Stardust

This is a blog of... well, space, stars and stuff. Enjoy

[the-wolf-and-moon]

Galactic Center of the Milky Way

[space-pics]

NASA’s Webb Space Telescope Peers Behind Bars by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center

[beautifulmars]

HiPOD 3 July 2023: Possible Clay Deposits in a Crater Rim

The nearby Her Desher Vallis exposes a clay unit in its valley walls. This observation aims to determine if this unit can be visible elsewhere in the region, such as in excavations in nearby craters. This suggestion targets a 2 kilometer-diameter crater southwest of Her Desher that may have possible exposures, as detected in THEMIS and Context Camera data. The Egyptians called Mars “Her Desher,” meaning “the red one.”

ID: ESP_073719_1545 date: 18 April 2022 altitude: 254 km

NASA/JPL-Caltech/UArizona

[the-wolf-and-moon]

NGC 7293, Helix 

[bandit-jay-deactivated20231028]

Comparing the rotations of objects in the Solar System. Just look at them lol.✨🪐

To everyone that's confused, the planet Venus rotates very very slowly, with a single revolution taking about 243 Earth days, and Mercury rotates slowly, but not as slow as Venus.

[vangoghcore]

by marioweigand83

[wonders-of-the-cosmos]

California Nebula

Credit: Mick Hyde

[wonders-of-the-cosmos]

Like the gaping mouth of a gigantic celestial creature, the cometary globule CG4 glows menacingly in this image from ESO’s Very Large Telescope. Although it looks huge and bright in this image it is actually a faint nebula and not easy to observe. The exact nature of CG4 remains a mystery.

[just--space]

A Fire Rainbow over West Virginia : What’s happening to this cloud? Ice crystals in a distant cirrus cloud are acting like little floating prisms. Known informally as a fire rainbow for its flame-like appearance, a circumhorizon arc appears parallel to the horizon. For a circumhorizontal arc to be visible, the Sun must be at least 58 degrees high in a sky where cirrus clouds present below – in this case cirrus fibrates. The numerous, flat, hexagonal ice-crystals that compose the cirrus cloud must be aligned horizontally to properly refract sunlight in a collectively similar manner. Therefore, circumhorizontal arcs are somewhat unusual to see. The featured fire rainbow was photographed earlier this month near North Fork Mountain in West Virginia, USA. via NASA

[space-pics]

Hubble image of variable star RS Puppis by NASA Hubble

[galaxythreads1]

A View to a Nebula via NASA https://ift.tt/ANZenxr

[beautifulmars]

HiPOD 1 Mar 2022: Wallrock and Layering Contact

One factor that helps when submitting an image request is there is any previous coverage. In this location in west Candor Chasma, we don’t have any from the Mars Orbiter Camera, so we can take a fresh look at look at the contact between wallrock and light-toned layering. We can later make a 3D picture to measure the thickness of the layering.

Black and white is less than 5 km across; enhanced color is less than 1 km.

ID: ESP_069672_1750 date: 7 June 2021 altitude: 262 km

NASA/JPL/UArizona

[the-wolf-and-moon]

Clouds of Carina

[just--space]

Rainbow Airglow over the Azores : Why would the sky glow like a giant repeating rainbow? Airglow. Now air glows all of the time, but it is usually hard to see. A disturbance however – like an approaching storm – may cause noticeable rippling in the Earth’s atmosphere. These gravity waves are oscillations in air analogous to those created when a rock is thrown in calm water. The long-duration exposure nearly along the vertical walls of airglow likely made the undulating structure particularly visible. OK, but where do the colors originate? The deep red glow likely originates from OH molecules about 87-kilometers high, excited by ultraviolet light from the Sun. The orange and green airglow is likely caused by sodium and oxygen atoms slightly higher up. The featured image was captured during a climb up Mount Pico in the Azores of Portugal. Ground lights originate from the island of Faial in the Atlantic Ocean. A spectacular sky is visible through this banded airglow, with the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy running up the image center, and M31, the Andromeda Galaxy, visible near the top left. via NASA

[the-wolf-and-moon]

NGC 6960, Witch’s Broom

[space-pics]

The Aurora Named STEVE by NASA Goddard Photo and Video

[space-pics]

Hubble Celebrates 29th Anniversary with a Colorful Look at the Southern Crab Nebula ✨ ✨ by NASA Goddard Photo and Video