Astronomy Picture of the Day

[micjer]

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

updated daily...beautiful pics. :thumb_yello:

http://i562.photobucket.com/albums/ss64/Micjer_2009/sate.jpg

Pleiades and Stardust
Credit & Copyright: Tony Hallas
http://i562.photobucket.com/albums/ss64/Micjer_2009/M45WF_hallas_r800.jpg

[Luminari]

Yup, Ive been checking this page almost daily since 1998!

The pics go right back to 1995 if I remember correctly.

I know Antaletriangle likes this page too, we both have come out with the same new pic a few times :thumb_yello:

[Dantheman62]

Love it! I got the link from Antaletriangle a while ago and the pictures are awesome!

[micjer]

http://i562.photobucket.com/albums/ss64/Micjer_2009/hand.jpg

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/090404-chandra-nebula.html

[Seashore]

http://i562.photobucket.com/albums/ss64/Micjer_2009/hand.jpg

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/090404-chandra-nebula.html

Coast to Coast has a blurb about this one on April 6, '09.

[micjer]

http://i562.photobucket.com/albums/ss64/Micjer_2009/picday.jpg


Explanation: Blown by fast winds from a hot, massive star, this cosmic bubble is huge. Cataloged as Sharpless 308 it lies some 5,200 light-years away in the constellation Canis Major and covers over 2/3 degree on the sky (compared with 1/2 degree for the Full Moon). That corresponds to a diameter of 60 light-years at its estimated distance. The massive star itself, a Wolf-Rayet star, is the bright blue one near the center of the nebula. Wolf-Rayet stars have over 20 times the mass of the Sun and are thought to be in a brief, pre-supernova phase of massive star evolution. Fast winds from this Wolf-Rayet star create the bubble-shaped nebula as they sweep up slower moving material from an earlier phase of evolution. The windblown nebula has an age of about 70,000 years. Relatively faint emission captured in the expansive image is dominated by the glow of ionized oxygen atoms mapped to bluish hues.

[micjer]

http://i562.photobucket.com/albums/ss64/Micjer_2009/eskimo3_hst.jpg

[J_rod7]

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http://imgsrc.hubblesite.org/hu/db/images/hs-1990-26-a-large_web.jpg

Image: "Window-Curtain" Structure of the Orion Nebula
http://hubblesite.org/gallery/album/nebula/pr1990026a/large_web/


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