Torchia @amethysttorchia - Tumblr Blog

spaceshipenterprise

Kasimir is new on tumblr! And I have to admit; he is really the king of cuteness!

#kasimir #follow #king of cuteness #persian #persian cat #red persian #cuteness

mysteriousquantumphysics

#Richard Feynman #quantum physics #quantenphysik #quantenmechanik #physik #physics

#albert einstein #einstein

spaceshipenterprise

space; the final frontier

#Kasimir #persian cat #strange #gif #red cat

spaceexp

New shot of Proxima Centauri, our nearest neighbour

Shining brightly in this Hubble image is our closest stellar neighbour: Proxima Centauri.

Proxima Centauri lies in the constellation of Centaurus (The Centaur), just over four light-years from Earth. Although it looks bright through the eye of Hubble, as you might expect from the nearest star to the Solar System, Proxima Centauri is not visible to the naked eye. Its average luminosity is very low, and it is quite small compared to other stars, at only about an eighth of the mass of the Sun.

However, on occasion, its brightness increases. Proxima is what is known as a “flare star”, meaning that convection processes within the star’s body make it prone to random and dramatic changes in brightness. The convection processes not only trigger brilliant bursts of starlight but, combined with other factors, mean that Proxima Centauri is in for a very long life. Astronomers predict that this star will remain middle-aged — or a “main sequence” star in astronomical terms — for another four trillion years, some 300 times the age of the current Universe.

These observations were taken using Hubble’s Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2). Proxima Centauri is actually part of a triple star system — its two companions, Alpha Centauri A and B, lie out of frame.

Although by cosmic standards it is a close neighbour, Proxima Centauri remains a point-like object even using Hubble’s eagle-eyed vision, hinting at the vast scale of the Universe around us.

astronemma

Image and article via spacetelescope.org

Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA

#universe #proxima centauri #astronomy #Star

Kasimir, the cutest cat

#cute #extreme cute #persian cat #red cat #vintage

kny111

Super-High Resolution Video of the Moon Rotating Created from LRO Pictures

What you’re looking at is a super-high resolution time-lapse that shows all of the Moon, including the part that’s never visible from Earth. And it was all made possible by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Video Available Here

The LRO’s onboard camera (aptly named the LRO Camera, or LROC) is actually equipped with several cameras. One of those is the WAC, or wide angle camera, which offers a 90-degree field of view in monochrome, and 60-degree in multispectral mode.

Using mosaics created from photos taken by this camera over the course of many orbits — along with some complex calculations regarding the angle of the Sun and reflectance which we won’t even begin to start thinking about considering explaining (read about those here) — orbiter team members at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) put together this spectacular HD rotation movie.

Not only does Colossal’s Christopher Jobson claim it’s the highest-resolution video of the Moon rotating ever made, the other incredible thing about this video is that you get to see a part of the Moon that you can never see from Earth — the 41% of surface known as the far side (often erroneously called the “dark side”). - (PetaPixel)

#astronomy #moon