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[Deku]

That's no spacestation.

Mimas. Moon of Saturn.

 

[dark_chris]

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

Lol. And people who believe we are alone are very very silly. Look at all the galaxies and much more than that. Its obvious we're not alone. Billions of galaxies and we're the only one? pft, yeah..

 

[Windu]

This is going to sound a little creepy... but... have we ever lost an astrounaut in space because he became detached from the shuttle or couldn't get back in some way?

no, but that would fucking scary though.

Space travel carries with it inherent risk and dangers. To date, nineteen people have been killed on five spaceflight missions, and at least ten more have been killed in ground-based training accidents. The five spaceflights which resulted in astronaut deaths are:

1967 April 24 - Vladimir Mikhaylovich Komarov died during the landing of Soyuz 1 when the capsule's parachute failed to open properly.

1967 November 15 - U.S. Air Force test pilot Major Michael J. Adams was killed when his X-15-3 research aircraft began to spin on re-entry and descent, and disintegrated near Randsburg, California. Maj. Adams was posthumously awarded astronaut wings for his last flight in the X-15-3, which had attained an altitude of 266,000 feet (81.1 km).

1971 June 30 - The crew of Soyuz 11, Georgi Dobrovolski, Viktor Patsayev and Vladislav Volkov, suffocated after undocking from space station Salyut 1. A valve on their spacecraft had accidentally opened when the service module separated, letting their air leak out into space.

1986 January 28 - The Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. The Space Shuttle Challenger broke apart 73 seconds after launch on STS-51-L, resulting in the loss of all seven crew members: Greg Jarvis, Christa McAuliffe, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Judith Resnik, Michael J. Smith, and Dick Scobee.

2003 February 1 - The Space Shuttle Columbia disaster. During the STS-107 mission, Space Shuttle Columbia broke apart while re-entering the Earth's atmosphere. Damage to the shuttle's thermal protection system (TPS) led to structural failure in the left wing, resulting in the death of all seven crew members: Rick D. Husband, William McCool, Michael P. Anderson, David M. Brown, Kalpana Chawla, Laurel B. Clark, and Ilan Ramon.

More Photos:

Spiral Galaxy M74

Hubble’s image of M74 is stunning. M74, also called as NGC 628, is a perfectly formed spiral galaxy. M74 is located roughly 32 million light-years away in the direction of the constellation Pisces, the Fish. It has been estimated that there are about 100 billion stars in M74, which means it is slightly smaller galaxy than Milky Way. There are lots of images of galaxies in the Internet, some of them being very beautiful images, but I must say this image taken by Hubble is absolutely on of the most impressive images.

Firestorm of Star Birth In Galaxy NGC 604

Hubble image of NGC 604 is probably one of the most beautiful and space images. This massive star-birth region is comparable to Orion nebula M42, but it is vastly larger in extent. There are approximately 200 brilliant blue stars within a cloud of glowing gases some. The nebula is about 1,300 light-years across and it is nearly 100 times the size of the Orion Nebula. I said above that the galaxy image is one of the most impressive images taken. I have to say the same again. This image of NGC 604 is also ine of the most impressive space images I

Light Echoes From Red Supergiant Star V838 Monocerotis

V838 Monocerotis is a variable star in the constellation Monoceros about 20,000 light years from the Sun. Hubble telescope photographed this major outburst of the star which was initially understood as a nova eruption. The reason for the outburst has not been understood yet, but several theories have already been defined, such as an eruption related to stellar death processes and a merger of a binary star or planets. This image is in my list of top ten Hubble images of all time because it is so beautiful. It is simply an awesome picture.

A Giant Hubble Mosaic of the Crab Nebula

The Crab Nebula, one of my all-time favorite night sky objects, is here photographed by the Hubble telescope. This six-light-year wide nebula is an expanding remnant of a star’s supernova explosion. With all its colors and sharp lines, the image is definitely one of the best Hubble images of all time. I saw this image long time ago when it was first published. I was impressed back then, but I still keep on wondering how sharp this image is. It is amazing, absolutely amazing space image. I just wonder what kind of images we will see in 30 years if images now are so amazing already.

 

[Lost Fragment]

Pic of Mercury taken on the 14th by a NASA spacecraft:

Video: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/messenger/main/index.html

 

[teruterubozu]

Huge storm at the south pole of Saturn:

 

[Escape Goat]

This is going to sound a little creepy... but... have we ever lost an astrounaut in space because he became detached from the shuttle or couldn't get back in some way?

Not that im aware of. That would suck to suffocate in space and have your body slowly spiral into the cosmos for infinity.

 

[Lost Fragment]

Not that im aware of. That would suck to suffocate in space and have your body slowly spiral into the cosmos for infinity.

Actually.

When I die, I want my body jettisoned outside the solar system. That would be awesome.

 

[C.Dark.DN]

Actually.

When I die, I want my body jettisoned outside the solar system. That would be awesome.

great fucking idea. we could preserve our bodies and put a sample of dna (like, in some sort of contianer that would last a long ass time) so someone in the future or more technologically advanced world could revive us.

unless it floats into the goddamn sun.

 

[bud]

this thread's awesome, and the pictures are beautiful. i've always been interested in space and actually wanted to become an astronaut... until i found out you need to be good at math, lol.

Click For High Res.


Top Ten Space Walks in History

that's fucking amazing, but just thinking about doing that scares me. :lol

 

[speedpop]

So awesome. We talk about the vastness of the universe, and yet it's only in the past decade or so that we are able to properly see the planets in our solar system orbiting a lone star.

 

[ElectricBlue187]

great fucking idea. we could preserve our bodies and put a sample of dna (like, in some sort of contianer that would last a long ass time) so someone in the future or more technologically advanced world could revive us.

unless it floats into the goddamn sun.

Isn't that what the creator of Star Trek did?

 

[Escape Goat]

Isn't that what the creator of Star Trek did?

not his entire body. just some of his ashes i believe.

 

[speedpop]

 

[Scopebob Sniperpants]

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0712/boomerang_hst.jpg

Photoshopped. I know a starburst filter when I see one. I've seen quite a few shops in my time. I can tell by the pixels.

 

[Escape Goat]

Looks like they found the gay homeworld.

 

[speedpop]

Knew I should've quoted it

This symmetric cloud dubbed the Boomerang Nebula was created by a high-speed wind of gas and dust blowing from an aging central star at speeds of nearly 600,000 kilometers per hour. The rapid expansion has cooled molecules in the nebular gas to about one degree above absolute zero - colder than even the cosmic background radiation - making it the coldest known region in the distant Universe. Shining with light from the central star reflected by dust, the frigid Boomerang Nebula is believed to be a star or stellar system evolving toward the planetary nebula phase.

This Hubble image was recorded using polarizing filters (analogous to polaroid sunglasses) and color coded by the angle associated with the polarized light. The gorgeous result traces the small dust particles responsible for polarizing and scattering the light. The Boomerang Nebula spans about one light year and lies about 5,000 light years away toward the constellation Centaurus.

 

[Littleberu]

So it's official, there is ice on Mars? Does that mean that there's a probability of bacteria in it?

 

[Desperado]

The rapid expansion has cooled molecules in the nebular gas to about one degree above absolute zero -

Holy shit.

 

[Alien Bob]

So it's official, there is ice on Mars? Does that mean that there's a probability of bacteria in it?

Nah, but plenty of Yeti's

 

[Blablurn]

i inserted some outlines. wow, i mean, it looks like the solhouette of en elf

 

[Thriller]

i inserted some outlines. wow, i mean, it looks like the solhouette of en elf

i saw a bunny..

 

[BladedExpert]

Ive been reading a thread on another forum recently and thought id pose a question here that was posed over there: Do you think in all the vastness that is space there is intelligent life? Taking it a step further, do you then think that we have been visited by said intelligent life?

I'll answer my own questions. yes, no.

 

[asa]

I've been waiting for Gaf space thread. Interesting stuff so far, keep 'em coming!

My contribution:

Martian dust devils filmed by those lovely rovers.

A Large Tsunami Shock Wave on the Sun :

Audio clips recorded by Esa's Cassini-haygens:
Saturn's radio emissions:
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/saturn/audio/pia07966-112203.wav
Speeding through Titan's haze:
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/videos/movies/alien_winds_descent.mp3
Click here for more

I saved the most amazing last:

Lunar Transit(aka. moon "passes" sun), viewed from Stereo B satellite.. http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0703/transit_label_med4.mov

 

[Mr. Hyde]

Source of mysterious antimatter found. Awesome!

 

[speedpop]

Lunar Transit(aka. moon "passes" sun), viewed from Stereo B satellite.. http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0703/transit_label_med4.mov

So awesome.

 

[Lucky Forward]

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/annearundel/bal-md.blind16jan16,0,295804.story

Such lessons are the focus of an unusual, NASA-funded book designed to give the blind and the sighted a better idea of the size, shape and composition of some of the most brilliant objects ever detected in space.

Touch the Invisible Sky describes, in Braille and printed text, some of the exploding stars and constellations detected by the Hubble, Chandra and Spitzer space telescopes. There also are some images from the group of radio telescopes that make up the Very Large Array in New Mexico.

The book includes 28 color images embossed with raised lines, confetti-like dots and concentric patterns to give blind readers some idea of what the Crab Nebula and the Whirlpool galaxy are made of.

The authors are Steel, NASA astronomer Doris Daou and Noreen Grice, an astronomer and operations coordinator at the Boston Museum of Science planetarium.

The 60-page volume cost NASA $125,000 to produce and will retail for about $75 in museums, science centers, NASA facilities and schools for the blind. It also will be available on the publisher's Web site: www.ozonepublishing.net .

The initial run was 2,000 copies, but there may be additional printings if the book sells well, said Lilia Molina, president of Ozone Tactile Publishing.

The point is to encourage blind students to study astronomy, think about careers in science and stretch their imaginations so they are more likely to pursue fields they might otherwise think are closed to them, said Mark A. Riccobono, executive director of the blind federation's Jernigan Institute, a research and training center.

"Even if they don't go into astronomy, they may begin to see that it's a possibility and, by extension, they begin to see other possibilities," Riccobono said.

A visible-light image of the Kepler supernova, which was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, appears as a series of tiny green islands, while infrared light from the Spitzer shows it as a half-moon-shaped red mass. X-ray images from Chandra show the same supernova as a full circle of blue emissions.

"The focus of the book is really things that nobody can see anyway," Steel said.

Astronomers these days increasingly depend on skills such as being able to develop algorithms and computer code that will discern patterns in the electromagnetic spectrum - most of which is invisible, experts say.

One often-cited role model is Kent Cullers, a blind physicist portrayed in the Jodie Foster movie Contact who developed algorithms used to look for signs of extraterrestrial life among cosmic radio waves.

 

[mr_nexus]

Mimas has the best view in the solar system.

 

[dark_chris]

Looks like they found the gay homeworld.

:lol :lol

 

[Carl2282]

Irony. I missed the new episode of The Universe even though it was I who posted the reminder in this thread.

Damnit.

that show is awesome, good thing about history channel is they repeat their shows a lot.
great thread and awesome pics. The thing i find crazy is how so many orbits and galaxies end up in a disk instead of a sphere. It's also wild how all those beautiful nebulas are the remains of dead stars

 

[saelz8]

Pale Blue Dot

Watch, contemplate!

 

[Stuggernaut]

More people need to use Google Sky...lol

You can see so many odd things in that app it's crazy.

If you don't kno what it is...it is basically like a google earth look at...space.

 

[fallout]

This is going to sound a little creepy... but... have we ever lost an astrounaut in space because he became detached from the shuttle or couldn't get back in some way?

You know, I could be wrong about this, but aside from re-entry, I don't think anyone's ever lost an astronaut in space.

Wiki to the rescue: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronaut#Deaths

1971 June 30 - The crew of Soyuz 11, Georgi Dobrovolski, Viktor Patsayev and Vladislav Volkov, suffocated after undocking from space station Salyut 1. A valve on their spacecraft had accidentally opened when the service module separated, letting their air leak out into space.

Still, that's a pretty good track record overall, considering how much shit has happened.

Looks like they found the gay homeworld.

Interesting fact: They could have just used a different filter on that to get different colours!

Ive been reading a thread on another forum recently and thought id pose a question here that was posed over there: Do you think in all the vastness that is space there is intelligent life? Taking it a step further, do you then think that we have been visited by said intelligent life?

I'll answer my own questions. yes, no.

My answers are: maybe and probably not (simply due to the fact that interstellar travel is really, really, really hard).

Basically, until I see evidence that there is life out there, I leave it open as a strong possibility. And although it's small, there's still room to doubt it. When you start looking into just how fluky life is on this planet, you start to become just a little more pessimistic about the idea of life existing elsewhere. For instance, the entire region of a galaxy is not fit for life. And then there's the fact that most star systems in the galaxy are double, triple or more star systems (meaning multiple stars orbiting each other). And then we can get into the finer details of our own solar system. If the earth were shifted closer to the sun, or further away from it ... the planet would have been too cold or too hot, most likely. And if you look at all the heavier elements than say ... helium, those most likely came from a supernova explosion nearby, since the sun cannot produce anything that heavy in large quantities.

Given the number of star systems out there (and then galaxies), it's still pretty unlikely that we're alone. Still, it does make you appreciate just how lucky we are to even be here.

 

[Escape Goat]

Interesting fact: They could have just used a different filter on that to get different colours!

youre just mad your hetero planet isnt as fabulous.

 

[michaeld]

I don't give a shit what anyone says, after watching a video about how small we are in comparison to the universe, there is no doubt in my mind there is life out there somewhere.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGxRWCmwSDE&feature=related

 

[plagiarize]

We are so not alone in the universe. :lol

it's just a shame that the chance of any other life finding us, or us finding any other life is so goddamn small eh?

by the time we know about life on another planet, it'll likely be dead... and probably the same for any other planets that find out about us.

scanning the skies for radio transmissions is the stupidest thing ever. we've been transmitting radio for what? 200 years or so? that's not even a blink.

 

[Spainkiller]

Pale Blue Dot

Watch, contemplate!

That should be compulsory viewing at school.

 

[teepo]

This is a great thread. I just wish nasa would get with the program and start taking widescreen pictures..

widescreen is made from cropping an image...

and a wide angel lense really wont do them any good...

 

[Windu]

Pale Blue Dot

Watch, contemplate!

I feel so insignificant.

Ive been reading a thread on another forum recently and thought id pose a question here that was posed over there: Do you think in all the vastness that is space there is intelligent life? Taking it a step further, do you then think that we have been visited by said intelligent life?

I'll answer my own questions. yes, no

Yes, I believe there is intelligent life out there somewhere. It can't be just us, the universe is too big.

I'll tell you one thing about the universe, though. The universe is a pretty big place. It's bigger than anything anyone has ever dreamed of before. So if it's just us... seems like an awful waste of space.

I don't think that we have be visited by intelligent life though.

Pic of Mercury taken on the 14th by a NASA spacecraft:
Video: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/messenger/main/index.html

awsome, thanks. I assume that these are black and white photos (or is the surface that color?) and this is not true color of mercury, if so what is the true color of Mercury?

 

[HotByCold]

Saturn's radio emissions:
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/saturn/audio/pia07966-112203.wav

That sound was chilling.

 

[methodman]

scanning the skies for radio transmissions is the stupidest thing ever. we've been transmitting radio for what? 200 years or so? that's not even a blink.

More like, it isn't even the slightest movement of the eye.


Also, if there is intelligent life out there, and they find us, I have to believe they'd be so much smarter in all things that we'd have to change our entire outlook on life on Earth (unless they just destroy us first). That's why Science Fiction has always interested me, I've read a couple books about the exact thing: Aliens coming to earth (they always seem to be sexy human looking women for some reason), and the Earth has to make a coalition to make a treaty with the aliens so we can use their shit.

 

[Windu]

That sound was chilling.

Yeah, very freaky. It makes me not want to go to saturn because it sounds like the scariest place ever.

 

[fallout]

scanning the skies for radio transmissions is the stupidest thing ever. we've been transmitting radio for what? 200 years or so? that's not even a blink.

Well, it's not the stupidest thing ever, but yeah, it's pretty futile. Our galaxy is approximately 100,000 ly (light years) wide and 1,000 ly thick. So, at the fastest speed there is (the speed that light travels at, or in this case, radio), it would take 100,000 years to send a message from one end of the galaxy to another. The closest 25 stars to us (excluding the sun) range from 4.2 ly away to 11.7 ly away. It just keeps getting farther after that, obviously.

Now, think about that for a second. Let's just say that we did receive a message from a star that was say, 50 ly away. That message is 50 years old. To send them a message back would take 50 years and to receive their reply would take another 50 years. Effectively, it's taken 150 years just to communicate some very basic stuff. I'm not saying that it'll never happen, but if this is the way that we first come into contact with an alien species, it's going to be a very slow process.

 

[dark_chris]

That sound was chilling.

Yea, I agree. Thats freaky. Very. >.<

Whats the sound though? Just radio waves or somethin? I don't really get it.

 

[Snaku]

That sound was chilling.

Holy shit. Yes it was.

 

[michaeld]

Do you guys thin there are parallel universes? I was listening to an interview with some particle physicist and he was talk about alternate dimensions used to be a joke but now are a serious point of discussion.

 

[michaeld]

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

Earth rise and set from the moon

 

[Escape Goat]

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0512/as8-14-2383HR.jpg[IMG][/QUOTE]



I'd love to have that picture framed. Awesome.

 

[michaeld]

 

[Lakitu]

Mars at Dawn (high-res)

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

 

[michaeld]

This is borderline space