Official Space is Awesome Thread

[Argonne69]

Galaxy Z 229-15 is located ~390 million light-years away in the constellation Lyra. The odd celestial object has three classifications as a Seyfert galaxy, an Active Galactic Nucleus (AGN), and a quasar.

 

Image: ESA, NASA, Hubble
 

Edited April 4, 2023 by Argonne69

[Argonne69]

Pluto’s bladed terrain, as seen from New Horizons during its July 2015 flyby. The planet is littered with shards of methane ice the size of skyscrapers.

 

 

Image: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI
 

[Argonne69]

Uranus has 13 dusty rings, 11 of which are visible in the Webb Space Telescope image. The rings are split into two sets (an inner and outer system), which are named for a range of Greek letters and numbers.  It is an ice giant, thought to be mostly (80% or more) icy water, methane, and ammonia surrounding a rocky core. Uranus has an extreme tilt relative to the solar system’s orbital plane, such that its north pole is currently oriented toward the Sun.

 

 

Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, J. DePasquale
 

[Argonne69]

Supernova Cassiopeia A, a 340 year old supernova remnant, captured by the Webb Space Telescope.

 

 

Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, D. Milisavljevic, T. Temim, I. De Looze, J. DePasquale

Hubble's view.

 

 

Image: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration, R. A. Fesen, J. Long 
 

[Argonne69]

The Northern Lights over Norway. Three arcs illuminate the sky: two belong to the aurora borealis and one to the Milky Way galaxy. Below the Milky Way’s arc is a splotch of light, the Andromeda Galaxy. Between the aurora and the Milky Way is a shooting star, and above the aurora is the Big Dipper. The peaks of Norway pepper the bottom of the photo.

 

 

Image: G. Cobianchi
 

[Argonne69]

Saturn’s odd-shaped ring moon, Atlas. The moon is roughly 12 miles wide.

 

 

Image:  NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
 

[Argonne69]

After the New Horizons probe flew past Pluto in 2015, NASA steered the spacecraft toward a mysterious Kuiper Belt object called 2014 MU69. This distant object, now known as Arrokoth, is located around 44 AU from the Sun, or around 4 billion miles from Earth, making it the farthest object ever visited by a probe.

 

Image: NASA/New Horizons
 

[Soloman1]

Darn. Thanks to the JWST, we have to rewrite textbooks to say what we thought we knew, we don’t know anymore.

[Argonne69]

A smash-up of two spiral galaxies shines in infrared with the light of more than a trillion suns. Collectively called Arp 220, the colliding galaxies ignited a tremendous burst of star birth.

 

 

Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, A. Pagan

 

[Argonne69]

A frozen waterway sits below streaks of the Northern Lights in Finland.

 

 

Image: I. Monnickendam
 

[Argonne69]

Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko has a very interesting surface with boulders, rocky terrains, basins, fractured terraces indicative of internal layering, and bright patches pointing to the presence of ice. Taken by the Rosetta probe.

 

 

Image: ESA/Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA
 

[Argonne69]

In orbit around Jupiter, Io is the most volcanically active object in the solar system, featuring lakes of molten silicate lava on the surface. Io’s volcanic nature is due to gravitational forces exerted by Jupiter and two neighboring moons, Europa and Ganymede. The Loki volcano accounts for 15 percent of the moon’s total heat expenditure.

 

 

Image: NASA/JPL/USGS
 

[Argonne69]

The Northern lights and flowing water in Brúarfoss, Iceland.

 

 

Image: J. Sanz
 

[Argonne69]

The largest skating rink in the solar system, the Korolev Crater on Mars. Located in the northern lowlands of the Red Planet, the crater measures 51 miles in diameter. The ice within this crater is a permanent feature.

 

 

Image: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
 

[Argonne69]

Valles Marineris is the largest canyon in the solar system, stretching for 370 miles. At its deepest, the canyon reaches a depth of 5 miles. The Grand Canyon in Arizona is a bit longer, but it’s only 1.1 miles deep. Anyone up for a hike?

 

 

Image: NASA
 

[Argonne69]

Iceland. Gotta pay a visit.

 

 

Image: J. Krause

 

[Argonne69]

Quadruply Lensed Quasar 2M1310-1714, the result of graviational lensing caused by the large mass in the foreground.

 

 

Image: ESA/Hubble & NASA, T. Treu; Acknowledgment: J. Schmidt
 

[Soloman1]

Black holes. We need more black holes. They’re like the Kardashians of the multiverse now.

[Argonne69]

7 minutes ago, Soloman1 said:

Black holes. We need more black holes. They’re like the Kardashians of the multiverse now.

 

Unfortunately they're not much to look at, even now that we're getting a few images. Would love to have a bird's eye view of one from a safe distance of a few billion miles. 

 

[Soloman1]

1 minute ago, Argonne69 said:

 

Unfortunately they're not much to look at, even now that we're getting a few images. Would love to have a bird's eye view of one from a safe distance of a few billion miles. 

 

 

Get to the edge of a safe distance, then get just a little bit closer…

And bring your phone for some photos.

[Argonne69]

14 minutes ago, Soloman1 said:

 

Get to the edge of a safe distance, then get just a little bit closer…

And bring your phone for some photos.

 

Unfortunately the phone is going with you, and there's no hope of uploading the photos to the cloud. Crazy to think that light, and radio waves, can't escape the gravitational pull. 

 

Like viewing a lion at the zoo. The fence is there for a reason. 

 

[Soloman1]

A photon is cruising the universe.

A galactic cop pulls it over and say, "Do you realize you were going 186,000 miles per second?"

The photon says, "Great, now I don't know where I am."

 

[Argonne69]

AFGL 5180, a stellar nursery located in the constellation of Gemini. At the center of the image, a massive star is forming and blasting cavities through the clouds with a pair of powerful jets, extending to the top right and bottom left of the image.

 

 

Image: ESA/Hubble & NASA, J. C. Tan, R. Fedriani, J. Schmidt

Edited May 10, 2023 by Argonne69

[Argonne69]

The Milky Way and aurora over New Zealand’s Taiari Beach.

 

 

Image: K. Chay
 

[Soloman1]

AT2021lwx

 

Pow, baby! A trillion times brighter than our measly little star. Since we’re not sure what it is, I’m going to the fallback - aliens.

[Argonne69]

Reflection nebula IRAS 17340-3757.

 

 

Image: ESA/NASA/STScl

 

[Argonne69]

The South Pole-Aitken (SPA) basin is the largest and oldest recognized impact crater on the moon. It's diameter is roughly 1,550 miles. The moon's circumference is just under 6,820 miles, meaning the basin stretches across nearly a quarter of the moon. That was a big wallop. The basin is itself littered with small craters.

 

 

Image: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University

 

[Argonne69]

Blueish-green aurorae appears over snow-capped mountains in Norway.

 

 

Image: L. Pettersen
 

[Soloman1]

Ah, yes. Norway. What a country.

 

Kalsarikännit means drinking alone at home in your underwear.

 

Fartshump is a speed bump.

 

What other place has words like these?

[Argonne69]

IC 349, Barnard’s Merope Nebula, is a reflection nebula in the Taurus constellation.

 

 

Image: NASA/ESA and The Hubble Heritage Team STScI/AURA, Schmidt, G. Herbig, and T. Simon