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M82 Galaxy with SupernovaAttachment 107Attachment 107Attachment 107The supernova SN 2014J is seen in this image near its peak brightness in the first week of February 2014. It appears as a faint star to the lower right of the central region of its host galaxy M82.
The new supernova is of a particular kind known as a Type Ia. This type of supernova results in the complete destruction of a white dwarf star-the small, dense, aged remnant of a typical star like our Sun. Two scenarios are theorized to give rise to Type Ia supernovas: In a binary star system, a white dwarf gravitationally pulls in matter from its companion star, accruing mass until the white dwarf crosses a critical threshold and blows up. Alternatively, two white dwarfs in a binary system spiral inward toward each other and eventually explosively collide.
Studying SN 2014J will help with understanding the processes behind Type Ia detonations to further refine theoretical models.
In the image, light from Spitzer's infrared channels are colored blue at 3.6 microns and green at 4.5 microns.
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Snapshot of a shedding starAttachment 108
In this new Hubble image, the strikingly luminous star AG Carinae — otherwise known as HD 94910 — takes centre stage. Found within the constellation of Carina in the southern sky, AG Carinae lies 20 000 light-years away, nestled in the Milky Way.
AG Carinae is classified as a Luminous Blue Variable. These rare objects are massive evolved stars that will one day become Wolf-Rayet Stars — a class of stars that are tens of thousands to several million times as luminous as the Sun. They have evolved from main sequence stars that were twenty times the mass of the Sun.
Stars like AG Carinae lose their mass at a phenomenal rate. This loss of mass is due to powerful stellar winds with speeds of up to 7 million km/hour. These powerful winds are also responsible for the shroud of material visible in this image. The winds exert enormous pressure on the clouds of interstellar material expelled by the star and force them into this shape.
Despite HD 94910’s intense luminosity, it is not visible with the naked eye as much of its output is in the ultraviolet.
This image was taken with the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2), that was installed on Hubble during the Shuttle mission STS-61 and was Hubble’s workhorse for many years. It is worth noting that the bright glare at the centre of the image is not the star itself. The star is tiny at this scale and hidden within the saturated region. The white cross is also not an astronomical phenomenon but rather an effect of the telescope.
Credit:
ESA/Hubble & NASA
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Arp 148Attachment 109Arp 148 is the staggering aftermath of an encounter between two galaxies, resulting in a ring-shaped galaxy and a long-tailed companion. The collision between the two parent galaxies produced a shockwave effect that first drew matter into the centre and then caused it to propagate outwards in a ring. The elongated companion perpendicular to the ring suggests that Arp 148 is a unique snapshot of an ongoing collision. Infrared observations reveal a strong obscuration region that appears as a dark dust lane across the nucleus in optical light.
Arp 148 is nicknamed "Mayall's object" and is located in the constellation of Ursa Major, the Great Bear, approximately 500 million light-years away. This interacting pair of galaxies is included in Arp's catalogue of peculiar galaxies as number 148.
This image is part of a large collection of 59 images of merging galaxies taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and released on the occasion of its 18th anniversary on 24th April 2008.
Credit:
NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration and A. Evans (University of Virginia, Charlottesville/NRAO/Stony Brook University), K. Noll (STScI), and J. Westphal (Caltech)
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The proper motion path of Proxima CentauriAttachment 123
This plot shows the projected motion of the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri (green line) over the next decade, as plotted from NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope observations. Because of parallax caused by Earth’s motion around the Sun, the path appears scalloped. Because Proxima Centauri is the closest star to our Sun (at a distance of 4.2 light-years), its angular motion across the sky is relatively fast compared to far more distant background stars. This means that in 2014 and 2016 Proxima Centauri will pass in front of two background stars that are along its path. This affords astronomers a rare opportunity to study the warping of space by Proxima's gravity, as will be evident in the apparent displacement of the two stars in sky photographs. This effect is called gravitational lensing. The amount of warping will be used to calculate a precise mass for Proxima Centauri, and look for the gravitational footprint and any planets orbiting the star. The background image shows a wider view of the region of sky in the southern constellation of Centaurus (The Centaur) that Proxima is traversing.
Link:
NASA Press release
Credit:
NASA, ESA, K. Sahu and J. Anderson (STScI), H. Bond (STScI and Pennsylvania State University), M. Dominik (University of St. Andrews), and Digitized Sky Survey (STScI/AURA/UKSTU/AAO)
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http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/1501...gCedic1024.jpg
Vela Supernova Remnant
The plane of our Milky Way Galaxy runs through this complex and beautiful skyscape. At the northwestern edge of the constellation Vela (the Sails) the telescopic frame is over 10 degrees wide, centered on the brightest glowing filaments of the Vela Supernova Remnant, an expanding debris cloud from the death explosion of a massive star. Light from the supernova explosion that created the Vela remnant reached Earth about 11,000 years ago. In addition to the shocked filaments of glowing gas, the cosmic catastrophe also left behind an incredibly dense, rotating stellar core, the Vela Pulsar. Some 800 light-years distant, the Vela remnant is likely embedded in a larger and older supernova remnant, the Gum Nebula
Image Credit & Copyright: CEDIC Team - Processing: Wolfgang Leitner
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Hubble Image of NGC 3324Attachment 142
Located in the Southern Hemisphere, NGC 3324 is at the northwest corner of the Carina Nebula (NGC 3372), home of the Keyhole Nebula and the active, outbursting star Eta Carinae. The entire Carina Nebula complex is located at a distance of roughly 7,200 light-years, and lies in the constellation Carina.
This image is a composite of data taken with two of Hubble's science instruments. Data taken with the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) in 2006 isolated light emitted by hydrogen. More recent data, taken in 2008 with the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2), isolated light emitted by sulfur and oxygen gas. To create a color composite, the data from the sulfur filter are represented by red, from the oxygen filter by blue, and from the hydrogen filter by green.
Credit:
NASA, ESA, and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
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I love space pictures...so beautiful imo.
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yes they are and they can make some very nice wall papers on pc as well,glad you enjoy them.
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Dying star creates fantasy-like sculpture of gas and dustAttachment 149
In this detailed view from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, the so-called Cat's Eye Nebula looks like the penetrating eye of the disembodied sorcerer Sauron from the film adaptation of "Lord of the Rings."
The nebula, formally catalogued NGC 6543, is every bit as inscrutable as the J.R.R. Tolkien phantom character. Although the Cat's Eye Nebula was the first planetary nebula ever to be discovered, it is one of the most complex planetary nebulae ever seen in space. A planetary nebula forms when Sun-like stars gently eject their outer gaseous layers to form bright nebulae with amazing twisted shapes.
Credit:
ESA, NASA, HEIC and The Hubble Heritage Team STScI/AURA)
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The pictures give a sense of infinite greatness, and infinite smallness. The atomic nucleus, and the star as the center of two galaxies at the ends of a spectrum. Or maybe just two ends of a larger more infinite spectrumAttachment 153 Blue wormhole wonder what's on the OTHER side.