beauty

At the Sun's Edge

Check out this incredible image of the solar flare that caused* our aurora party last weekend!

*Okay, technically this is not the exact flare that triggered the auroras, but it was captured in the same time frame from the same region. :)

Via APOD: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap240515.html

“Pictured, a large multi-pronged solar prominence was captured extending from chaotic sunspot region AR 3664 out into space, just one example of the particle clouds ejected from this violent solar region. The Earth could easily fit under this long-extended prominence.”

Solar Eclipse

I was so jealous of the people who grabbed a spot beneath totality; the videos were incredible. I’m definitely visiting my old residence of Colorado Springs in 21 years when the next one comes around!

Here’s a couple of my favorite pictures from the eclipse (though there were so many).

Credit:

Image 1: Joshua Intini (https://twitter.com/Intini_WX/status/1777428414560932136)

Image 2: Erik Kuna (https://twitter.com/SuperclusterHQ/status/1777504797890854927)

Image 3: Peter Forister (https://twitter.com/forecaster25/status/1777434179136819497)

Image 4: NASA (ISS) (https://twitter.com/Space_Station/status/1777822160087818714)

Starship Soars

Welcome to the future of spaceflight, everyone! This week, in its third test flight, Starship made it to space, oribiting the planet for around 40 minutes before heading home. No, it didn’t make it all the way to a soft splashdown in the Indian Ocean, but that’s what testing is for, and it traveled so much farther, for so much longer, than ever before. I was a little twitchy after the second explosive test, but I’m now very optimistic for the future of this spacecraft and what it means for our journey to the moon, then onward to Mars and throughout the solar system.

Now enjoy these absolutely stunning photos of the flight:

The Spirals

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has captured a stunning new series of near- and mid-infrared images that depict 19 nearby spiral galaxies in vivid detail.

The achievement provides a level of clarity and detail in the new imagery that offers astronomers unprecedented insights into the structure and dynamics of this group of celestial bodies.

Read much more about these images here: https://thedebrief.org/james-webb-space-telescope-captures-amazing-new-images-of-19-distant-spiral-galaxies/. And download high res versions of your favorite galaxies from the mosaic on Webb’s Flikr page.

Io's Close-Up

On December 30, NASA's Juno spacecraft, which has been orbiting Jupiter for the better part of a decade, made its closest flyby of Io, the innermost moon in the Jovian system.

The spacecraft came to within 930 miles (1,500 km) of the surface of Io, a dense moon that is the fourth largest in the Solar System. Unlike a lot of moons around Jupiter and Saturn, which have surface ice or subsurface water, Io is a very dry world. It is also extremely geologically active. Io has more than 400 active volcanoes and is therefore an object of great interest to astronomers and planetary scientists.

Read more about the flyby here.

Stunning Amateur Image of the Andromeda Galaxy

What life might be thriving here, one wonders?

The photograph comes from a group that calls itself the Association of Widefield Astrophotographers, and the photo was a 100-hour project by six participants in the United States, Poland, and the United Kingdom. They collected data over several months to produce the image.

According to the organization, "Our goal with this project was to prove that very expensive equipment and dark skies aren’t required to create unique images of faint objects. Since most of us are high schoolers and college students with a passion for astronomy, our summer jobs did not allow us to afford the expensive gear used by most astrophotographers."

Learn more here.

Webb's Incredible View of Cassiopeia A

Isn’t this just an astonishing image? We thought we knew Cassiopeia A, but we were wrong.

“Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) view of Cas A displays a very violent explosion at a resolution previously unreachable at these wavelengths. This high-resolution look unveils intricate details of the expanding shell of material slamming into the gas shed by the star before it exploded.” Learn much more about the image and the history of our study of Cas A, go here: https://esawebb.org/news/weic2330/

Starship Stacked For Flight

Starship gets stacked ahead of its second test flight on Saturday!

From SpaceX: “This is another chance to put Starship in a true flight environment, maximizing how much we learn. Rapid iterative development is essential as we work to build a fully reusable launch system capable of carrying satellites, payloads, crew, and cargo to a variety of orbits and Earth, lunar, and Martian landing sites.”

Source Tweet

The Rhapsody of Space

See what I did there? ;)

From NASA: “For millennia, musicians have looked to the heavens for inspiration. Now a new collaboration is enabling actual data from NASA telescopes to be used as the basis for original music that can be played by humans.

Since 2020, the “sonification” project at NASA’s Chandra X-ray Center has translated the digital data taken by telescopes into notes and sounds. This process allows the listener to experience the data through the sense of hearing instead of seeing it as images, a more common way to present astronomical data.

A new phase of the sonification project takes the data into different territory. Working with composer Sophie Kastner, the team has developed versions of the data that can be played by musicians.”

Listen and learn more here.

Jupiter In Ultraviolet

This newly released image from the NASA Hubble Space Telescope shows the planet Jupiter in a color composite of ultraviolet wavelengths. Released in honor of Jupiter reaching opposition, which occurs when the planet and the Sun are in opposite sides of the sky, this view of the gas giant planet includes the iconic, massive storm called the “Great Red Spot.” Though the storm appears red to the human eye, in this ultraviolet image it appears darker because high altitude haze particles absorb light at these wavelengths. The reddish, wavy polar hazes are absorbing slightly less of this light due to differences in either particle size, composition, or altitude. 

For more, go here: https://science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/hubble-provides-unique-ultraviolet-view-of-jupiter/

Webb's Stunning Infrared View of the Crab Nebula

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has gazed at the Crab Nebula, a supernova remnant located 6,500 light-years away in the constellation Taurus. Since the recording of this energetic event in 1054 CE by 11th-century astronomers, the Crab Nebula has continued to draw attention and additional study as scientists seek to understand the conditions, behavior, and after-effects of supernovae through thorough study of the Crab, a relatively nearby example.

Now exquisite, never-before-seen details help unravel the supernova remnant’s puzzling history. For more, go here: https://www.nasa.gov/missions/webb/the-crab-nebula-seen-in-new-light-by-nasas-webb/

Webb's Spectacular View of M51

How incredibly lucky we are to have the Webb telescope in our lives, bringing us incredible images like this one! Damn, I love space.

What is it, besides breathtaking? M51, a nearby spiral galaxy (close enough to spot with binoculars if conditions are right), taken by Webb's Mid-Infrared Instrument.

See the article by the always great Phil Plait for all sorts of details on how the image was captured and what it actually shows us: https://badastronomy.substack.com/p/jwsts-view-of-the-magnificently-dusty

Protostar

From Webb’s newest observation:

Herbig-Haro (HH) objects are luminous regions surrounding newborn stars, formed when stellar winds or jets of gas spewing from these newborn stars form shock waves colliding with nearby gas and dust at high speeds. This image of HH 211 from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope reveals an outflow from a Class 0 protostar, an infantile analog of our Sun when it was no more than a few tens of thousands of years old and with a mass only 8% of the present-day Sun (it will eventually grow into a star like the Sun).

The image showcases a series of bow shocks to the southeast (lower-left) and northwest (upper-right) as well as the narrow bipolar jet that powers them. Webb reveals this scene in unprecedented detail — roughly 5 to 10 times higher spatial resolution than any previous images of HH 211. The inner jet is seen to “wiggle” with mirror symmetry on either side of the central protostar. This is in agreement with observations on smaller scales and suggests that the protostar may in fact be an unresolved binary star.

Learn more: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2023/nasa-s-webb-snaps-supersonic-outflow-of-young-star

Midjourney AI Character Art, Asterion Edition

Midjourney has come a long way in a short time, hasn't it? Are these exact matches to how I see the characters in my head? Well, not *quite*, but it's so close, they make me happy.

The one issue I'm still having is that Midjourney really wants to make women look young; you have to brute force it to create an actual "adult." (*insert social commentary if you like*) And I did force it pretty hard for Maris, because she needs gravitas. ;)

OTOH, if you were immortal and could look however you wanted, wouldn't you want to look 23?

Cassiopeia A

Damn. The wonder of the universe, that a single star can create such powerful beauty.

Webb is having a * stellar * week. A new mid-infrared image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope provides one stunning example. It shows the supernova remnant Cassiopeia A (Cas A), created by a stellar explosion 340 years ago from Earth’s perspective.. Cas A is the youngest known remnant from an exploding, massive star in our galaxy, which makes it a unique opportunity to learn more about how such supernovae occur. https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2023/webb-reveals-never-before-seen-details-in-cassiopeia-a

Originally posted on Twitter.