To the Moon & Beyond

Space aesthetic, for your space needs. Basically space porn. So much space pictures.

[nebulagalore]

[nebulagalore]

[seamlessoo]

The Flower Field

[preventdisaster]

universal rainbow

[captainpotassium]

js

[klesey]

A map of our galaxy the Milky Way, showing pulsars (red), planetary nebulae (blue), globular clusters (yellow), and the orbits of several stars

[r2--d2]

[captainpotassium]

Guiding Light To The Stars, by Mark Gee. Photograph taken at…

[wonders-of-the-cosmos]

Hubble Ultra-Deep Field

[just--space]

Sword of Orion, east Nepal. Author: Dmitriy Shardakov

js

[just--space]

Arp 299: Black Holes in Colliding Galaxies : Is only one black hole spewing high energy radiation – or two? To help find out, astronomers trained NASA’s Earth-orbiting NuSTAR and Chandra telescopes on Arp 299, the enigmatic colliding galaxies expelling the radiation. The two galaxies of Arp 299 have been locked in a gravitational combat for millions of years, while their central black holes will soon do battle themselves. Featured, the high-resolution visible-light image was taken by Hubble, while the superposed diffuse glow of X-ray light was imaged by NuSTAR and shown in false-color red, green, and blue. NuSTAR observations show that only one of the central black holes is seen fighting its way through a region of gas and dust – and so absorbing matter and emitting X-rays. The energetic radiation, coming only from the galaxy center on the right, is surely created nearby – but outside – the central black hole’s event horizon. In a billion years or so, only one composite galaxy will remain, and only one central supermassive black hole. Soon thereafter, though, another galaxy may enter the fray. via NASA

js

[just--space]

Hubble view of galaxy cluster Abell 1689

js

[just--space]

Portrait of NGC 281 : Look through the cosmic cloud cataloged as NGC 281 and you might miss the stars of open cluster IC 1590. Still, formed within the nebula that cluster’s young, massive stars ultimately power the pervasive nebular glow. The eye-catching shapes looming in this portrait of NGC 281 are sculpted columns and dense dust globules seen in silhouette, eroded by intense, energetic winds and radiation from the hot cluster stars. If they survive long enough, the dusty structures could also be sites of future star formation. Playfully called the Pacman Nebula because of its overall shape, NGC 281 is about 10,000 light-years away in the constellation Cassiopeia. This sharp composite image was made through narrow-band filters, combining emission from the nebula’s hydrogen, sulfur, and oxygen atoms in green, red, and blue hues. It spans over 80 light-years at the estimated distance of NGC 281. via NASA

js

[just--space]

The Carina Nebula around the WolfRayet star WR 22

js

[just--space]

Detailed image of the Helix Nebula

js

[just--space]

The Iris Nebula

js

[journalistsforspace-blog]

A Blue Blood Moon. According to NASA, “This sharp telescopic snapshot caught late September’s Harvest Moon completely immersed in Earth’s dark umbral shadow, at the beginning of a total lunar eclipse. It was the final eclipse in a tetrad, a string of four consecutive total lunar eclipses. A dark apparition of the Full Moon near perigee, this total eclipse’s color was a deep blood red, the lunar surface reflecting light within Earth’s shadow filtered through the lower atmosphere. Seen from a lunar perspective, the reddened light comes from all the sunsets and sunrises around the edges of a silhouetted Earth. But close to the shadow’s edge, the limb of the eclipsed Moon shows a distinct blue hue. The blue eclipsed moonlight is still filtered through Earth’s atmosphere though, originating as rays of sunlight pass through layers high in the upper stratosphere, colored by ozone that scatters red light and transmits blue.” - Credit: Dominique Dierick