#magellanic clouds

[inefekt]

Milky Way rising at Baladjie Rock, Western Australia

[twitterexile]

'As long as we can see the sky, we can see our stories': Indigenous Australians first to discover variable stars

Aboriginal astronomers built an observatory older than Stonehenge, and discovered variable stars

Traditional custodian at the Aboriginal Trust in Lake Tyers Victoria, Wayne Thorpe, is learning as much about the traditional science and st

[the-wolf-and-moon]

Magellanic Clouds

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

[ This long-duration photograph looks out a window on the SpaceX Dragon crew spacecraft to the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, two irregular dwarf galaxies, as the International Space Station orbited 260 miles above the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Mexico. Credit: NASA/Don Pettit ]

[ This long-duration photograph looks out a window on the SpaceX Dragon crew spacecraft to the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, two irregular dwarf galaxies, as the International Space Station orbited 260 miles above the Pacific Ocean northeast of Australia. Credit: NASA/Don Pettit ]

[ This long-duration photograph looks out a window on the SpaceX Dragon crew spacecraft to the Milky Way as the International Space Station orbited 262 miles above the Pacific Ocean northeast of New Zealand. Credit: NASA/Don Pettit ]

[tolbachik-art]

Naulkan's Arch

A view of Naulkan from Fel, her moon. Taken just outside of Kenla, a subterranean city that boasts artificial gravity to make up for Fel's relatively low gravity.

The arch was actually located 137km away from the city's site, but was relocated to a nearby cliff to serve as a sort of tourist attraction. Many civilians, both visitors and citizens of Kenla, come to watch Naulkan as it sits there patiently in the sky, never moving.

As another treat, the distant Olena and most of her moons are also visible; the two gods that once ruled most of Reyal meet up once more in the sky of an alien moon.

Just wanted to do one last piece before the year ended! This is from my novel series, although it isn't quite covered in the text itself. Just a fun little exercise in worldbuilding, and in my art skills!

I'll add alt text and a descriptor when I can; been dealing with a flare up of my stuff, and it's been very limiting. Doing this piece actually made it a little worse, but I'm so happy to have it done!

See you in 2025! :)

[pluralzalpha]

Galactic Gazetteer: Tralfamadore

Appearances: "The Sirens of Titan" (Kurt Vonnegut, 1959); "Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children’s Crusade" (Vonnegut, 1969); Slaughterhouse-Five (film, 1972)

Type: terrestrial planet

Location: Small Magellanic Cloud

Inhabitants: Tralfamadorians

Fun fact: in "The Sirens of Titan," the Tralfamadorians were mechanical creatures developed by a race of superbeings to search for meaning in existence.

Another fun fact: in "Slaughterhouse-Five," they were green, plunger-shaped organisms thst existed four-dimensionally, experiencing all of time at once.

Fun fact 3: in "Hocus Pocus" (1990), Tralfamadore is noted as the meeting place for transdimensional superbeings, while in "Timequake" (1997) it is noted as the meeting place for the personifications of chemical elements.

[zespaceblog]

NGC 2203

A recent picture from Hubble of an open star cluster in the Magellanic clouds, dwarf galaxies that orbit our galaxy around 150,000 light years from us.

The cluster is made up of stars around twice the mass of our Sun, meaning their expected life span in main sequence is much less than the 10 billion years our Sun will have fusing Hydrogen in its core. 

As a result, many of the stars have entered their Red Giant phase, giving a beautiful smattering of red’s and blue’s. 

One of the interesting things about this cluster is, many of the stars are remaining in the main sequence, quite some time after they should have ran out of hydrogen. It is thought this may be due to the rotational speeds of the stars slowing down the process of fusion.

Source : http://www.sci-news.com/astronomy/hubble-open-cluster-ngc-2203-08677.html

[startswithabang]

The Milky Way Is Gaining New Stars From A Collision That Hasn't Even Occurred Yet

“This is the first direct evidence of new stars forming from any galactic stream associated with the Magellanic Clouds, and it appears to have occurred from a stream of gas that's already passed through the galactic plane. It's eminently conceivable that it was that very event – when this gas ejected from the Magellanic Clouds passed through the Milky Way's disk – was what triggered the formation of the new stars we're seeing today.

When you take all of this information together, it leads to a remarkable conclusion that changes the way we think our local galactic neighborhood is evolving. New gas is already being funneled into the Milky way from satellite galaxies that are still nearly 200,000 light-years away. This gas, low in heavy element abundance but cool in temperature, provides about 95% of the cold gas suitable for the formation of new Milky Way stars. These nearby galaxies haven't even encountered us yet, and we're already forming new stars because of them.”

In another few hundred million years, the two Magellanic Clouds, located a little less than 200,000 light-years away, will collide with and begin merging with our Milky Way. But already, over 100 million years ago, a fraction of the gas from these clouds came into our galaxy and formed stars! 94,000 light-years away, in the halo of the Milky Way, these stars are unlike anything else seen in our galaxy before.

Here’s how the Milky Way has gained stars from a collision that hasn’t even occurred yet, and what it means for our galaxy’s future!