight and dark nebulae along the southern Milky Way arc over the horizon and sprawl diagonally through this gorgeous nightscape. The breath-taking mosaic spans a wide 100 degrees, with the rugged terrain of the Patagonia, Argentina region in the foreground. Along with the insider’s view of our own galaxy, the image features our outside perspective on two irregular satellite galaxies – the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds. The scene also captures the broad tail and bright coma of Comet McNaught, the Great Comet of 2007.

from NASA http://ift.tt/2ECYAo1
via IFTTT

Discovered with the PanSTARRS telescope on September 7, 2016, this Comet PanSTARRS, C/2016 R2, is presently about 24 light minutes (3 AU) from the Sun, sweeping through planet Earth’s skies across the background of stars in the constellation Taurus. An inbound visitor from our Solar System’s distant Oort Cloud, its beautiful and complex ion tail is a remarkable shade of blue. Still relatively far from the Sun, the comet’s already well-developed ion tail is very impressive. Emission from unusually abundant ionized carbon monoxide (CO+) atoms fluorescing in the increasing sunlight is largely responsible for the pretty blue tint. This color image of the blue comet is a combination of data taken from two different telescopes during the night of January 7. Located at the apex of the V-shaped Hyades star cluster in Taurus, bright star Gamma Tauri is responsible for the glow at the bottom left corner of the frame.

from NASA http://ift.tt/2qQZf39
via IFTTT

Where do stars form when galaxies collide? To help find out, astronomers imaged the nearby galaxy merger NGC 2623 in high resolution with the Hubble Space Telescope. Analysis of this and other Hubble images as well as images of NGC 2623 in infrared light by the Spitzer Space Telescope, in X-ray light by XMM-Newton, and in ultraviolet light by GALEX, indicate that two originally spiral galaxies appear now to be greatly convolved and that their cores have unified into one active galactic nucleus (AGN). Star formation continues around this core near the featured image center, along the stretched out tidal tails visible on either side, and perhaps surprisingly, in an off-nuclear region on the upper left where clusters of bright blue stars appear. Galaxy collisions can take hundreds of millions of years and take several gravitationally destructive passes. NGC 2623, also known as Arp 243, spans about 50,000 light years and lies about 250 million light years away toward the constellation of the Crab (Cancer). Reconstructing the original galaxies and how galaxy mergers happen is often challenging, sometimes impossible, but generally important to understanding how our universe evolved.

from NASA http://ift.tt/2CVMj1y
via IFTTT

It is one of the brightest planetary nebulae on the sky — what should it be named? First discovered in 1878, nebula NGC 7027 can be seen toward the constellation of the Swan (Cygnus) with a standard backyard telescope. Partly because it appears there as only an indistinct spot, it is rarely referred to with a moniker. When imaged with the Earth-orbiting Hubble Space Telescope, however, great details are revealed. Studying Hubble images of NGC 7027 have led to the understanding that it is a planetary nebula that began expanding about 600 years ago, and that the cloud of gas and dust is unusually massive as it appears to contain about three times the mass of our Sun. Pictured here in assigned colors, the resolved, layered, and dust-laced features of NGC 7027 might remind sky enthusiasts of a familiar icon that could be the basis for an informal name. A leading previous suggestion was the Pillow Nebula, but please feel free to make new suggestions — for example, in an online APOD discussion forum.

from NASA http://ift.tt/2El8BGj
via IFTTT

One of the greatest unrequited legends of outer space is the tether. Tethers, long strands of material, hold the promise of stabilizing satellites, generating electricity, and allowing easy transportation. Possibly the most ambitious vision of the space tether is the space elevator popularized by Arthur C. Clarke, where a tether is constructed that connects the ground to geosynchronous orbit. One problem is strength – it is difficult to make a long useful tether that does not snap. Pictured here is the deployment of the Tethered Satellite System 1 (TSS-1) by the space shuttle Altantis in 1992. Like other tested tethers, TSS-1 failed to live up to its promise, although many valuable lessons were learned.

from NASA http://ift.tt/2AyU3jX
via IFTTT

Lately, bright Jupiter and fainter Mars have been easy to spot for early morning skygazers. Before dawn on January 7 the two naked-eye planets will reach a close conjunction near the horizon, only 1/4 degree apart in predawn eastern skies. That apparent separation corresponds to about half the angular diameter of a Full Moon. Just off the wing of a high-flying aircraft in this snapshot from early morning January 5, Jupiter (left) and Mars (middle) are also lined-up with the well-balanced Zubenelgenubi (right), alpha star of the constellation Libra. Below are lights from central Europe near Prague, Czech Republic, planet Earth.

from NASA http://ift.tt/2E99Ise
via IFTTT

A jewel of the southern sky, the Great Carina Nebula, also known as NGC 3372, is one of our galaxy’s largest star forming regions. Easily visible to the unaided eye it stands high above the signature hill of Lake Ballard, ephemeral salt lake of Western Australia, in this serene night skyscape from December 25, 2017. The Milky Way itself stretches beyond the southern horizon. Along the Milky Way, bright stars Alpha and Beta Centauri lie just above the hill’s right flank, with the Southern Cross and dark Coalsack Nebula above the hill top. Based on a 22 panel mosaic, the scene was cropped to reveal more closely the beauty of this region of the southern Milky Way. On that short summer night, a star tracking camera mount was used to record the mosaic images of the sky, but turned off to image the foreground in moonlight.

from NASA http://ift.tt/2AllL3u
via IFTTT