APOD 2.6

Black Hole

This is a computer generated image of what a black hole looks like. Black holes are so massive and effect the surroundings so much that they bend and pull light in so much, that you cannot see the light it is blocking. There is supposedly a ring that forms where more light is bent around the hole, reflecting towards the viewer. These are scary beasts. Hard to find, and supposedly at the center of all galaxies. We really should discover more about these though. Lets go NASA

APOD 2.5

Mono Lake

Life until this point was thought to have required phosphorous. It is now known that life can be made of arsenic, as seen in the picture of the arsenic base life in the upper left hand corner found in Mono Lake. Mono Lake gives us hope that life will be found on other planets. This could mean that life could also exist from many other kinds of elements, and that the search must begin. Life starts as bacteria, but in billions of years, arsenic based life might flourish. The discovery though was a little underwhelming. When studying for unknown life, you definitely want to find something larger than 10 picometers, but this is a good start.

APOD 2.4

 

Another day another APOD. Today I chose Sisters of the Dust Sky. This is a beautiful image of the Seven Sisters star cluster in the top left, which is extremely well know for its blue output, and the reflection nebula behind it. Something I have always wondered is just how close a star cluster can get. Just how close do all these stars get to each other, and how does it look when they collide? Well this APOD did not answer these questions, but it did talk of the massive dust cloud that encases the cluster. The cluster is sore of a beacon of hope in the cloud, sucking up large amounts of dust, as seen in a larger picture of the star cluster itself. LBN 777 can be seen in the middle of the photo, but is not extremely interesting from what I read. It actually seems to be just weirdly formed dust. Another APOD, another beautiful sight.

APOD 2.3

Thin Galaxy Is Thin

Quite an awesome sight to behold, this thin galaxy, also named NGC 4452, this galaxy is just another awesome reminder of the amazing range of objects in our night sky. This picture was taken by Hubble, and it was taken when the galaxy was nearly on edge. The whole galaxy extends 35,000 light years end to end. This is absolutely astonishing to me. How anything can be so dang large, and still have that much depth and detail. It is also amazing that it emits so much light, which is partially due to its low dust levels. At the center of the galaxy must be an enumerable amount of stars, and emits this really strong glow, that I personally even find hard to look at on a computer screen. The awesome thing about this picture thought is the galaxy's proximity to other galaxies. Maybe many thousands or millions of light years away, hundreds of galaxies can be seen in the background, some of which might even be looking back at us.

APOD 2.2

Sunset from the ISS

What a beautiful sight, and a great way to see why our sky is the colors it becomes. The Troposphere during sunset becomes a orange/yellow color. The Troposphere is where the majority of Earth's clouds can be found. It is what creates the majority of the beautiful colors we see during sunset. The Stratosphere is a light blue band, that when mixed with the troposphere creates all the pink colors. It is a thin layer, and contains some hefty bacteria. The Stratosphere is also where airplanes fly, I guess I might know this if I had ridden in a plane more than once... Above the Stratosphere are many other upper atmospheric layers which are thin and eventually become the emptiness of space. The APOD also stated that sunset for the ISS is no big deal because they can see it up to 16 times a day.

APOD 2.1 THE SUN

That sure is one scary sun monster. It is actually a solar prominence that is the most massive eruption prominence ever recorded. This could easily escape from the sun in a Coronal Mass Ejection, and oh, you know, straight towards whatever planet it feels like at the moment. This prominence is huge though, and it would be extremely possible to fit up to two Earths into the prominence. An eruption prominence is expelled hot gas that is held into the sun by magnetic fields, and may last for a few hours or greater. The sun is also about to reach solar maximum, which occurs about every 12 years. This means more solar prominences, and greater possibility of death. FUN!!

APOD 1.8, "It's not a commet" said Arnold

M27

The list of awesome Messier objects we have studied increases. M 27 in Vulpecula is most definitely not a comet. From this APOD I learned that Messier's objective was to take chronicle of all the astounding objects in our sky that are not comets. This in a small telescope appears to be a planetary nebula, but is actually a  gaseous emission nebula, formed from a star that basically ran out of fuel, and now is expanding in a supernova. Great use of the emission spectrum, and different kinds of light gathering techniques, due to the fact that M 27 emits large amount of ultraviolet light, which is invisible. This is a very unique photo in the fact that not many photos of the Dumbbell nebula include the halo. Overall a very pretty object, and it definitely piques my interest in more Messier not-a-comet objects.