NGC 253: The Silver Coin Galaxy via NASA https://ift.tt/2yYJ2NM
NGC 253 is one of the brightest spiral galaxies visible, but also one of the dustiest. Dubbed the Silver Coin for its appearance in smalltelescopes, it is more formally known as the Sculptor Galaxy for its location within the boundaries of the southern constellation Sculptor. Discovered in 1783 by mathematician and astronomer Caroline Herschel, the dusty island universe lies a mere 10 million light-years away. About 70 thousand light-years across, NGC 253, pictured, is the largest member of the Sculptor Group of Galaxies, the nearest to our own Local Group of galaxies. In addition to its spiral dust lanes, tendrils of dust seem to be rising from a galactic disk laced with young star clusters and star forming regions in this sharp color image. The high dust content accompanies frantic star formation, earning NGC 253 the designation of a starburst galaxy. NGC 253 is also known to be a strong source of high-energy x-rays and gamma rays, likely due to massive black holes near the galaxy’s center. Take a trip through extragalactic space in this short video flyby of NGC 253.
(Published April 14, 2020)
All five remaining instruments on NASA’s venerable Voyager 2 spacecraft are back to gathering science data after power overuse in late January interrupted the probe’s operations.
NASA made the announcement yesterday (March 3), over a month after the incident occurred. Troubleshooting for the spacecraft is a slow process because of its distance from Earth; it takes 17 hours for each command to reach the probe and for data indicating its efficacy to reach engineers.
UGC 12591: The Fastest Rotating Galaxy Known via NASA https://ift.tt/326jqJe
During my book writing this NaNoWriMo, I came up with my own "humans are weird" concept!
You know, within a lot of stories, aliens are more advanced than us (technology). Have more senses than us (heat vision). Maybe have stronger senses than us (like hearing). But what if we have an advantage somewhere? Like maybe... We see more colors than they can?
In my book, one of my aliens cannot see the color red like the human can. I'd say she was "color blind", except this is just how all of her species see, so it's not a disability.
It's not as if she can't see red altogether, it just is a much duller color than what the human sees. Nearly brown. But it also happens to be the main color of her planet's environment.
This poses as a problem. See, her ship is red, and many of her outfits are red. These items are meant to blend in with the environment while moving across the planet.
A human visitor crashed on said planet, and our alien needs to go out to spy on then, see if they are friend or foe.
But the human, well, they sees her no matter where our alien protagonist moves. Incredibly well. Flying in over the mountains to come check on our human visitor? Human is already staring at the ship before it lands. Hiding behind a bush to observe the visitor? Human sees them immediately.
Once proper contact is made, our alien then asks about this. "Why were you always able to see me?" And the human seems confused.
"With all that bright red? I'd see you from a mile away!"
With proper research and observation, our alien comes to learn that the human sees basically a bright beacon against a dull background. But to our alien's eyes? It's all the same color.
Jupiter’s Equator via NASA https://ift.tt/2HEWcAo
Moke Lake, Queenstown | south_of_home
In Roman mythology, the god Jupiter drew a veil of clouds around himself to hide his mischief. It was only Jupiter’s wife, the goddess Juno, who could peer through the clouds and reveal Jupiter’s true nature. Our @NASAJuno spacecraft is looking beneath the clouds of the massive gas giant, not seeking signs of misbehavior, but helping us to understand the planet’s structure and history… Now, @NASAJuno just published its first findings on the amount of water in the gas giant’s atmosphere. The Juno results estimate that at the equator, water makes up about 0.25% of the molecules in Jupiter’s atmosphere — almost three times that of the Sun. An accurate total estimate of this water is critical to solving the mystery of how our solar system formed.
The JunoCam imager aboard Juno captured this image of Jupiter’s southern equatorial region on Sept. 1, 2017. The bottom image is oriented so Jupiter’s poles (not visible) run left-to-right of frame.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Kevin M. Gill
Arp 84, Slowdancers
Persy sings! How wonderful ☺️
What is the weirdest thing you had to account for when building the perseverance rover?
Orion Molecular Cloud
Orion’s Belt
22 year old space blogger•Not just a space blogger.Also a worrier. •
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