Space Images

[inertia]

1 )


Credit: https://www.virtualtelescope.eu/

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[inertia]

2 )



" Explanation: South of the large star-forming region known as the Orion Nebula, lies bright blue reflection nebula NGC 1999. At the edge of the Orion molecular cloud complex some 1,500 light-years distant, NGC 1999's illumination is provided by the embedded variable star V380 Orionis. The nebula is marked with a dark sideways T-shape at center right in this telescopic vista that spans about two full moons on the sky. Its dark shape was once assumed to be an obscuring dust cloud seen in silhouette. But infrared data suggest the shape is likely a hole blown through the nebula itself by energetic young stars. In fact, this region abounds with energetic young stars producing jets and outflows with luminous shock waves. Cataloged as Herbig-Haro (HH) objects, named for astronomers George Herbig and Guillermo Haro, the shocks have intense reddish hues. HH1 and HH2 are just below and right of NGC 1999. HH222, also known as the Waterfall nebula, looks like a red gash near top right in the frame. To create the shocks stellar jets push through the surrounding material at speeds of hundreds of kilometers per second. "

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Reference: Astronomy Picture of the Day

 

[4tune8chance]

1 )

View attachment 2629
Credit: https://www.virtualtelescope.eu/

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Nice. You can see the effect of the exposure as the stars a little elongated, but the James Webb is not (I don't think), so must be tracking the telescope.

 

[inertia]

Nice. You can see the effect of the exposure as the stars a little elongated, but the James Webb is not (I don't think), so must be tracking the telescope.

Yes, the equatorial mount was locked onto the James Webb to track it alone. There are other images showing even more elongation.

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[inertia]

3 ) Comet Leonard - Thailand ( one hour exposure of the dust trail toward the camera ) Orbital period: 80,055 years

Credit & Copyright: Matipon Tangmatitham (NARIT) National Astronomical Research Institute of Thailand
Date: 2021 December 25
From: Thailand (reuse allowed)

Blue tail - ion trajectory away from the sun via the solar wind

 

[inertia]

4 ) Gravitational Lensing


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Reference: Hubblesite

 

[Komodo]

3 ) Comet Leonard - Thailand ( one hour exposure of the dust trail toward the camera ) Orbital period: 80,055 years

Credit & Copyright: Matipon Tangmatitham (NARIT) National Astronomical Research Institute of Thailand
Date: 2021 December 25
From: Thailand (reuse allowed)

Blue tail - ion trajectory away from the sun via the solar wind

Thanks for that; hadn't seen it on Thai TV. I tried searching the Bangkok Post for "Comet Leopard" and only came up with some stories about a man accused of poaching clouded leopards. ?

 

[inertia]

5 ) Spectroscopic Measurement



" Spectroscopy is as crucial as imaging to understanding the universe. "

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Credit: Hubblesite

 

[inertia]

6 ) Molecular cloud


Image credit: 8.2-meter VLT Antu, ESO, FORS Team

"Explanation: 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. Here, a high concentration of dust and molecular gas absorb practically all the visible light emitted from background stars. The eerily dark surroundings help make the interiors of molecular clouds some of the coldest and most isolated places in the universe. One of the most notable of these dark absorption nebulae is a cloud toward the constellation Ophiuchus known as Barnard 68, pictured above. That no stars are visible in the center indicates that Barnard 68 is relatively nearby, with measurements placing it about 500 light-years away and half a light-year across. It is not known exactly how molecular clouds like Barnard 68 form, but it is known that these clouds are themselves likely places for new stars to form. It is possible to look right through the cloud in infrared light."


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Reference: Astronomy Picture of the Day

 

[4tune8chance]

6 ) Molecular cloud

View attachment 2659
Image credit: 8.2-meter VLT Antu, ESO, FORS Team

"Explanation: 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. Here, a high concentration of dust and molecular gas absorb practically all the visible light emitted from background stars. The eerily dark surroundings help make the interiors of molecular clouds some of the coldest and most isolated places in the universe. One of the most notable of these dark absorption nebulae is a cloud toward the constellation Ophiuchus known as Barnard 68, pictured above. That no stars are visible in the center indicates that Barnard 68 is relatively nearby, with measurements placing it about 500 light-years away and half a light-year across. It is not known exactly how molecular clouds like Barnard 68 form, but it is known that these clouds are themselves likely places for new stars to form. It is possible to look right through the cloud in infrared light."


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Reference: Astronomy Picture of the Day

If memory serves, radio and the James Webb (infra red) will look right through such clouds like there are not even there.

 

[inertia]

If memory serves, radio and the James Webb (infra red) will look right through such clouds like there are not even there.

I'm certain that there are a group of astrophysicists that want to explore Barnard 68 in more detail with the James Webb Telescope. As of yesterday they've powered up the instrumentation and are now in the cooling and calibration stage.

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[inertia]

7 ) Sagittarius A*


Image Credit: Chandra X-Ray Observatory (public domain) - pronounced "Sagittarius A-Star", abbreviated Sgr A*

Sagittarius A* is highly radiant radio source within our galactic center and it is the location of a supermassive black hole similar to other spiral galaxies. The ellipses shown are light echoes produced when a pulse of light from a supernova is reflected from a fluorescent dust cloud. The 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez for the discovery that Sgr A* is a supermassive compact object.

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[inertia]

8 ) There is a lot of water in the universe



The Herschel IR space telescope discovered water vapor in star-forming regions. Where did Earth's water come from?

See:

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[inertia]

9 ) Uranus Composite Ring Image


Credit: W. M. Keck Observatory

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[inertia]

10 ) Helix Nebula



Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona - (Spitzer Space Telescope )

"Explanation: What makes this cosmic eye look so red? Dust. The featured image from the robotic Spitzer Space Telescope shows infrared light from the well-studied Helix Nebula (NGC 7293) a mere 700 light-years away in the constellation of the Water Carrier Aquarius. The two light-year diameter shroud of dust and gas around a central white dwarf has long been considered an excellent example of a planetary nebula, representing the final stages in the evolution of a Sun-like star. But the Spitzer data show the nebula's central star itself is immersed in a surprisingly bright infrared glow. Models suggest the glow is produced by a dust debris disk. Even though the nebular material was ejected from the star many thousands of years ago, the close-in dust could have been generated by collisions in a reservoir of objects analogous to our own solar system's Kuiper Belt or cometary Oort cloud. Had the comet-like bodies formed in the distant planetary system, they would have survived even the dramatic late stages of the star's evolution."

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Explanation credit: APOD

 

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11 ) Star Formation


Credit: The Hubble Space Telescope

"...astronomers have observed thousands of collapsing gas clouds at different stages of star formation where the stages overlap. In these thousands of interstellar gas clouds, they have observed the entire sequence of star formation".

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Reference: RTB

 

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12 ) Asteroid 101955 Bennu



- Orbit around the sun: 1.20 years (437 days)
- Earth's closest proximity to Bennu: ~ 480,000 km (0.0032 au)

- "NASA researchers used precision-tracking data from the agency’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft to better understand movements of the potentially hazardous asteroid Bennu through the year 2300, significantly reducing uncertainties related to its future orbit.."

"Our solar system possesses five belts of asteroids and comets.

1. the Main Belt (between Mars and Jupiter)
2. the Centaurs (between Jupiter and Neptune)
3. the Scattered Belt (extends from just outside Uranus’ orbit, out to twenty billion miles from the Sun)
4. the Kuiper Belt (exists just outside Neptune’s orbit, between four and six billion miles out from the Sun)
5. the Oort Cloud (extends from about ten billion to two trillion miles out from the Sun).

For advanced life to be possible on a planet, the surrounding planetary system must be extraordinarily fine-tuned—including its asteroids and comets. Belts that are too massive or too close will deliver too many devastating collisions and far too much water. On the other hand, asteroid and comet belts that are insufficiently massive or too far away will fail to provide the water and heavy metals that advanced life and civilization needs."

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[inertia]

•Origins: spacetime and matter have a transcendent cause (Gen. 1:1; Acts 4:24; 17:28; Rom. 4:17).

•Physical existence has a beginning: (Genesis 1:1; John 1:1-3; Hebrews 1:10)

•Time did not always exist: (1 Cor. 2:7; Eph. 1:4; 2 Tim. 1:9; Titus 1:2; 1 Pet. 1:20)

•God is stretching the universe: (Job 9:8; Ps. 104:2; Is. 42:5; Jer. 10:12; Jer. 51:15; Zech. 12:1)

•This universe has an end and it will be replaced: (Is. 34:4; Heb. 1:10-12; 2 Pet. 3:10)*


APOD: Symbiotic R Aquarii,
Image Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO/R. Montez et al.;
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* [ see also: RTB ]

 

[Komodo]

•God is stretching the universe: (Job 9:8; Ps. 104:2; Is. 42:5; Jer. 10:12; Jer. 51:15; Zech. 12:1)

Sometimes expressed as "stretches it like a tent." Hard for me to see how even a believer would read that as a description of continuous expansion; it seems rather to be a description of pulling something to make it fit over something else (presumably the earth). If instead the Bible had said something like "the stars flee from us, in every direction," that would have been impressive.

Consider the fact that for hundreds of years before Hubble (the man or the telescope) there were astronomers who were devout Christians, who would have wanted to understand the Creation, and who would have been happy to use any hint from the Bible to do so. As far as I know, not one of them read any of these passages as a description of an expanding cosmos.

 

[inertia]

Sometimes expressed as "stretches it like a tent." Hard for me to see how even a believer would read that as a description of continuous expansion; it seems rather to be a description of pulling something to make it fit over something else (presumably the earth). If instead the Bible had said something like "the stars flee from us, in every direction," that would have been impressive.

Certainly, the authors did not have our current understanding in mind when the words were written. Even so, their deliberate use of simile and metaphor remained useful as inspired by their own observations from their tents at night coupled with God's inspired wisdom. God knows the future and how continued discovery affects understanding. Whether written using a literary device, or explicit and detailed scientific language, only within a cosmos where galaxies and their stars are adequately spread apart - can an observer sufficiently see its contents well enough to make inferences and produce models. Some models are more precise than others.

"This is what God the LORD says— the Creator of the heavens, who stretches them out, who spreads out the earth with all that springs from it, who gives breath to its people, and life to those who walk on it:" (Isaiah 42:5)

Consider the fact that for hundreds of years before Hubble (the man or the telescope) there were astronomers who were devout Christians, who would have wanted to understand the Creation, and who would have been happy to use any hint from the Bible to do so. As far as I know, not one of them read any of these passages as a description of an expanding cosmos.

Yes indeed. Christians that were also scientists before Lemaitre ( a Catholic priest ), along with Willem de Sitter and Einstein (~1916) thought the universe was static and spread-out because that is what their observations of the night sky provided night in - night out. The biblical literary devices were not in view as progress was unfolding.

Interesting side note: Not too long ago we discovered that Earth was in fact a water-covered planet without continents as Genesis 1:2 describes.

Discovery continues...

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