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[Windu]

In this thread we post Images, Videos, Cool Facts and most importantly OmgIcantbelievethatisreal! stuff about the Universe.

The Orion Nebula (1,500 Light Years Away)

The Eclipse of Saturn

A Civilization Being Destroyed/Audio

First Moon Landing 1969 - Video

 

[speedpop]

I had the Saturn picture as my wallpaper for a few good weeks. Awesome picture.

 

[Stoney Mason]

Somebody show me Uranus!

 

[brocke]

That's a homosexual voicing that audio clip, right?

 

[MrToughPants]

I came across an image of the Carina Nebula in a picture book called "The Universe 365 Days"...

8,000 light years away the Carina Nebula is giving us the finger :lol

 

[Alfarif]

Universal language.

 

[Arthas]

Icy Europa:

Majestic Sombrero Galaxy:

 

[Karakand]

Have a higher res version of that Europa pic, Arthas?

Also bless this thread.

 

[pxleyes]

Awesome pics. I know most of them have hi-rez or super-hi-rez versions. Can we get links to those with every pic?

 

[jet1911]

M-31 is THE picture galaxy! Just about everyone has seen pictures of this galaxy. It is the largest galaxy we can see from Earth and it is the only one that can be seen easily without any visual aid. It appears as a faint fuzzy patch in semi-dark skies. Surprisingly it is not an easy photographic target; at least not easy to get an image as pretty as the ones we have all seen. It is LARGE! It is as big as 5 full moons placed end-to-end! Without visual aid we only see the bright core. It takes a wide field telescope or 300-600mm telephoto camera lens to get it fully on the frame. M-31 is flanked by two satellite galaxies; M-32 above its center and M-110 below and a bit farther away.

Space is awesome, awesome is space.

 

[fallout]

Astronomy Picture of the Day usually has cool stuff. Also, here's my favourite image of all time (click for a 3100x3100 version, or just go searching for "Hubble Ultra Deep Field"):



Aside from the few stars you see in the foreground, just about everything in that image is a galaxy, down to the tiniest point. This makes up some 10'000 galaxies and the image is roughly one thirteen-millionth of the total area of the sky. The light that you are looking at is 13 billion years old. For those not keeping score, that places the universe at approximately 800 million years old in this snapshot. That's pretty much the nanosecond after the sperm hit the egg in human terms.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_ultra_deep_field -- full story and further links

 

[Alfarif]

I will be refreshing the hell out of this thread.

And please post links to a high-rez, widescreen version of everything you're posting. Like someone said "God bless this thread"

 

[Gibous]

Why are celestial objects so aesthetically pleasing? I find it bizarre.

 

[Alfarif]

Are there yet any images of our Solar system/galaxy looking towards Earth?

 

[jet1911]

Astronomy Picture of the Day usually has cool stuff. Also, here's my favourite image of all time (click for a 3100x3100 version, or just go searching for "Hubble Ultra Deep Field"):



Aside from the few stars you see in the foreground, just about everything in that image is a galaxy, down to the tiniest point. This makes up some 10'000 galaxies and the image is roughly one thirteen-millionth of the total area of the sky. The light that you are looking at is 13 billion years old. For those not keeping score, that places the universe at approximately 800 million years old in this snapshot. That's pretty much the nanosecond after the sperm hit the egg in human terms.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_ultra_deep_field -- full story and further links

We are so not alone in the universe. :lol

 

[Wanace]

Astronomy Picture of the Day usually has cool stuff. Also, here's my favourite image of all time (click for a 3100x3100 version, or just go searching for "Hubble Ultra Deep Field"):

http://zebu.uoregon.edu/hudf/hudf_300dpi.jpg

Aside from the few stars you see in the foreground, just about everything in that image is a galaxy, down to the tiniest point. This makes up some 10'000 galaxies and the image is roughly one thirteen-millionth of the total area of the sky. The light that you are looking at is 13 billion years old. For those not keeping score, that places the universe at approximately 800 million years old in this snapshot. That's pretty much the nanosecond after the sperm hit the egg in human terms.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_ultra_deep_field -- full story and further links

Yes, the HUDF is absolutely mind-blowing. One of my favorite things ever.

I also love this image of a Martian sunrise:

http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/154221main_20060807_PIA07997_060802183716.jpg

 

[Wanace]

Are there yet any images of our Solar system/galaxy looking towards Earth?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_Blue_Dot

 

[Rindain]

Awesome thread.

This is Mercury photographed yesterday by the MESSENGER spacecraft:

Closest approach is tomorrow at only 200 km. Pictures of the never-before-seen side of the planet should start coming in later this week. Check http://www.planetary.org/blog (a site with awesome space news and pics that I check everyday) for updates.

 

[Sallokin]

I love reading about this kind of stuff.

Here's my contribution.

IAPETUS

A dollar to the person that can figure out what the dark areas are.

 

[jet1911]

Beautiful planet.

 

[Alien Bob]

A dollar to the person that can figure out what the dark areas are.

It's obviously space poop

 

[Rindain]

Lakes on the in the north pole area of Titan:

hi-res here: http://planetary.org/image/PIA10008_crop.jpg

 

[fallout]

Are there yet any images of our Solar system/galaxy looking towards Earth?

None of the solar system, but here's a video of the earth rising on the moon. It's not that exciting or anything, and I could swear I've seen a better version of this, but this was the best I could find after some searching.

http://jda.jaxa.jp/jda/v4_e.php?v_i...vel&time=N&genre=4&category=4064&mission=4067

And here's the earth setting on the moon:

http://jda.jaxa.jp/jda/v4_e.php?v_i...vel&time=N&genre=4&category=4064&mission=4067

I actually think that one's substantially better, just because of the perspective change.

 

[fallout]

I love reading about this kind of stuff.

Here's my contribution.

IAPETUS

I always thought that Iapetus's coolest feature was the equatorial ridge:

A dollar to the person that can figure out what the dark areas are.

From Wikipedia:

The original dark material is believed to have come from outside Iapetus, but now it consists principally of lag from the sublimation of ice from the warmer areas of Iapetus's surface. It contains organic compounds similar to the substances found in primitive meteorites or on the surfaces of comets; Earth-based observations have shown it to be carbonaceous, and it probably includes cyano-compounds such as frozen hydrogen cyanide polymers.

... I could probably spend all night in this thread.

 

[Alfarif]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_Blue_Dot

Thank you... I have no words for how that picture makes me feel. That's... character changing right there. It really is.

 

[Desperado]

I'm taking Astronomy this semester

 

[bababa]

space sure is big

 

[fallout]

Thank you... I have no words for how that picture makes me feel. That's... character changing right there. It really is.

:lol Oh yeah. Forgot about that one. I guess that would have been what you were looking for!

On the subject of shots of earth:

 

[Peru]

Wow, that's almost scary. I sometimes get goosebumps from watching news reports where we see astronauts wandering about outside a space station, earth spinning below, blackness around them. It's surreal and I would piss myself twenty times before fainting if stepping out into open space.

 

[patrickthehedgehog]

Oh look at all the galaxies. I've never felt so unspecial, but in a good way.

 

[fallout]

The above image got me thinking about gravitational lensing.

Basically, the gravity of the object in the way of what you're looking at warps the space-time and causes the light to bend, creating somewhat of a lens. This is all predicted by Einstein's theory of general relativity and it's a pretty simple example of a fairly complex idea.

 

[Alfarif]

Wow, that's almost scary. I sometimes get goosebumps from watching news reports where we see astronauts wandering about outside a space station, earth spinning below, blackness around them. It's surreal and I would piss myself twenty times before fainting if stepping out into open space.

I was watching Firefly recently and this just reminded me of the episode where River and Simon are outside the ship in suits. I would so be River, staring into that nothingness, gleefully laughing, but there are so many people I know who would be Simon... scared to look as if the vacuum is going to suck them up and whisk them away.

 

[Bad_Boy]

/me waits for when we can travel at the speed of light. but from what i hear, anything with mass... can't.

 

[Alfarif]

We'll go almost the speed of light. That's as far as we'll achieve. I think it'll be about opening worm holes and breaking things down at the molecular level. Who knows. I read something about some guys "Teleporting" molecules in a lab.... don't know how true that is.

 

[Arthas]

Europa:

High Detail Image of Europa.
Wow look at those cracks in the ice-I wonder what's swimming beneath?

Venus:

Russian Venera 13 surface images of Venus.

The finer surface features of Venus:

Venusian Horizon:

More fine surface features:

Mars:

The Martian Landscape, Courtesy of NASA.

Io:

And last but not least, the despicable surface of Io. How revolting!

 

[Alfarif]

Ok, close photoshop. I so know you made those. I can do it too!

Spoiler

Holy god that looks beautiful.

 

[kame-sennin]

This thread is making me emotional. Especially the picture of all the galaxies. It's quite overwhelming, but in a good way.

 

[PantherLotus]

If there was a light switch on the Sun, and somebody turned it off, we wouldn't know for EIGHT MINUTES!

Even better, you could literally watch the planets in the sky (that look like stars) wink out one by one as the suns light stops reaching them.

That shit always blows my mind and I think it helps conceptualize for people that light is a substance, and that light is time.

 

[Arthas]

Caffeine Nebula:

Star Explodes, alien civilizations are destroyed, billions die, so we can take pretty photo....good star:

Eagle Nebula:

You could get lost in those clouds for million of years...what secrets are there to discover?

 

[Alfarif]

This has been the best thread on Gaf in ages. No joke.

The explorer/adventurer in me is going nuts. No joke. Are we able to freeze bodies yet? I want to wake up when we're ready to go up into some of this.

 

[Askia47]

Beautiful Pictures.

 

[Arthas]

The Sun

First, the scale:

The sun in true colour:

A flare:

X-Ray photo of the surface:

Massive flare:

The surface, close up:

 

[Alfarif]

The sun looks like a brain up close.

 

[jiggle]

Majestic Sombrero Galaxy:

Breathtaking, literally

 

[Feral Youth]

That Eagle Nebula picture looks like a giant rabbit holding a bloke that's about to kick it in the nuts, plus both are firing lightning bolts from their eyes.

Awesome picture.

 

[rollingstart]

Space is the most interesting thing ever, its too bad most people arent interested in it.

 

[Keen]

This is awesome! Keep 'em coming.

 

[Ventrue]

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/0504/heic0506b_hst_big.jpg

Not sure if the next two are real but:

 

[Dolphin]

 

[Ferrio]

Obligatory

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWVshkVF0SY