Transcript Pretty Pictures of the Cosmos

Pretty Pictures of
the Cosmos
The Sharpest View of the Sun
This stunning image shows
remarkable and mysterious
details near the dark central
region of a planet-sized
sunspot in one of the
sharpest views ever of the
surface of the Sun.
Jupiter, Io and Shadow
Pictured is the innermost of
Jupiter's Galilean satellites,
Io, superposed in front of the
gas giant planet. To the left
of Io is a dark spot that is Io's
own shadow.
The Orion Nebula
Orion, the Hunter, is one of
the most easily recognizable
constellations in planet Earth's
night sky.
The Pleiades Star Cluster
It is the most famous star
cluster on the sky. The
Pleiades can be seen without
binoculars from even the
depths of a light-polluted city.
Also known as the Seven
Sisters and M45, the Pleiades
is one of the brightest and
closest open clusters. The
Pleiades contains over 3000
stars, is about 400 light years
away, and only 13 light years
across.
Leonid Meteor Shower
These meteors come from
sand-sized particles ejected
from Comet Tempel-Tuttle
during trips to the inner Solar
System in 1767 and 1866
The Trifid Nebula
Unspeakable
beauty
and
unimaginable bedlam can be
found together in the Trifid
Nebula. Also known as M20,
this photogenic nebula is
visible with good binoculars
towards the constellation of
Sagittarius. The energetic
processes of star formation
create not only the colors but
the chaos.
NGC 604 Starbirth Region
Scattered within this cavernous
nebula, cataloged as NGC 604,
are over 200 newly formed hot,
massive, stars. At 1,500 lightyears across, this expansive
cloud of interstellar gas and
dust is effectively a giant stellar
nursery located some three
million light-years distant in the
spiral galaxy, M33.
Orion's Horsehead Nebula
The Horsehead Nebula is one
of the most famous nebulae
on the sky. It is visible as the
dark indentation to the red
emission nebula seen above
and to the right of center in
the photograph.
The Eagle Nebula, M16
From afar, the whole thing
looks like an Eagle. A closer
look of the Eagle Nebula,
however, shows the bright
region is actually a window into
the center of a larger dark shell
of dust.
M16: Stars from Eagle
Newborn stars are forming in the
Eagle Nebula. This image, taken
with the Hubble Space Telescope
in 1995, shows 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.
Molecular Cloud Barnard 68 Dark Nebula
Where did all the stars
go? What used to be
considered a hole in the
sky is now known to
astronomers as a dark
molecular cloud.
Cat's Eye Nebula
Three thousand light-years
away, a dying star throws
off shells of glowing gas.
This image from the
Hubble Space Telescope
reveals the Cat's Eye
Nebula to be one of the
most complex planetary
nebulae known.
The Eskimo Nebula, NGC 2392
From the ground, NGC 2392
resembles a person's head
surrounded by a parka hood.
From space, the nebula
displays gas clouds so
complex they are not fully
understood.
The Eskimo Nebula is a
planetary nebula, the gases of
which composed the outer
layers of a Sun-like star only
10,000 years ago. The inner
filaments visible are being
ejected by strong wind of
particles from the central
star. The outer disk contains
unusual
light-year
long
orange
filaments.
The
Eskimo Nebula lies about
5000 light-years away in the
constellation of Gemini.
NGC 6369: The Little Ghost Nebula
This pretty planetary nebula
was discovered by 18th
century astronomer William
Herschel as he used a
telescope to explore the
constellation Ophiucus.
The nebula's main ring
structure is about a light-year
across and the glow from
ionized oxygen, hydrogen,
and nitrogen atoms are
colored blue, green, and red
respectively. Over 2,000
light-years away, the Little
Ghost Nebula offers a
glimpse of the fate of our
Sun, which should produce
its own pretty planetary
nebula only about 5-7 billion
years from now.
The Dumbbell Nebula, M27
The first hint of what will
become of our Sun was
discovered inadvertently in
1764.
The Dumbbell Nebula, is a
planetary nebula, the type of
nebula our Sun will produce
when nuclear fusion stops in
its core. M27 is one of the
brightest planetary nebulae on
the sky, and can be seen in the
constellation Vulpecula with
binoculars. It takes light about
1000 years to reach us from
M27.
IC 418: The Spirograph Nebula
What is creating the strange
texture of IC 418? Dubbed
the Spirograph Nebula for
its resemblance to drawings
from a cyclical drawing
tool, planetary nebula IC
418 shows patterns that are
not well understood.
The Bubble Nebula, NGC 7635
Seemingly adrift in a cosmic sea
of stars and gas, this delicate,
floating apparition is cataloged as
NGC 7635. In this wide-angle
view, the Bubble nebula lies at the
center of a larger complex of
shocked glowing gas about 11,000
light-years distant in the fair
constellation Cassiopeia.
NGC 7635 really is an interstellar
bubble, blown by winds from the
brightest star visible within the
bubble's boundary. The bubble's
expansion is constrained by the
surrounding material. About 10
light-years in diameter, if the
Bubble nebula were centered on
the Sun, the Sun's nearest stellar
neighbor, Alpha Centauri, would
also be enclosed.
NGC 6960: The Witch's Broom Nebula
Ten thousand years ago,
before the dawn of recorded
human history, a new light
must suddenly have appeared
in the night sky and faded
after a few weeks. Today we
know this light was an
exploding star and the record
is the colorful expanding
cloud known as the Veil
Nebula.
Spiral Galaxy M33
Spiral galaxy M33 is a midsized member of our Local
Group of Galaxies. M33 is also
called the Triangulum Galaxy
for the constellation in which it
resides. About four times
smaller (in radius) than our
Milky Way Galaxy and the
Andromeda Galaxy (M31), it is
much larger than the many of
the local spheroidal dwarfgalaxies.
Arp 188 and the Tadpole's Tidal Tail
In this stunning image recorded
with the Hubble Space Telescope,
distant galaxies form a dramatic
backdrop for disrupted spiral galaxy
Arp 188, the Tadpole Galaxy. The
cosmic Tadpole is a mere 420
million light-years distant toward
the northern constellation Draco. Its
eye-catching tail is about 280
thousand light-years long and
features massive, bright blue star
clusters. One story goes that a more
compact intruder galaxy crossed in
front of Arp 188 - from left to right
in this view - and was slung around
behind the Tadpole by their
gravitational attraction.
Seyfert's Sextet
This intriguing group of
galaxies lies in the head
portion
of
the
split
constellation Serpens. The
sextet actually contains only
four interacting galaxies,
though.
Abell 1689 Warps Space
Two billion light-years away,
galaxy cluster Abell 1689 is
one of the most massive
objects in the Universe.
The power of this enormous
gravitational lens depends on
its mass, but the visible matter,
in the form of the cluster's
yellowish
galaxies,
only
accounts for about one percent
of the mass needed to make the
observed bluish arcing images
of background galaxies.