ASTRONOMY - NGC 7293: The Helix Nebula

 2024 October 24

NGC 7293: The Helix Nebula
Image Credit & Copyright: Patrick Winkler

Explanation: A mere seven hundred light years from Earth toward the constellation Aquarius, a star is dying. The once sun-like star's last few thousand years have produced the Helix Nebula. Also known as NGC 7293, the cosmic Helix is a well studied and nearby example of a Planetary Nebula, typical of this final phase of stellar evolution. Combining narrow band data from emission lines of hydrogen atoms in red and oxygen atoms in blue-green hues, this deep image shows tantalizing details of the Helix, including its bright inner region about 3 light-years across. The white dot at the Helix's center is this Planetary Nebula's hot, dying central star. A simple looking nebula at first glance, the Helix is now understood to have a surprisingly complex geometry.

ASTRONOMY - Caught

 2024 October 23

Caught
Credit & Copyright: SpaceX

Explanation: What if a rocket could return to its launch tower -- and be caught? This happened for the first time 10 days ago, after a SpaceX Starship rocket blasted off from its pad in Boca Chica, Texas, USA. Starship then split, as planned, with its upper stage landing in the Pacific Ocean. The big difference was the lower stage, Super Heavy Booster 12, was caught by its launch tower about 7 minutes later. Catching a rocket for reuse is a new and innovative way to help reduce the cost of rocket flight by making rockets more easily reusable. Starship rockets may be used by NASA in the future to send spacecraft to Earth orbit, the Moon, and even other planets.

ASTRONOMY -M16: Pillars of Star Creation

2024 October 22

M16: Pillars of Star Creation
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; Processing: Diego Pisano

Explanation: These dark pillars may look destructive, but they are creating stars. This pillar-capturing picture of the Eagle Nebula combines visible light exposures taken with the Hubble Space Telescope with infrared images taken with the James Webb Space Telescope to highlight evaporating gaseous globules (EGGs) emerging from pillars of molecular hydrogen gas and dust. The giant pillars are light years in length and are so dense that interior gas contracts gravitationally to form stars. At each pillar's end, the intense radiation of bright young stars causes low density material to boil away, leaving stellar nurseries of dense EGGs exposed. The Eagle Nebula, associated with the open star cluster M16, lies about 7000 light years away. 

ASTRONOMY - Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS over California

 2024 October 21

Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS over California
Credit & Copyright: Brian Fulda

Explanation: The tails of Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS were a sight to behold. Pictured, C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan–ATLAS) was captured near peak impressiveness last week over the Eastern Sierra Mountains in California, USA. The comet not only showed a bright tail, but a distinct anti-tail pointing in nearly the opposite direction. The globular star cluster M5 can be seen on the right, far in the distance. As it approached, it was unclear if this crumbling iceberg would disintegrate completely as it warmed in the bright sunlight. In reality, the comet survived to become brighter than any star in the night (magnitude -4.9), but unfortunately was then so nearly in front of the Sun that it was hard for many casual observers to locate. Whether Comet Tsuchinshan-Atlas becomes known as the Great Comet of 2024 now depends, in part, on how impressive incoming comet C/2024 S1 (ATLAS) becomes over the next two weeks.

MUSIC - Antonio Vivaldi : Concert pour deux trompettes en do majeur

"Concert pour deux trompettes en do majeur"

LES NUAGES DIEUX DU CIEL - Un cirrus en forme de squelette de poisson (cirrus fibratus vertebratus)

Différents nuages sont visibles sur cette photo prise à Karlsruhe (Bade-Wurtemberg, Allemagne) : des cirrus fibratus vertebratus, des cumulus humilis et des cumulus mediocris. Les cirrus, sont des nuages séparés, en forme de filaments blancs et délicats, de bancs ou de bandes étroites, blancs ou en majeure partie blancs. Ces nuages ont un aspect fibreux (chevelu) ou un éclat soyeux, ou les deux à la fois. Sur cette photo, on peut voir un cirrus dans la partie supérieure de la photo. L'aspect du cirrus est fibreux (fibratus) et montre en haut à droite, une forme à l'aspect d'un squelette de poisson (vertebratus). Il s'agit exclusivement de cristaux de glace qui sont portés par le vent.

© Bernhard Mühr, Der Karlsruher Wolkenatlas, www.wolkenatlas.de

ASTRONOMY - Dark Matter in a Simulated Universe

 2024 October 20

Dark Matter in a Simulated Universe
Illustration Credit & Copyright: Tom Abel & Ralf Kaehler (KIPAC, SLAC), AMNH

Explanation: Is our universe haunted? It might look that way on this dark matter map. The gravity of unseen dark matter is the leading explanation for why galaxies rotate so fast, why galaxies orbit clusters so fast, why gravitational lenses so strongly deflect light, and why visible matter is distributed as it is both in the local universe and on the cosmic microwave background. The featured image from the American Museum of Natural History's Hayden Planetarium Space Show Dark Universe highlights one example of how pervasive dark matter might haunt our universe. In this frame from a detailed computer simulation, complex filaments of dark matter, shown in black, are strewn about the universe like spider webs, while the relatively rare clumps of familiar baryonic matter are colored orange. These simulations are good statistical matches to astronomical observations. In what is perhaps a scarier turn of events, dark matter -- although quite strange and in an unknown form -- is no longer thought to be the strangest source of gravity in the universe. That honor now falls to dark energy, a more uniform source of repulsive gravity that seems to now dominate the expansion of the entire universe.

VILLES BIONIQUES DU FUTUR - Coral Reef : logements aux points de vue multiples

Chaque habitation est un module duplex, avec une structure métallique et des parements en bois tropicaux. Disposées en quinconce, elles offrent une multitude de points de vue et des façades végétalisées.

© Vincent Callebaut

ASTRONOMY - Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS Flys Away

 2024 October 19

Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS Flys Away
Image Credit & Copyright: Xingyang Cai

Explanation: These six panels follow daily apparitions of comet C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS as it moved away from our fair planet during the past week. The images were taken with the same camera and lens at the indicated dates and locations from California, planet Earth. At far right on October 12 the visitor from the distant Oort cloud was near its closest approach, some 70 million kilometers (about 4 light-minutes) away. Its bright coma and long dust tail were close on the sky to the setting Sun but still easy to spot against a bright western horizon. Over the following days, the outbound comet steadily climbs above the ecliptic and north into the darker western evening sky, but begins to fade from view. Crossing the Earth's orbital plane around October 14, Tsuchinshan-ATLAS exhibits a noticeable antitail extended toward the western horizon. Higher in the evening sky at sunset by October 17 (far left) the comet has faded and reached a distance of around 77 million kilometers from planet Earth. Hopefully you enjoyed some of Tsuchinshan-ATLAS's bid to become the best comet of 2024. This comet's initial orbital period estimates were a mere 80,000 years, but in fact it may never return to the inner Solar System.

ASTRONOMY - Most of Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS

 2024 October 18

Most of Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS
Image Credit & Copyright: Adam Block

Explanation: On October 14 it was hard to capture a full view of Comet C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS. Taken after the comet's closest approach to our fair planet, this evening skyview almost does though. With two telephoto frames combined, the image stretches about 26 degrees across the sky from top to bottom, looking west from Gates Pass, Tucson, Arizona. Comet watchers that night could even identify globular star cluster M5 and the faint apparition of periodic comet 13P Olbers near the long the path of Tsuchinshan-ATLAS's whitish dust tail above the bright comet's coma. Due to perspective as the Earth is crossing the comet's orbital plane, Tsuchinshan-ATLAS also has a pronounced antitail. The antitail is composed of dust previously released and fanning out away from the Sun along the comet's orbit, visible as a needle-like extension below the bright coma toward the rugged western horizon.