|
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The Spirit of Halloween Live
…
| Title |
The Spirit of Halloween Lives On as a Dead Star Creates Celestial Havoc |
| Description |
According to the folklore of the Celts and other ancient cultures, Halloween marked the midpoint between the autumnal equinox and the winter solstice on the astronomical calendar, a spooky night when spirits of the dead spread havoc upon their return to Earth. Nowadays, Halloween is primarily a time for children to dress in costume and demand treats, but the original spirit of Halloween lives on in the sky in the guise of the Crab Nebula. A star's spectacular death in the constellation Taurus was observed on Earth as the supernova of 1054 A.D. Now, almost a thousand years later, a superdense neutron star left behind by the stellar death is spewing out a blizzard of extremely high-energy particles into the expanding debris field known as the Crab Nebula. This composite image uses data from three of NASA's Great Observatories. The Chandra X-ray image is shown in light blue, the Hubble Space Telescope optical images are in green and dark blue, and the Spitzer Space Telescope's infrared image is in red. The size of the X-ray image is smaller than the others because ultrahigh-energy X-ray emitting electrons radiate away their energy more quickly than the lower-energy electrons emitting optical and infrared light. The neutron star, which has the mass equivalent to the sun crammed into a rapidly spinning ball of neutrons twelve miles across, is the bright white dot in the center of the image. |
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The Seven Sisters Pose for S
…
| Title |
The Seven Sisters Pose for Spitzer |
| Description |
The Seven Sisters, also known as the Pleiades star cluster, seem to float on a bed of feathers in a new infrared image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Clouds of dust sweep around the stars, swaddling them in a cushiony veil. The Pleiades, located more than 400 light-years away in the Taurus constellation, are the subject of many legends and writings. Greek mythology holds that the flock of stars was transformed into celestial doves by Zeus to save them from a pursuant Orion. The 19th-century poet Alfred Lord Tennyson described them as "glittering like a swarm of fireflies tangled in a silver braid." The star cluster was born when dinosaurs still roamed the Earth, about 100 million years ago. It is significantly younger than our 5-billion-year-old sun. The brightest members of the cluster, also the highest-mass stars, are known in Greek mythology as two parents, Atlas and Pleione, and their seven daughters, Alcyone, Electra, Maia, Merope, Taygeta, Celaeno and Asterope. There are thousands of additional lower-mass members, including many stars like our sun. Some scientists believe that our sun grew up in a crowded region like the Pleiades, before migrating to its present, more isolated home. The new infrared image from Spitzer highlights the "tangled silver braid" mentioned in the poem by Tennyson. This spider-web-like network of filaments, colored yellow, green and red in this view, is made up of dust associated with the cloud through which the cluster is traveling. The densest portion of the cloud appears in yellow and red, and the more diffuse outskirts are shown in green hues. One of the parent stars, Atlas, can be seen at the bottom, while six of the sisters are visible at top. Additional stars in the cluster are sprinkled throughout the picture in blue. The Spitzer data also reveal never-before-seen brown dwarfs, or "failed stars," and disks of planetary debris (not pictured). John Stauffer of NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope mission says Spitzer's infrared vision allows astronomers to better study the cooler, lower-mass stars in the region, which are much fainter when viewed in optical light. Stauffer, who admits to being biased because the Pleiades is his favorite astronomical object, says the cluster is the perfect laboratory for understanding the evolution of stars. This image is made up of data taken by Spitzer's multiband imaging photometer and its infrared array camera. Light with a wavelength of 4.5 microns is blue, light of 8 microns is green, and light of 24 microns is red. |
|
The Seven Sisters Pose for S
…
| Title |
The Seven Sisters Pose for Spitzer |
| Description |
The Seven Sisters, also known as the Pleiades star cluster, seem to float on a bed of feathers in a new infrared image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Clouds of dust sweep around the stars, swaddling them in a cushiony veil. The Pleiades, located more than 400 light-years away in the Taurus constellation, are the subject of many legends and writings. Greek mythology holds that the flock of stars was transformed into celestial doves by Zeus to save them from a pursuant Orion. The 19th-century poet Alfred Lord Tennyson described them as "glittering like a swarm of fireflies tangled in a silver braid." The star cluster was born when dinosaurs still roamed the Earth, about 100 million years ago. It is significantly younger than our 5-billion-year-old sun. The brightest members of the cluster, also the highest-mass stars, are known in Greek mythology as two parents, Atlas and Pleione, and their seven daughters, Alcyone, Electra, Maia, Merope, Taygeta, Celaeno and Asterope. There are thousands of additional lower-mass members, including many stars like our sun. Some scientists believe that our sun grew up in a crowded region like the Pleiades, before migrating to its present, more isolated home. The new infrared image from Spitzer highlights the "tangled silver braid" mentioned in the poem by Tennyson. This spider-web-like network of filaments, colored yellow, green and red in this view, is made up of dust associated with the cloud through which the cluster is traveling. The densest portion of the cloud appears in yellow and red, and the more diffuse outskirts are shown in green hues. One of the parent stars, Atlas, can be seen at the bottom, while six of the sisters are visible at top. Additional stars in the cluster are sprinkled throughout the picture in blue. The Spitzer data also reveal never-before-seen brown dwarfs, or "failed stars," and disks of planetary debris (not pictured). John Stauffer of NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope mission says Spitzer's infrared vision allows astronomers to better study the cooler, lower-mass stars in the region, which are much fainter when viewed in optical light. Stauffer, who admits to being biased because the Pleiades is his favorite astronomical object, says the cluster is the perfect laboratory for understanding the evolution of stars. This image is made up of data taken by Spitzer's multiband imaging photometer and its infrared array camera. Light with a wavelength of 4.5 microns is blue, light of 8 microns is green, and light of 24 microns is red. |
|
Pink Pleiades
| Title |
Pink Pleiades |
| Description |
The Seven Sisters, also known as the Pleiades star cluster, seem to float on a bed of feathers in a new infrared image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Clouds of dust sweep around the stars, swaddling them in a cushiony veil. The Pleiades, located more than 400 light-years away in the Taurus constellation, are the subject of many legends and writings. Greek mythology holds that the flock of stars was transformed into celestial doves by Zeus to save them from a pursuant Orion. The 19th-century poet Alfred Lord Tennyson described them as "glittering like a swarm of fireflies tangled in a silver braid." The star cluster was born when dinosaurs still roamed the Earth, about 100 million years ago. It is significantly younger than our 5-billion-year-old sun. The brightest members of the cluster, also the highest-mass stars, are known in Greek mythology as two parents, Atlas and Pleione, and their seven daughters, Alcyone, Electra, Maia, Merope, Taygeta, Celaeno and Asterope. There are thousands of additional lower-mass members, including many stars like our sun. Some scientists believe that our sun grew up in a crowded region like the Pleiades, before migrating to its present, more isolated home. The new infrared image from Spitzer highlights the "tangled silver braid" mentioned in the poem by Tennyson. This spider-web-like network of filaments, colored red in this view, is made up of dust associated with the cloud through which the cluster is traveling. One of the parent stars, Atlas, can be seen at the bottom, while six of the sisters are visible at top. Additional stars in the cluster are sprinkled throughout the picture in blue. The Spitzer data also reveal never-before-seen brown dwarfs, or "failed stars," and disks of planetary debris (not pictured). John Stauffer of NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope mission says Spitzer's infrared vision allows astronomers to better study the cooler, lower-mass stars in the region, which are much fainter when viewed in optical light. Stauffer, who admits to being biased because the Pleiades is his favorite astronomical object, says the cluster is the perfect laboratory for understanding the evolution of stars. This image shows infrared light captured by Spitzer's infrared array camera. Light with wavelengths of 8 and 5.8 microns is red and orange, light of 4.5 microns is green, and light of 3.6 microns is blue. |
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Pink Pleiades
| Title |
Pink Pleiades |
| Description |
The Seven Sisters, also known as the Pleiades star cluster, seem to float on a bed of feathers in a new infrared image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Clouds of dust sweep around the stars, swaddling them in a cushiony veil. The Pleiades, located more than 400 light-years away in the Taurus constellation, are the subject of many legends and writings. Greek mythology holds that the flock of stars was transformed into celestial doves by Zeus to save them from a pursuant Orion. The 19th-century poet Alfred Lord Tennyson described them as "glittering like a swarm of fireflies tangled in a silver braid." The star cluster was born when dinosaurs still roamed the Earth, about 100 million years ago. It is significantly younger than our 5-billion-year-old sun. The brightest members of the cluster, also the highest-mass stars, are known in Greek mythology as two parents, Atlas and Pleione, and their seven daughters, Alcyone, Electra, Maia, Merope, Taygeta, Celaeno and Asterope. There are thousands of additional lower-mass members, including many stars like our sun. Some scientists believe that our sun grew up in a crowded region like the Pleiades, before migrating to its present, more isolated home. The new infrared image from Spitzer highlights the "tangled silver braid" mentioned in the poem by Tennyson. This spider-web-like network of filaments, colored red in this view, is made up of dust associated with the cloud through which the cluster is traveling. One of the parent stars, Atlas, can be seen at the bottom, while six of the sisters are visible at top. Additional stars in the cluster are sprinkled throughout the picture in blue. The Spitzer data also reveal never-before-seen brown dwarfs, or "failed stars," and disks of planetary debris (not pictured). John Stauffer of NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope mission says Spitzer's infrared vision allows astronomers to better study the cooler, lower-mass stars in the region, which are much fainter when viewed in optical light. Stauffer, who admits to being biased because the Pleiades is his favorite astronomical object, says the cluster is the perfect laboratory for understanding the evolution of stars. This image shows infrared light captured by Spitzer's infrared array camera. Light with wavelengths of 8 and 5.8 microns is red and orange, light of 4.5 microns is green, and light of 3.6 microns is blue. |
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Orange Soil Discovery
| Title |
Orange Soil Discovery |
| Full Description |
A view of the area at Station 4 (Shorty Crater) showing the highly- publicized orange soil which the Apollo 17 crewmen found on the Moon during the second Apollo 17 extravehicular activity (EVA-2) at the Taurus-Littrow landing site. The tripod-like object is the gnomon and photometric chart assembly which is used as a photographic reference to establish local vertical Sun angle, scale and lunar color. The Gnomon is one of the Apollo lunar geology hand tools. |
| Date |
12/12/1972 |
| NASA Center |
Johnson Space Center |
|
Hubble Observes the Fire and
…
| Title |
Hubble Observes the Fire and Fury of a Stellar Birth |
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Astronomers Track Down Aster
…
| Title |
Astronomers Track Down Asteroids in Hubble Archive |
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Hubble Takes First Image of
…
| Title |
Hubble Takes First Image of a Possible Planet around Another Star and Finds a Runaway World |
| General Information |
What is a Space Science Update? Major Hubble discoveries on NASA television ... Astronomers explain their Hubble discoveries at a press conference, called a Space Science Update (SSU), broadcast on NASA television. The SSU includes a question and answer session with members of the media. The Hubble telescope has given astronomers their first direct look at what is possibly a planet outside our solar system —, one apparently that has been ejected into deep space by its parent stars. The discovery further challenges conventional theories about the birth and evolution of planets, and offers new insights into the formation of our own solar system. Located within a star-forming region in the constellation Taurus, the object, called TMR-1C, appears to lie at the end of a strange filament of light, suggesting it has apparently been flung away from the vicinity of a newly forming pair of binary stars. Read more: * Release Text [ http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/1998/19/text/ ] |
|
Astronomers Track Down Aster
…
| Title |
Astronomers Track Down Asteroids in Hubble Archive |
|
Hubble Takes First Image of
…
| Title |
Hubble Takes First Image of a Possible Planet around Another Star and Finds a Runaway World |
| General Information |
What is a Space Science Update? Major Hubble discoveries on NASA television ... Astronomers explain their Hubble discoveries at a press conference, called a Space Science Update (SSU), broadcast on NASA television. The SSU includes a question and answer session with members of the media. The Hubble telescope has given astronomers their first direct look at what is possibly a planet outside our solar system —, one apparently that has been ejected into deep space by its parent stars. The discovery further challenges conventional theories about the birth and evolution of planets, and offers new insights into the formation of our own solar system. Located within a star-forming region in the constellation Taurus, the object, called TMR-1C, appears to lie at the end of a strange filament of light, suggesting it has apparently been flung away from the vicinity of a newly forming pair of binary stars. Read more: * Release Text [ http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/1998/19/text/ ] |
|
Vast Stellar Disks Set Stage
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| Title |
Vast Stellar Disks Set Stage for Planet Birth in New Hubble Images |
| General Information |
What is a Space Science Update? Major Hubble discoveries on NASA television ... Astronomers explain their Hubble discoveries at a press conference, called a Space Science Update (SSU), broadcast on NASA television. The SSU includes a question and answer session with members of the media. Dramatic pictures of eerie disks of dust encircling young stars are giving astronomers a new look at what may be the early formative stages of planetary systems. Although these pictures from the Hubble telescope don't show planets, the edge-on disks seen by the telescope provide some of the clearest views to date of potential planetary construction zones, say researchers. The images also offer a peek at what happened 4.5 billion years ago when the Earth and other planets in our solar system began to condense out of a pancake-shaped disk of dust and gas centered on the young Sun. These images were taken by Hubble's infrared camera. All of the objects in these pictures are extremely young stars, buried in the centers of these pictures. The wisps of material surrounding the young stars are glowing from reflected starlight. Read more: * Release Text [ http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/1999/05/text/ ] |
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Movies from Hubble Show the
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| Title |
Movies from Hubble Show the Changing Faces of Infant Stars |
|
A Giant Hubble Mosaic of the
…
| Title |
A Giant Hubble Mosaic of the Crab Nebula |
|
September Sky
| Title |
September Sky |
| Explanation |
Star clusters, planets, and a red giant posed for this portrait of the night [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap000708.html ] sky from rural Jasper County, Iowa, USA. Astrophotographer [ http://geocities.com/stanzman_2001/ ] Stan Richard recorded the four minute time exposure looking east around midnight on September 3rd at Ashton-Wildwood Park. To avoid star trails [ http://pages.prodigy.net/pam.orman/JoeTrails.html ], his camera was mounted on a barndoor-style [ http://casa.colorado.edu/~rachford/widefield/ barndoor.html ] tracker to compensate for the Earth's rotation [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap000715.html ]. Can you identify his celestial subjects? (Click on the image for a labeled version.) The Pleiades [ http://www.pantheon.org/mythica/articles/p/ pleiades.html ] and Hyades [ http://www.pantheon.org/mythica/articles/h/hyades.html ], the closest open or galactic star clusters [ http://www.seds.org/messier/open.html ] to the Sun, should be recognizable to beginning stargazers [ http://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/ ]. Of course gas giant Jupiter [ http://galileo.jpl.nasa.gov/jupiter/jupiter.html ] rules as the brightest object in the picture and the largest planet in the Solar System, but second largest planet Saturn [ http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/cassini/Kids/stories/ ] is also visible nearby. For sheer size cool red giant star Aldebaran [ http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~kaler/sow/aldebaran.html ] is more impressive though, spanning about forty times the diameter of the Sun. Sixty light-years away and yellowish in this picture, Aldebaran is known as Alpha Tauri, the brightest star in Taurus [ http://aibn47.astro.uni-bonn.de/~gallery/constellations/ taurus/ ], the Bull. |
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XZ Tauri System Ejects Gas B
…
| Title |
XZ Tauri System Ejects Gas Bubble |
| Explanation |
Why is the binary star system XZ Tauri emitting a hot bubble of expanding gas? Although astronomers can only presently speculate, the Hubble Space Telescope [ http://www.stsci.edu/hst/ ] clearly documents this unusual behavior in three dramatic photographs [ http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/PR/2000/32/pr-photos.html ] over the past five years. Even without knowing why, the recently released [ http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/PR/2000/32/content/prc0032a.txt ] sequence [ http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/PR/2000/32/index.html ] shows in unprecedented clarity the beginnings of a cooling zone -- a region where the expanding gas bubble cools off by emitting light as electrons [ http://www-spof.gsfc.nasa.gov/Education/welect.html ] and ions [ http://www-spof.gsfc.nasa.gov/Education/wposion.html ] meet and recombine [ http://www.mpia-hd.mpg.de/THEORY/preprints/kessel/1999/dissertation/node20.html ]. The XZ Tauri [ http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-bib_query?bibcode=1999ApJ...515L..35K ] star system is known to reside in the Taurus [ http://www.seds.org/Maps/Stars_en/Fig/taurus.html ] star forming region located about 500 light-years [ http://einstein.stcloudstate.edu/Dome/constellns/lightyear.html ] away. XZ Tau [ http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-bib_query?bibcode=1990A%26A...230L...1H ] is composed of two very young stars separated by roughly the same distance as between our Sun and Pluto [ http://www.seds.org/nineplanets/nineplanets/overview.html ]. The bubble has been expanding over the past thirty years and now extends to nearly fifteen times the binary [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/binary_stars.html ] separation. |
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October Skylights
| Title |
October Skylights |
| Explanation |
With brilliant Venus [ http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/ venusfact.html ] above the western horizon at sunset and Jupiter [ http://galileo.jpl.nasa.gov/ ] and Saturn [ http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/cassini/ ] high in the east by early evening, November's night sky is filled with bright planets. October's sky featured bright planets as well and, triggered by the active Sun, some lovely auroral displays [ http://www.exploratorium.edu/learning_studio/ auroras/ ]. This colorful aurora was recorded by astrophotographer Wade Clark in skies above Hamilton, Washington, USA on the night of October 4th. Through the shimmering northern lights [ http://climate.gi.alaska.edu/Curtis/aurora/ aurora.html ] Jupiter and Saturn are easy to spot [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap000929.html ] flanking the V-shaped head of Taurus [ http://server.remc12.k12.mi.us/csplanet/myth/ taurus.html ] the Bull. Of course, just above lies the lovely Pleiades star cluster. Solar activity [ http://spaceweather.com/ ] will also produce auroral shows in November, particularly at high northern and southern latitudes. Plus, November skygazers can certainly anticipate a celestial performance on the evening of the 17th/18th -- the moonlit Leonid meteor shower [ http://spacescience.com/headlines/y2000/ast10oct_1.htm ]. |
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Stars and the Solstice Sun
| Title |
Stars and the Solstice Sun |
| Explanation |
If you could turn off the atmosphere's [ http://webexhibits.org/causesofcolor/ 14B.html ] ability to scatter overwhelming sunlight, today's daytime sky might look something like this ... with the Sun surrounded by the stars of the constellations Taurus and Gemini. Of course, today is the Solstice [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solstice ]. Traveling along the ecliptic plane [ http://www.phy6.org/stargaze/Secliptc.htm ], the Sun is at its northernmost position in planet Earth's sky, marking the astronomical [ http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/ badseasons.html ] beginning of summer [ http://shakespeare.mit.edu/midsummer/ ] in the north. Accurate for the exact time of today's Solstice, this composite image also [ http://www.astropix.com/HTML/SHOWCASE/SOLSTICE.HTM ] shows the Sun at the proper scale (about the angular size [ http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/scale.html ] of the Full Moon). Open star cluster M35 [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap060419.html ] is to the Sun's left, and the other two bright stars in view are Mu and Eta [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap040408.html ] Geminorum. Digitally superimposed on a nighttime image of the stars, the Sun itself is a composite of a picture taken through a solar filter and a series of images of the solar corona recorded during the solar eclipse [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap980311.html ] of February 26, 1998 by Andreas Gada. |
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The T Tauri Star Forming Sys
…
| Title |
The T Tauri Star Forming System |
| Explanation |
What did the Sun look like before there were planets? A prototype laboratory for the formation of low mass stars like our Sun is the T Tauri system [ http://etacha.as.arizona.edu/~eem/ttau/ ], one of the brighter star systems toward the constellation [ http://www.physics.csbsju.edu/astro/asp/constellation.faq.html ] of Taurus [ http://www.astronomical.org/constellations/tau.html ]. In young systems [ http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/rosat/gallery/stars_ttauri.html ], gravity causes a gas cloud [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap990511.html ] to condense. The situation then usually becomes quite complex, as some of the infalling gas is heated so much by collisions that it is immediately expelled as an outgoing wind [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap000318.html ]. Complex geometries including jets [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap991129.html ] and disks [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap991219.html ] form as the infalling and outflowing gas collide and interact with a changing magnetic field [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap001203.html ]. Pictured above [ http://www.cfht.hawaii.edu/Science/Astros/Imageofweek/ciw290500.html ] is a false-color image of the T Tauri system itself, which turns out to be a binary [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap970219.html ]. In a few million years [ http://www.go.ednet.ns.ca/~larry/stars/prtostar.html ], the central condensate will likely become hot enough to ignite nuclear fusion [ http://fusedweb.pppl.gov/ ], by which time much of the surrounding circumstellar material will either have fallen in or have been driven off by the stellar wind [ http://www-istp.gsfc.nasa.gov/Education/wsolwind.html ]. At that time, a new star [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap971008.html ] will shine. |
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The Pulsar Powered Crab
| Title |
The Pulsar Powered Crab |
| Explanation |
In the Summer of 1054 [ http://www.chaco.com/park/archaeology/nebula.html ] A.D. Chinese astronomers reported [ http://www.stsci.edu/pubinfo/PR/96/22/crabhist.html ] that a star in the constellation of Taurus [ http://www.astro.wisc.edu/~dolan/constellations/ constellations/Taurus.html ] suddenly became as bright as the full Moon. Fading slowly, it remained visible for over a year. It is now understood that a spectacular supernova explosion [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap980217.html ] - the detonation of a massive star whose remains [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap980613.html ] are now visible as the Crab Nebula [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap010325.html ]- was responsible for the apparition. The core of the star collapsed [ http://www.stsci.edu/pubinfo/PR/96/22/pulsars.html ] to form a rotating neutron star [ http://www.astro.umd.edu/~miller/nstar.html ] or pulsar [ http://pulsar.princeton.edu/rpr.shtml ], one of the most exotic objects known to modern astronomers. Like a cosmic lighthouse, the rotating Crab pulsar generates beams of radio, visible, x-ray and gamma-ray energy [ http://cossc.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/epo/gallery/ pulsars/index.html ] which, as the name suggests, produce pulses as they sweep across our view. Using a stunning series of visible light images [ http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/PR/96/22.html#Photos ] taken with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) in 1995, astronomers have discovered spectacular pulsar powered motions within the Crab nebula. Highlights of this HST Crab "movie" [ http://www.stsci.edu/pubinfo/PR/96/22.html#Movies ] show wisps of material moving away from the pulsar at half the speed of light, a scintillating halo, and an intense knot of emission dancing, sprite-like, above the pulsar's pole. Only 10 kilometers wide but more massive than the sun, the pulsar's energy drives the dynamics and emission of the nebula itself which is more than 10 light-years across. |
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Pioneer 10: The First 7 Bill
…
| Title |
Pioneer 10: The First 7 Billion Miles |
| Explanation |
"Q:" What was made by humans and is 7.3 billion miles away? "A:" Pioneer 10 -- and 1997 was the 25th anniversary [ http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/pioneer10/ ] of its launch. Almost 11 light-hours distant, Pioneer 10 is presently [ http://spaceprojects.arc.nasa.gov/Space_Projects/pioneer/ PNStat.html ] about twice as far from the Sun as Pluto, and bound for interstellar space [ http://spaceprojects.arc.nasa.gov/Space_Projects/pioneer/ path.html ] at 28,000 miles per hour. The distinction of being the first human artifact to venture beyond the known planets [ http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/cosmic/solar_system.html ] of the Solar System is just one in a long list of firsts for this spacefaring ambassador [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap960630.html ], including, the first spacecraft to travel through the asteroid belt and explore the outer Solar System [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap961214.html ], the first spacecraft to visit Jupiter [ http://ccf.arc.nasa.gov/galileo_probe/index.html ], and the first to use a planet's gravity to change [ http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/basics/bsf4-1.htm#gravity ] its course and to reach solar-system-escape velocity. Pioneer 10's mission [ http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/pioneer10/mission/ index.html ] is nearing an end. Now exploring the distant reaches of the heliosphere [ http://earth.agu.org/revgeophys/neugeb01/neugeb01.html ] it will soon run out of sufficient electrical power to operate science instruments. However, the 570 lb. spacecraft [ ftp://ftp.hq.nasa.gov/pub/pao/pressrel/1997/97-031.txt ] will continue to coast and in 300,000 years or so it will pass within about 3 light years of nearby star [ http://cassfos02.ucsd.edu/public/nearest.html ] Ross 248. Ross 248 is a faint red dwarf just over 10 light years distant in the constellation Taurus. (Note: In 1998 Voyager 1 [ http://vraptor.jpl.nasa.gov/voyager/voyager.html ], launched 5 years later but traveling faster than Pioneer 10, became humanity's most distant spacecraft.) |
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Saturn and Vesta in Taurus
| Title |
Saturn and Vesta in Taurus |
| Explanation |
Last November, while skygazing [ http://pages.prodigy.net/pam.orman/ JoeGallery.html ] toward the constellation Taurus [ http://hou.lbl.gov/~vhoette/Explorations/StarHop/ ], astrophotographer Joe Orman arranged this time exposure to include the lovely Hyades and Pleiades star clusters in the field of his telephoto lens. A distance of 400 light-years [ http://school.discovery.com/ schooladventures/universe/itsawesome/lightyears/ ] for the close-knit Pleiades [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap010506.html ] and 150 light-years for the V-shaped [ http://www.aspsky.org/mercury/mercury/9803/hyades.html ] Hyades [ http://astro.estec.esa.nl/Hipparcos/hyades.html ] puts these clusters in the general galactic neighborhood [ http://www.anzwers.org/free/universe/ 250lys.html ] of the Sun. Punctuating the Hyades' appearance, bright yellow Aldebaran [ http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~kaler/sow/aldebaran.html ], 60 light-years away, is not actually a member of the cluster, but it is Taurus' brightest star. Above Aldebaran a yellower, even brighter Saturn [ http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/wspace?tbody=6& vbody=3&month=11&day=17¢ury=20&decade=0&year=1&hour=00& minute=0&rfov=30&fovmul=-1&bfov=30 ] is is seen about 1.2 light-hours [ http://casswww.ucsd.edu/public/tutorial/Intro.html ] from our fair planet. Last and least massive [ http://aa.usno.navy.mil/hilton/asteroid_masses.htm ], one of the faint specks below Aldebaran is main-belt asteroid [ http://www.seds.org/nineplanets/nineplanets/ asteroids.html ] Vesta, a mere 13 light-minutes [ http://www.unmuseum.org/speed.htm ] away. Still cruising through Taurus, Vesta [ http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/PR/95/20.html ] is steadily approaching a close alignment or conjunction [ http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/astronomy/ Conjunction.html ] with Saturn on March 19. Need a program [ http://pages.prodigy.net/pam.orman/ JoeAlmanac2002.html ] to follow the players? Click on the image for a labeled version. |
|
M1: The Crab Nebula
| Title |
M1: The Crab Nebula |
| Explanation |
In the year 1054 a star in the constellation of Taurus exploded in a spectacular supernova [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/lib/glossary.html#sn ] so bright it appeared to dominate the sky except for the Sun and Moon for many days. It left behind one of the most brilliant nebulae, listed first in Charles Messier's [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/lib/glossary.html#messier ] list of nebulous sky objects. Today we know that the center of the nebula houses the remnant of the explosion: a spinning neutron star [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/lib/glossary.html#ns ] called a pulsar. The Crab pulsar is visible in almost every part of the electromagnetic spectrum, and has been a useful astronomical tool. It is still unclear how the the pulsar emits the light that we see. For more information on M1 see The Electronic Universe Project's write-up. [ http://zebu.uoregon.edu/messier/m1.txt ] Many images of Messier objects can be found in The Electronic Universe Project's The Galaxy Gallery: Messier Objects. [ http://zebu.uoregon.edu/messier.html ] Tomorrow's picture: M15: A Great Globular Cluster |
|
The Pulsar Powered Crab
| Title |
The Pulsar Powered Crab |
| Explanation |
In the Summer of 1054 A.D. Chinese astronomers reported [ http://www.stsci.edu/pubinfo/PR/96/22/crabhist.html ] that a star in the constellation of Taurus [ http://bradley.bradley.edu/~dware/taurus.html ] suddenly became as bright as the full Moon. Fading slowly, it remained visible for over a year. It is now understood that a spectacular supernova explosion [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap951027.html ] - the detonation of a massive star whose remains [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap960509.html ] are now visible as the Crab Nebula [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap951122.html ]- was responsible for the apparition. The core of the star collapsed [ http://www.stsci.edu/pubinfo/PR/96/22/pulsars.html ] to form a rotating neutron star [ http://astro.uchicago.edu/home/web/miller/nstar.html ] or pulsar [ http://pulsar.princeton.edu/rpr.shtml ], one of the most exotic objects known to 20th century astronomy. Like a cosmic lighthouse, the rotating Crab pulsar generates beams of radio, visible, x-ray and gamma-ray energy [ http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/cossc/descriptions/egret_pulsars.html ] which, as the name suggests, produce pulses as they sweep across our view. Using a stunning series of visible light images taken with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) [ http://www.stsci.edu/pubinfo/PR/96/22.html ], astronomers have recently discovered spectacular pulsar powered motions within the Crab nebula. Highlights of this HST Crab "movie" [ http://www.stsci.edu/pubinfo/PR/96/22.html#Movies ] show wisps of material moving away from the pulsar at half the speed of light, a scintillating halo, and an intense knot of emission dancing, sprite-like, above the pulsar's pole. Only 6 miles wide but more massive than the sun, the pulsar's energy drives the dynamics and emission of the nebula itself which is more than 10 lightyears across. In the HST image above [ http://www.stsci.edu/pubinfo/PR/96/22/A.html ], the pulsar is the left most of the two bright central stars. |
|
Hale-Bopp: Climbing Into Sou
…
| Title |
Hale-Bopp: Climbing Into Southern Skies |
| Explanation |
Fighting the glow of the setting sun and the city lights of Cape Town, South Africa, comet Hale-Bopp [ http://www.saao.ac.za/sky/comet.html ] is just visible near the center of this panoramic view - photographed on May 3rd. In the foreground is the Strand beach front, about 50 km East of Cape Town, while the Cape Peninsula mountain ranges can be seen at the left along the horizon. The bright star visible above and to the left of the comet is the red giant Aldebaran [ http://www.astro.wisc.edu/~dolan/constellations/hr/1457.html ] in the constellation Taurus. As Hale-Bopp [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap970505.html ] continues its outbound journey during the month of May it will climb higher into evening southern skies. Still a bright comet [ http://galileo.ivv.nasa.gov/comet/news82.html ] it is now providing an enjoyable and much anticipated showing [ http://galileo.ivv.nasa.gov/comet/brown4.html ] for Southern Hemisphere observers [ http://www.saao.ac.za/ ]. |
|
An Extrasolar Planet?
| Title |
An Extrasolar Planet? |
| Explanation |
This infrared Hubble Space Telescope view [ http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pr/1998/19/index.html ] may contain the first ever direct image of a planet outside our own solar system. The picture shows a very young double star located about 450 light-years away toward the constellation of Taurus [ http://www.astro.wisc.edu/~dolan/constellations/ constellations/Taurus.html ]. Cataloged as TMR-1 (Taurus Molecular Ring star 1), the binary system is still embedded in the dust cloud that formed it. This double star and dust cloud are the brightest grouping in the picture, glowing strongly at infrared wavelengths. A filament extends from the binary system toward the lower left and points toward the spot of light representing the candidate planet. Astronomers believe this planet is a "runaway" object [ http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pr/1998/19/astrofile.html ] which was gravitationally ejected, the filament tracing the path to its present location at about 1500 times the Earth-Sun distance [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap960727.html ] from the parent star system. Models suggest that the planet and binary system [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap970219.html ] are a mere 300,000 years old, with the planet having a mass of about 2 to 3 Jupiters. Future observations to look for the planet's continued runaway motion and spectral signatures should be able to confirm the nature of this object. While this and other tantalizing discoveries [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap971005.html ] of extrasolar planetary objects [ http://wwwusr.obspm.fr/departement/darc/planets/encycl.html ] and protoplanetary disks [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap961207.html ] don't seem to offer direct examples of solar systems [ http://www.empire.net/~whatmoug/Extrasolar/extrasolar_visions.html ] like our own [ http://www.seds.org/nineplanets/nineplanets/nineplanets.html ], they do strongly hint that planet formation [ http://www.sciam.com/explorations/052796explorations.html ] is a varied and common process. |
|
Pioneer 10: The First 6 Bill
…
| Title |
Pioneer 10: The First 6 Billion Miles |
| Explanation |
"Q:" What was made by humans and is 6.5 billion miles away? "A:" Pioneer 10 - and last year was the 25th anniversary of its launch [ http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/pioneer10/ ]. More than 9.5 light-hours distant, Pioneer 10 is presently [ http://spaceprojects.arc.nasa.gov/Space_Projects/pioneer/PNStat.html ] about twice as far from the Sun as Pluto [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap970204.html ], bound for interstellar space at 28,000 miles per hour. The distinction of being the first human artifact to venture beyond the Solar System [ http://spaceprojects.arc.nasa.gov/Space_Projects/pioneer/path.html ] is just one in a long list of firsts for this spacefaring ambassador [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap960630.html ], including, the first spacecraft to travel through the asteroid belt and explore the outer Solar System [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap961214.html ], the first spacecraft to visit Jupiter [ http://ccf.arc.nasa.gov/galileo_probe/index.html ], the first to use a planet's gravity to change its course and to reach solar-system-escape velocity, and the first spacecraft to pass beyond the known planets. Pioneer 10's mission is nearing an end [ http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/pioneer10/mission/index.html ] - now exploring the distant reaches of the heliosphere [ http://earth.agu.org/revgeophys/neugeb01/neugeb01.html ] it will soon run out of sufficient electrical power to operate science instruments. However, the 570 lb. spacecraft will continue to coast [ ftp://ftp.hq.nasa.gov/pub/pao/pressrel/1997/97-031.txt ] and in 30,000 years or so it will pass within about 3 light years of a nearby star [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap961019.html ] known as Ross 248. Ross 248 is a faint red dwarf just over 10 light years distant in the constellation Taurus. (Note: This year Voyager 1 [ http://vraptor.jpl.nasa.gov/voyager/voyager.html ], launched 21 years ago but traveling faster than Pioneer 10, became humanity's most distant spacecraft.) |
|
The Pulsar Powered Crab
| Title |
The Pulsar Powered Crab |
| Explanation |
In the Summer of 1054 [ http://www.chaco.com/park/archaeology/nebula.html ] A.D. Chinese astronomers reported [ http://www.stsci.edu/pubinfo/PR/96/22/crabhist.html ] that a star in the constellation of Taurus [ http://www.astro.wisc.edu/~dolan/constellations/ constellations/Taurus.html ] suddenly became as bright as the full Moon. Fading slowly, it remained visible for over a year. It is now understood that a spectacular supernova explosion [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap980217.html ] - the detonation of a massive star whose remains [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap980613.html ] are now visible as the Crab Nebula [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap951122.html ]- was responsible for the apparition. The core of the star collapsed [ http://www.stsci.edu/pubinfo/PR/96/22/pulsars.html ] to form a rotating neutron star [ http://astro.uchicago.edu/home/web/miller/nstar.html ] or pulsar [ http://pulsar.princeton.edu/rpr.shtml ], one of the most exotic objects known to 20th century astronomy. Like a cosmic lighthouse, the rotating Crab pulsar generates beams of radio, visible, x-ray and gamma-ray energy [ http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/cossc/descriptions/egret_pulsars.html ] which, as the name suggests, produce pulses as they sweep across our view. Using a stunning series of visible light images taken with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) [ http://www.stsci.edu/pubinfo/PR/96/22.html ], astronomers have discovered spectacular pulsar powered motions within the Crab nebula. Highlights of this HST Crab "movie" [ http://www.stsci.edu/pubinfo/PR/96/22.html#Movies ] show wisps of material moving away from the pulsar at half the speed of light, a scintillating halo, and an intense knot of emission dancing, sprite-like, above the pulsar's pole. Only 6 miles wide but more massive than the sun, the pulsar's energy drives the dynamics and emission of the nebula itself which is more than 10 lightyears across. In this HST image [ http://www.stsci.edu/pubinfo/PR/96/22/A.html ], the pulsar is the left most of the two bright central stars. |
|
Twin Proto-Planetary Disks
| Title |
Twin Proto-Planetary Disks |
| Explanation |
Sun-like stars [ http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/science/know_l2/sun_parts.html ] are forming - and probably planets too [ http://wwwusr.obspm.fr/departement/darc/planets/encycl.html ] - hidden inside [ http://donald.phast.umass.edu/theses/dianne/chap1/node5.html ] Lynds 1551, an interstellar cloud of molecular gas and dust in the constellation [ http://www.mtwilson.edu/Education/ConQuiz/ ] Taurus. Using new receivers, coordinated radio telescopes at the Very Large Array [ http://www.nrao.edu/vla/html/VLAhome.shtml ] near Socorro, New Mexico, USA, can now sharply image the dusty proto-planetary disks surrounding these young stars at radio wavelengths. Just announced, this exciting example [ http://www.nrao.edu/pr/protodisks.html ] shows a false-color radio [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap980917.html ] picture of twin disks in a double star system [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap970219.html ]! A yellow bar indicates the scale in astronomical units (AUs) where one AU is the average distance between the Earth and Sun. The stars (unseen near the center of each disk) are about 45 AUs apart, comparable to the radius of the orbit of Pluto [ http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/plutofact.html ]. Similar proto-planetary disks [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap980423.html ] have been seen around single stars, but these twin disks are much smaller, each limited in size by the gravity of the nearby companion star [ http://astrosun.tn.cornell.edu/courses/astro201/kepler_binary.htm ]. In fact, if large planets form orbiting near the edges of these disks they may be ejected from the binary system [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap980529.html ]. |
|
Portrait of RY Tauri
| Title |
Portrait of RY Tauri |
| Explanation |
A star emerges from its natal cloud of gas and dust in this tantalizing portrait [ http://www.gemini.edu/ index.php?option=content&task=view&id=129&Itemid=42 ] of RY Tauri, a small stellar nursery [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap010604.html ] at the edge of the Taurus molecular cloud, a mere 450 light-years away. Illuminating a region that spans about 2/3 of a light-year, the youthful [ http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/T/TTauri.html ], central star is large, cool [ http://www.go.ednet.ns.ca/~larry/stars/prtostar.html ], and known to vary [ http://www.aavso.org/vstar/vsots/0201.shtml ] in brightness. Still collapsing, in a few million years the star's winds [ http://www.phy6.org/Education/wsolwind.html ] will likely clear out the gas and dust clouds, as it settles down to become a steady main sequence star like the Sun. What remains could well include a planetary system [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap021011.html ]. The image data for RY Tauri is from the Gemini Observatory [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap030909.html ], on Mauna Kea, Hawaii -- based on observations proposed by [ http://hia-iha.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/cgo/contest_e.html ] the Astronomy Club of Dorval, Quebec. |
|
Cosmic Ocean Dweller
nasa, wisemultimediagallery
A colorful creature in a sta
…
500511main_pia13345
| mediatype |
IMAGE |
| mediatype |
image |
| date |
2010-11-17 |
| creator |
NASA |
| identifier |
500511main_pia13345 |
|
Puffed Out Star
nasa, wisemultimediagallery
This image shows a puffy, dy
…
500531main_pia13347
| mediatype |
IMAGE |
| mediatype |
image |
| date |
2010-11-17 |
| creator |
NASA |
| identifier |
500531main_pia13347 |
|
Two Moons and the Pleiades f
…
PIA06339
Sol (our sun)
Panoramic Camera
| Title |
Two Moons and the Pleiades from Mars |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
Inverted image of two moons and the Pleiades from Mars Taking advantage of extra solar energy collected during the day, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit recently settled in for an evening of stargazing, photographing the two moons of Mars as they crossed the night sky. In this view, the Pleiades, a star cluster also known as the "Seven Sisters," is visible in the lower left corner. The bright star Aldebaran and some of the stars in the constellation Taurus are visible on the right. Spirit acquired this image the evening of martian day, or sol, 590 (Aug. 30, 2005). The image on the right provides an enhanced-contrast view with annotation. Within the enhanced halo of light is an insert of an unsaturated view of Phobos taken a few images later in the same sequence. On Mars, Phobos would be easily visible to the naked eye at night, but would be only about one-third as large as the full Moon appears from Earth. Astronauts staring at Phobos from the surface of Mars would notice its oblong, potato-like shape and that it moves quickly against the background stars. Phobos takes only 7 hours, 39 minutes to complete one orbit of Mars. That is so fast, relative to the 24-hour-and-39-minute sol on Mars (the length of time it takes for Mars to complete one rotation), that Phobos rises in the west and sets in the east. Earth's moon, by comparison, rises in the east and sets in the west. The smaller martian moon, Deimos, takes 30 hours, 12 minutes to complete one orbit of Mars. That orbital period is longer than a martian sol, and so Deimos rises, like most solar system moons, in the east and sets in the west. Scientists will use images of the two moons to better map their orbital positions, learn more about their composition, and monitor the presence of nighttime clouds or haze. Spirit took the five images that make up this composite with the panoramic camera, using the camera's broadband filter, which was designed specifically for acquiring images under low-light conditions. |
|
Two Moons and the Pleiades f
…
PIA06339
Sol (our sun)
Panoramic Camera
| Title |
Two Moons and the Pleiades from Mars |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
Inverted image of two moons and the Pleiades from Mars Taking advantage of extra solar energy collected during the day, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit recently settled in for an evening of stargazing, photographing the two moons of Mars as they crossed the night sky. In this view, the Pleiades, a star cluster also known as the "Seven Sisters," is visible in the lower left corner. The bright star Aldebaran and some of the stars in the constellation Taurus are visible on the right. Spirit acquired this image the evening of martian day, or sol, 590 (Aug. 30, 2005). The image on the right provides an enhanced-contrast view with annotation. Within the enhanced halo of light is an insert of an unsaturated view of Phobos taken a few images later in the same sequence. On Mars, Phobos would be easily visible to the naked eye at night, but would be only about one-third as large as the full Moon appears from Earth. Astronauts staring at Phobos from the surface of Mars would notice its oblong, potato-like shape and that it moves quickly against the background stars. Phobos takes only 7 hours, 39 minutes to complete one orbit of Mars. That is so fast, relative to the 24-hour-and-39-minute sol on Mars (the length of time it takes for Mars to complete one rotation), that Phobos rises in the west and sets in the east. Earth's moon, by comparison, rises in the east and sets in the west. The smaller martian moon, Deimos, takes 30 hours, 12 minutes to complete one orbit of Mars. That orbital period is longer than a martian sol, and so Deimos rises, like most solar system moons, in the east and sets in the west. Scientists will use images of the two moons to better map their orbital positions, learn more about their composition, and monitor the presence of nighttime clouds or haze. Spirit took the five images that make up this composite with the panoramic camera, using the camera's broadband filter, which was designed specifically for acquiring images under low-light conditions. |
|
The Two Moons of Mars As See
…
PIA06338
Sol (our sun)
Panoramic Camera
| Title |
The Two Moons of Mars As Seen from "Husband Hill |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
Taking advantage of extra solar energy collected during the day, NASA's Mars Exloration Rover Spirit settled in for an evening of stargazing, photographing the two moons of Mars as they crossed the night sky. Spirit took this succession of images at 150-second intervals from a perch atop "Husband Hill" in Gusev Crater on martian day, or sol, 594 (Sept. 4, 2005), as the faster-moving martian moon Phobos was passing Deimos in the night sky. Phobos is the brighter object on the left and Deimos is the dimmer object on the right. The bright star Aldebaran and some other stars in the constellation Taurus are visible as star trails. Most of the other streaks in the image are the result of cosmic rays lighting up random groups of pixels in the camera. Scientists will use images of the two moons to better map their orbital positions, learn more about their composition, and monitor the presence of nighttime clouds or haze. Spirit took the five images that make up this c omposite with its panoramic camera using the camera's broadband filter, which was designed specifically for acquiring images under low-light conditions. |
|
The Night Sky on Mars
PIA06337
Sol (our sun)
Panoramic Camera
| Title |
The Night Sky on Mars |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
Taking advantage of extra solar energy collected during the day, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit settled in for an evening of stargazing, photographing the two moons of Mars as they crossed the night sky. This time-lapse composite, acquired the evening of Spirit's martian sol 590 (Aug. 30, 2005) from a perch atop "Husband Hill" in Gusev Crater, shows Phobos, the brighter moon, on the left, and Deimos, the dimmer moon, on the right. In this sequence of images obtained every 170 seconds, both moons move from top to bottom. The bright star Aldebaran forms a trail on the right, along with some other stars in the constellation Taurus. Most of the other streaks in the image mark the collision of cosmic rays with pixels in the camera. Scientists will use images of the two moons to better map their orbital positions, learn more about their composition, and monitor the presence of nighttime clouds or haze. Spirit took the six images that make up this composite using Spirit's panoramic camera with the camera's broadband filter, which was designed specifically for acquiring images under low-light conditions. |
|
Two Moons and the Pleiades f
…
PIA06340
Sol (our sun)
Panoramic Camera
| Title |
Two Moons and the Pleiades from Mars |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
Taking advantage of extra solar energy collected during the day, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit recently settled in for an evening of stargazing, photographing the two moons of Mars as they crossed the night sky. In this view, the Pleiades, a star cluster also known as the "Seven Sisters," is visible in the lower left corner. The bright star Aldebaran and some of the stars in the constellation Taurus are visible on the right. Spirit acquired this image the evening of martian day, or sol, 590 (Aug. 30, 2005). The image on the right provides an enhanced-contrast view with annotation. Within the enhanced halo of light is an insert of an unsaturated view of Phobos taken a few images later in the same sequence. "It is incredibly cool to be running an observatory on another planet," said planetary scientist Jim Bell of Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., lead scientist for the panoramic cameras on Spirit and Opportunity. In the annotated animation (figure 2), both martian moons, Deimos on the left and Phobos on the right, travel across the night sky in front of the constellation Sagittarius. Part of Sagittarius resembles an upside-down teapot. In this view, Phobos moves toward the handle and Deimos moves toward the lid. Phobos is the brighter object on the right, Deimos is on the left. Each of the stars in Sagittarius is labeled with its formal name. The inset shows an enlarged, enhanced view of Phobos, shaped rather like a potato with a hole near one end. The hole is the large impact creater Stickney, visible on the moon's upper right limb. On Mars, Phobos would be easily visible to the naked eye at night, but would be only about one-third as large as the full Moon appears from Earth. Astronauts staring at Phobos from the surface of Mars would notice its oblong, potato-like shape and that it moves quickly against the background stars. Phobos takes only 7 hours, 39 minutes to complete one orbit of Mars. That is so fast, relative to the 24-hour-and-39-minute sol on Mars (the length of time it takes for Mars to complete one rotation), that Phobos rises in the west and sets in the east. Earth's moon, by comparison, rises in the east and sets in the west. The smaller martian moon, Deimos, takes 30 hours, 12 minutes to complete one orbit of Mars. That orbital period is longer than a martian sol, and so Deimos rises, like most solar system moons, in the east and sets in the west. Scientists will use images of the two moons to better map their orbital positions, learn more about their composition, and monitor the presence of nighttime clouds or haze. Spirit took the five images that make up this composite with the panoramic camera, using the camera's broadband filter, which was designed specifically for acquiring images under low-light conditions. |
|
Two Moons and the Pleiades f
…
PIA06340
Sol (our sun)
Panoramic Camera
| Title |
Two Moons and the Pleiades from Mars |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
Taking advantage of extra solar energy collected during the day, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit recently settled in for an evening of stargazing, photographing the two moons of Mars as they crossed the night sky. In this view, the Pleiades, a star cluster also known as the "Seven Sisters," is visible in the lower left corner. The bright star Aldebaran and some of the stars in the constellation Taurus are visible on the right. Spirit acquired this image the evening of martian day, or sol, 590 (Aug. 30, 2005). The image on the right provides an enhanced-contrast view with annotation. Within the enhanced halo of light is an insert of an unsaturated view of Phobos taken a few images later in the same sequence. "It is incredibly cool to be running an observatory on another planet," said planetary scientist Jim Bell of Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., lead scientist for the panoramic cameras on Spirit and Opportunity. In the annotated animation (figure 2), both martian moons, Deimos on the left and Phobos on the right, travel across the night sky in front of the constellation Sagittarius. Part of Sagittarius resembles an upside-down teapot. In this view, Phobos moves toward the handle and Deimos moves toward the lid. Phobos is the brighter object on the right, Deimos is on the left. Each of the stars in Sagittarius is labeled with its formal name. The inset shows an enlarged, enhanced view of Phobos, shaped rather like a potato with a hole near one end. The hole is the large impact creater Stickney, visible on the moon's upper right limb. On Mars, Phobos would be easily visible to the naked eye at night, but would be only about one-third as large as the full Moon appears from Earth. Astronauts staring at Phobos from the surface of Mars would notice its oblong, potato-like shape and that it moves quickly against the background stars. Phobos takes only 7 hours, 39 minutes to complete one orbit of Mars. That is so fast, relative to the 24-hour-and-39-minute sol on Mars (the length of time it takes for Mars to complete one rotation), that Phobos rises in the west and sets in the east. Earth's moon, by comparison, rises in the east and sets in the west. The smaller martian moon, Deimos, takes 30 hours, 12 minutes to complete one orbit of Mars. That orbital period is longer than a martian sol, and so Deimos rises, like most solar system moons, in the east and sets in the west. Scientists will use images of the two moons to better map their orbital positions, learn more about their composition, and monitor the presence of nighttime clouds or haze. Spirit took the five images that make up this composite with the panoramic camera, using the camera's broadband filter, which was designed specifically for acquiring images under low-light conditions. |
|
Two Moons and the Pleiades f
…
PIA06340
Sol (our sun)
Panoramic Camera
| Title |
Two Moons and the Pleiades from Mars |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
Taking advantage of extra solar energy collected during the day, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit recently settled in for an evening of stargazing, photographing the two moons of Mars as they crossed the night sky. In this view, the Pleiades, a star cluster also known as the "Seven Sisters," is visible in the lower left corner. The bright star Aldebaran and some of the stars in the constellation Taurus are visible on the right. Spirit acquired this image the evening of martian day, or sol, 590 (Aug. 30, 2005). The image on the right provides an enhanced-contrast view with annotation. Within the enhanced halo of light is an insert of an unsaturated view of Phobos taken a few images later in the same sequence. "It is incredibly cool to be running an observatory on another planet," said planetary scientist Jim Bell of Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., lead scientist for the panoramic cameras on Spirit and Opportunity. In the annotated animation (figure 2), both martian moons, Deimos on the left and Phobos on the right, travel across the night sky in front of the constellation Sagittarius. Part of Sagittarius resembles an upside-down teapot. In this view, Phobos moves toward the handle and Deimos moves toward the lid. Phobos is the brighter object on the right, Deimos is on the left. Each of the stars in Sagittarius is labeled with its formal name. The inset shows an enlarged, enhanced view of Phobos, shaped rather like a potato with a hole near one end. The hole is the large impact creater Stickney, visible on the moon's upper right limb. On Mars, Phobos would be easily visible to the naked eye at night, but would be only about one-third as large as the full Moon appears from Earth. Astronauts staring at Phobos from the surface of Mars would notice its oblong, potato-like shape and that it moves quickly against the background stars. Phobos takes only 7 hours, 39 minutes to complete one orbit of Mars. That is so fast, relative to the 24-hour-and-39-minute sol on Mars (the length of time it takes for Mars to complete one rotation), that Phobos rises in the west and sets in the east. Earth's moon, by comparison, rises in the east and sets in the west. The smaller martian moon, Deimos, takes 30 hours, 12 minutes to complete one orbit of Mars. That orbital period is longer than a martian sol, and so Deimos rises, like most solar system moons, in the east and sets in the west. Scientists will use images of the two moons to better map their orbital positions, learn more about their composition, and monitor the presence of nighttime clouds or haze. Spirit took the five images that make up this composite with the panoramic camera, using the camera's broadband filter, which was designed specifically for acquiring images under low-light conditions. |
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Dead Star Creates Celestial
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PIA01320
Infrared Array Camera (IRAC)
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| Title |
Dead Star Creates Celestial Havoc |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
A star's spectacular death in the constellation Taurus was observed on Earth as the supernova of 1054 A.D. Now, almost a thousand years later, a superdense neutron star left behind by the stellar death is spewing out a blizzard of extremely high-energy particles into the expanding debris field known as the Crab Nebula. This composite image uses data from three of NASA's Great Observatories. The Chandra X-ray image is shown in light blue, the Hubble Space Telescope optical images are in green and dark blue, and the Spitzer Space Telescope's infrared image is in red. The size of the X-ray image is smaller than the others because ultrahigh-energy X-ray emitting electrons radiate away their energy more quickly than the lower-energy electrons emitting optical and infrared light. The neutron star, which has the mass equivalent to the sun crammed into a rapidly spinning ball of neutrons twelve miles across, is the bright white dot in the center of the image. |
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The Seven Sisters Pose for S
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PIA09263
Infrared Array Camera (IRAC)
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| Title |
The Seven Sisters Pose for Spitzer |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
The Seven Sisters, also known as the Pleiades star cluster, seem to float on a bed of feathers in a new infrared image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Clouds of dust sweep around the stars, swaddling them in a cushiony veil. The Pleiades, located more than 400 light-years away in the Taurus constellation, are the subject of many legends and writings. Greek mythology holds that the flock of stars was transformed into celestial doves by Zeus to save them from a pursuant Orion. The 19th-century poet Alfred Lord Tennyson described them as "glittering like a swarm of fireflies tangled in a silver braid." The star cluster was born when dinosaurs still roamed the Earth, about 100 million years ago. It is significantly younger than our 5-billion-year-old sun. The brightest members of the cluster, also the highest-mass stars, are known in Greek mythology as two parents, Atlas and Pleione, and their seven daughters, Alcyone, Electra, Maia, Merope, Taygeta, Celaeno and Asterope. There are thousands of additional lower-mass members, including many stars like our sun. Some scientists believe that our sun grew up in a crowded region like the Pleiades, before migrating to its present, more isolated home. The new infrared image from Spitzer highlights the "tangled silver braid" mentioned in the poem by Tennyson. This spider-web-like network of filaments, colored yellow, green and red in this view, is made up of dust associated with the cloud through which the cluster is traveling. The densest portion of the cloud appears in yellow and red, and the more diffuse outskirts are shown in green hues. One of the parent stars, Atlas, can be seen at the bottom, while six of the sisters are visible at top. Additional stars in the cluster are sprinkled throughout the picture in blue. The Spitzer data also reveal never-before-seen brown dwarfs, or "failed stars," and disks of planetary debris (not pictured). John Stauffer of NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope mission says Spitzer's infrared vision allows astronomers to better study the cooler, lower-mass stars in the region, which are much fainter when viewed in optical light. Stauffer, who admits to being biased because the Pleiades is his favorite astronomical object, says the cluster is the perfect laboratory for understanding the evolution of stars. This image is made up of data taken by Spitzer's multiband imaging photometer and its infrared array camera. Light with a wavelength of 4.5 microns is blue, light of 8 microns is green, and light of 24 microns is red. Venus and Pleiades Mingle in the Sky The sky chart in figure 1, illustrates the Venus-Pleiades encounter that reached its closest approach on April 11, 2007. The Pleiades are a tight gem-like cluster of stars that resemble a tiny dipper (but should not be confused with the Little Dipper constellation). If you look west shortly after sunset, Venus will be the brightest object in the sky. If the skies are clear and dark, you'll also see the Pleiades twinkling above Venus. On April 19, the moon will join the party, sliding between Venus and the Pleiades. Viewers in the northern and southern hemispheres will be able to witness the event. |
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The Seven Sisters Pose for S
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PIA09263
Infrared Array Camera (IRAC)
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| Title |
The Seven Sisters Pose for Spitzer |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
The Seven Sisters, also known as the Pleiades star cluster, seem to float on a bed of feathers in a new infrared image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Clouds of dust sweep around the stars, swaddling them in a cushiony veil. The Pleiades, located more than 400 light-years away in the Taurus constellation, are the subject of many legends and writings. Greek mythology holds that the flock of stars was transformed into celestial doves by Zeus to save them from a pursuant Orion. The 19th-century poet Alfred Lord Tennyson described them as "glittering like a swarm of fireflies tangled in a silver braid." The star cluster was born when dinosaurs still roamed the Earth, about 100 million years ago. It is significantly younger than our 5-billion-year-old sun. The brightest members of the cluster, also the highest-mass stars, are known in Greek mythology as two parents, Atlas and Pleione, and their seven daughters, Alcyone, Electra, Maia, Merope, Taygeta, Celaeno and Asterope. There are thousands of additional lower-mass members, including many stars like our sun. Some scientists believe that our sun grew up in a crowded region like the Pleiades, before migrating to its present, more isolated home. The new infrared image from Spitzer highlights the "tangled silver braid" mentioned in the poem by Tennyson. This spider-web-like network of filaments, colored yellow, green and red in this view, is made up of dust associated with the cloud through which the cluster is traveling. The densest portion of the cloud appears in yellow and red, and the more diffuse outskirts are shown in green hues. One of the parent stars, Atlas, can be seen at the bottom, while six of the sisters are visible at top. Additional stars in the cluster are sprinkled throughout the picture in blue. The Spitzer data also reveal never-before-seen brown dwarfs, or "failed stars," and disks of planetary debris (not pictured). John Stauffer of NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope mission says Spitzer's infrared vision allows astronomers to better study the cooler, lower-mass stars in the region, which are much fainter when viewed in optical light. Stauffer, who admits to being biased because the Pleiades is his favorite astronomical object, says the cluster is the perfect laboratory for understanding the evolution of stars. This image is made up of data taken by Spitzer's multiband imaging photometer and its infrared array camera. Light with a wavelength of 4.5 microns is blue, light of 8 microns is green, and light of 24 microns is red. Venus and Pleiades Mingle in the Sky The sky chart in figure 1, illustrates the Venus-Pleiades encounter that reached its closest approach on April 11, 2007. The Pleiades are a tight gem-like cluster of stars that resemble a tiny dipper (but should not be confused with the Little Dipper constellation). If you look west shortly after sunset, Venus will be the brightest object in the sky. If the skies are clear and dark, you'll also see the Pleiades twinkling above Venus. On April 19, the moon will join the party, sliding between Venus and the Pleiades. Viewers in the northern and southern hemispheres will be able to witness the event. |
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The Seven Sisters Pose for S
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PIA09263
Infrared Array Camera (IRAC)
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| Title |
The Seven Sisters Pose for Spitzer |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
The Seven Sisters, also known as the Pleiades star cluster, seem to float on a bed of feathers in a new infrared image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Clouds of dust sweep around the stars, swaddling them in a cushiony veil. The Pleiades, located more than 400 light-years away in the Taurus constellation, are the subject of many legends and writings. Greek mythology holds that the flock of stars was transformed into celestial doves by Zeus to save them from a pursuant Orion. The 19th-century poet Alfred Lord Tennyson described them as "glittering like a swarm of fireflies tangled in a silver braid." The star cluster was born when dinosaurs still roamed the Earth, about 100 million years ago. It is significantly younger than our 5-billion-year-old sun. The brightest members of the cluster, also the highest-mass stars, are known in Greek mythology as two parents, Atlas and Pleione, and their seven daughters, Alcyone, Electra, Maia, Merope, Taygeta, Celaeno and Asterope. There are thousands of additional lower-mass members, including many stars like our sun. Some scientists believe that our sun grew up in a crowded region like the Pleiades, before migrating to its present, more isolated home. The new infrared image from Spitzer highlights the "tangled silver braid" mentioned in the poem by Tennyson. This spider-web-like network of filaments, colored yellow, green and red in this view, is made up of dust associated with the cloud through which the cluster is traveling. The densest portion of the cloud appears in yellow and red, and the more diffuse outskirts are shown in green hues. One of the parent stars, Atlas, can be seen at the bottom, while six of the sisters are visible at top. Additional stars in the cluster are sprinkled throughout the picture in blue. The Spitzer data also reveal never-before-seen brown dwarfs, or "failed stars," and disks of planetary debris (not pictured). John Stauffer of NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope mission says Spitzer's infrared vision allows astronomers to better study the cooler, lower-mass stars in the region, which are much fainter when viewed in optical light. Stauffer, who admits to being biased because the Pleiades is his favorite astronomical object, says the cluster is the perfect laboratory for understanding the evolution of stars. This image is made up of data taken by Spitzer's multiband imaging photometer and its infrared array camera. Light with a wavelength of 4.5 microns is blue, light of 8 microns is green, and light of 24 microns is red. Venus and Pleiades Mingle in the Sky The sky chart in figure 1, illustrates the Venus-Pleiades encounter that reached its closest approach on April 11, 2007. The Pleiades are a tight gem-like cluster of stars that resemble a tiny dipper (but should not be confused with the Little Dipper constellation). If you look west shortly after sunset, Venus will be the brightest object in the sky. If the skies are clear and dark, you'll also see the Pleiades twinkling above Venus. On April 19, the moon will join the party, sliding between Venus and the Pleiades. Viewers in the northern and southern hemispheres will be able to witness the event. |
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Pink Pleiades
PIA09262
Infrared Array Camera (IRAC)
| Title |
Pink Pleiades |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
Venus and Pleiades Mingle in the Sky Diagram The Seven Sisters, also known as the Pleiades star cluster, seem to float on a bed of feathers in a new infrared image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Clouds of dust sweep around the stars, swaddling them in a cushiony veil. The Pleiades, located more than 400 light-years away in the Taurus constellation, are the subject of many legends and writings. Greek mythology holds that the flock of stars was transformed into celestial doves by Zeus to save them from a pursuant Orion. The 19th-century poet Alfred Lord Tennyson described them as "glittering like a swarm of fireflies tangled in a silver braid." The star cluster was born when dinosaurs still roamed the Earth, about 100 million years ago. It is significantly younger than our 5-billion-year-old sun. The brightest members of the cluster, also the highest-mass stars, are known in Greek mythology as two parents, Atlas and Pleione, and their seven daughters, Alcyone, Electra, Maia, Merope, Taygeta, Celaeno and Asterope. There are thousands of additional lower-mass members, including many stars like our sun. Some scientists believe that our sun grew up in a crowded region like the Pleiades, before migrating to its present, more isolated home. The new infrared image from Spitzer highlights the "tangled silver braid" mentioned in the poem by Tennyson. This spider-web-like network of filaments, colored red in this view, is made up of dust associated with the cloud through which the cluster is traveling. One of the parent stars, Atlas, can be seen at the bottom, while six of the sisters are visible at top. Additional stars in the cluster are sprinkled throughout the picture in blue. The Spitzer data also reveal never-before-seen brown dwarfs, or "failed stars," and disks of planetary debris (not pictured). John Stauffer of NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope mission says Spitzer's infrared vision allows astronomers to better study the cooler, lower-mass stars in the region, which are much fainter when viewed in optical light. Stauffer, who admits to being biased because the Pleiades is his favorite astronomical object, says the cluster is the perfect laboratory for understanding the evolution of stars. This image shows infrared light captured by Spitzer's infrared array camera. Light with wavelengths of 8 and 5.8 microns is red and orange, light of 4.5 microns is green, and light of 3.6 microns is blue. Venus and Pleiades Mingle in the Sky The sky chart in figure 1, illustrates the Venus-Pleiades encounter that reached its closest approach on April 11, 2007. The Pleiades are a tight gem-like cluster of stars that resemble a tiny dipper (but should not be confused with the Little Dipper constellation). If you look west shortly after sunset, Venus will be the brightest object in the sky. If the skies are clear and dark, you'll also see the Pleiades twinkling above Venus. On April 19, the moon will join the party, sliding between Venus and the Pleiades. Viewers in the northern and southern hemispheres will be able to witness the event. |
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View of the orange soil whic
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| Title |
View of the orange soil which Apollo 17 crewmen found at Station 4 during EVA |
| Description |
A view of the area at Station 4 (Shorty Crater) showing the now highly-publicized orange soil which the Apollo 17 crewmen found on the Moon during the second Apollo 17 extravehicular activity (EVA-2) at the Taurus-Littrow landing site. The tripod-like object is the gnomon and photometric chart assembly which is used as a photographic reference to establish local vertical Sun angle, scale and lunar color. The Gnomon is one of the Apollo lunar geology hand tools. |
| Date Taken |
1972-12-12 |
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