Galaxy in a Crystal Ball - Astronomy picture of the day - 2018 June 22

Galaxy in a Crystal Ball 
Image Credit & Copyright: Juan Carlos Munoz

Explanation: A small crystal ball seems to hold a whole galaxy in this creative snapshot. Of course, the galaxy is our own Milky Way. Its luminous central bulge marked by rifts of interstellar dust spans thousands of light-years. On this long southern hemisphere night it filled dark Chilean skies over Paranal Observatory. The single exposure image did not require a Very Large Telescope, though. Experiments with a digital camera on a tripod and crystal ball perched on a handrail outside the Paranal Residencia produced the evocative, cosmic marble portrait of our home galaxy.

Northern Lights and Noctilucent Clouds - Astronomy picture of the day - 2018 June 21

Northern Lights and Noctilucent Clouds 
Image Credit & Copyright: Adrien Mauduit

Explanation: Luminous skies after the near-solstice sunset on June 17 are reflected in this calm lake. The tranquil twilight scene was captured near Bashaw, Alberta, Canada, northern planet Earth. Usually spotted at high latitudes in summer months, night shining or noctilucent clouds hang just above the horizon, transfusing light into a darker sky. Formed near the edge of space, the icy apparitions are condensations on meteoric dust or volcanic ash still in sunlight at extreme altitudes. Also near the edge of space on this short northern night, solar activity triggered the lovely apparition of aurora borealis or northern lights.

Pillars of the Eagle Nebula in Infrared - Astronomy picture of the day - 2018 June 20

Pillars of the Eagle Nebula in Infrared 
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble, HLA; Processing: Lluís Romero

Explanation: Newborn stars are forming in the Eagle Nebula. Gravitationally contracting in pillars of dense gas and dust, the intense radiation of these newly-formed bright stars is causing surrounding material to boil away. This image, taken with the Hubble Space Telescope in near infrared light, allows the viewer to see through much of the thick dust that makes the pillars opaque in visible light. The giant structures are light years in length and dubbed informally thePillars of Creation. Associated with the open star cluster M16, the Eagle Nebula lies about 6,500 light years away. The Eagle Nebula is an easy target for small telescopes in a nebula-rich part of the sky toward the split constellationSerpens Cauda (the tail of the snake).

Ancients of Sea and Sky - Astronomy picture of the day - 2018 June 19

Ancients of Sea and Sky 
Image Credit & Copyright: Jingyi Zhang

Explanation: They may look like round rocks, but they're alive. Moreover, they are modern versions of one of the oldest known forms of life: stromatolites. Fossils indicate that stromatolites appeared on Earth about 3.7 billion years ago -- even before many of the familiar stars in the modern night sky were formed. In the featured image taken in Western Australia, only the ancient central arch of our Milky Way Galaxy formed earlier. Even the Magellanic Clouds, satellite galaxies of our Milky Way and visible in the featured image below the Milky Way's arch, didn't exist in their current form when stromatolites first grew on Earth. Stromatolites are accreting biofilms of billions of microorganismsthat can slowly move toward light. Using this light to liberate oxygen into the air, ancient stromatolites helped make Earth hospitable to other life forms including, eventually, humans.

An Active Prominence on the Sun - Astronomy picture of the day - 2018 June 18

An Active Prominence on the Sun 
Video Credit: Chuck Ayoub (Chuck's Astrophotography)

Explanation: Sometimes the Sun's surface becomes a whirlwind of activity. Pictured is a time-lapse video of the Sun's surface taken over a two hour period in early May, run both forwards and backwards. The Sun's surface was blocked out so that details over the edge could be imaged in greater detail. Hot plasma is seen swirling over the solar limb in an ongoing battle between changing magnetic fields and constant gravity. The featured prominence rises about one Earth-diameter over the Sun's surface. Energetic events like this are becoming less common as the Sun nears a minimum in its 11-year activity cycle.

Six Planets from Yosemite - Astronomy picture of the day - 2018 June 14

Six Planets from Yosemite 
Image Credit & Copyright: Rogelio Bernal Andreo (Deep Sky Colors)

Explanation: The five naked-eye planets, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, have been seen since ancient times to wander the night skies of planet Earth. So it could be remarkable that on this night, standing at the side of a clear, calm lake, six planets can be seen with the unaided eye. Have a look. Very bright and easy to spot for skygazers, yellowish Mars is left of a pale Milky Way. Saturn is immersed in the glow of the Milky Way's diffuse starlight. Jupiter is very near the horizon on the right, shining beyond the trees against the glow of distant city lights. Last weekend, while admiring this night time view across beautiful, high-altitude Lake Tenaya in Yosemite National Park, athoughtful and reflective observer could probably see three planets more.

Sir Edward Elgar - "Pomp and circumstance" (March N° 1) - Slides - Music

"Pomp and circumstance"

Flyer, le véhicule individuel volant - Video - Aeronautique

Kitty Hawk a encore sévi. L'entreprise américaine spécialisée dans les véhicules volants, financée par le cofondateur de Google Larry Page, a dévoilé Flyer, un véhicule monoplace volant. Totalement électrique, l'appareil ressemble à une nacelle de Formule 1 portée par dix rotors. L'entreprise a dévoilé la vidéo d'essai de la machine. 

Pour l'instant, elle peut voler à trois mètres au-dessus de l'eau grâce à un décollage vertical. Flyer peut rester dans les airs entre 12 et 20 minutes. Les utilisateurs intéressés peuvent le pré-commander mais le prix n'est pas encore connu. 

Il s'agit du premier appareil une place développé par l'entreprise, qui entend démocratiser le déplacement aérien. Il serait facile à manoeuvrer, assure Kitty Hawk, qui l'imagine surtout pour des déplacements au-dessus de l'eau et au-dessus de lieux peu peuplés. 

En 2017, une première version moto avait été dévoilée par Kitty Hawk au salon du Bourget. Le design actuel est complètement différent.

Usine Nouvelle

At Last GLAST - Astronomy picture of the day - 2018 June 11

At Last GLAST 
Image Credit: NASA, DOE, Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope Collaboration

Explanation: Rising through a billowing cloud of smoke, a long time ago from a planet very very close by, this Delta II rocket left Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's launch pad 17-B at 12:05 pm EDT on June 11, 2008. Snug in the payload section was GLAST, the Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope. GLAST's detector technology was developed for use in terrestrial particle accelerators. So from orbit, GLAST can detect gamma-rays from extreme environments above the Earth and across the distant Universe, including supermassive black holes at the centers of distant active galaxies, and the sources of powerful gamma-ray bursts. Those formidable cosmic accelerators achieve energies not attainable in earthbound laboratories. Now known as the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, on the 10 year anniversary of its launch, let the Fermi Science Playoffs begin.

The Clash of NGC 3256 - Astronomy picture of the day - 2018 June 8

The Clash of NGC 3256 
Image Credit & License: NASA, ESA, Hubble Space Telescope

Explanation: Marked by an unusually bright central region, swirling dust lanes, and far flung tidal tails, peculiar NGC 3256 is the aftermath of a truly cosmic collision. The 500 million year old clash of two separate galaxies spans some 100 thousand light-years in this sharp Hubble view. Of course when two galaxies collide, individual stars rarely do. Giant galactic clouds of molecular gas and dust do interact though, and produce spectacular bursts of star formation. In this galaxy clash, the two original spiral galaxies had similar masses. Their disks are no longer distinct and the two galactic nuclei are hidden by obscuring dust. On the timescale of a few hundred million years the nuclei will likely also merge as NGC 3256 becomes a single large elliptical galaxy. NGC 3256 itself is nearly 100 million light-years distant toward the southern sailing constellation Vela. The frame includes many even more distant background galaxies and spiky foreground stars.