Autor: Karl Ranseier

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The Hubble Space Telescope checks out globular cluster Terzan 1, a home for old stars. Lying around 20,000 light-years from us in the constellation of Scorpius (The Scorpion), it is one of about 150 globular clusters belonging to our galaxy, the Milky Way.

Typical globular clusters are collections of around a hundred thousand stars, held together by their mutual gravitational attraction in a spherical shape a few hundred light-years across. They contain some of the oldest stars in a galaxy, hence the reddish colors of the stars in this image — the bright blue ones are foreground stars, not part of the cluster. The ages of the stars in the globular cluster tell us that they were formed during the early stages of galaxy formation! Studying them can also help us to understand how galaxies formed.

Image credit: NASA & ESA, Acknowledgement: Judy Schmidt
#nasa #hubble #stars #universe #astronomy #science by astroclubbhs

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New awe inspiring images from Nasa’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) captured the unique view of Earth from the spacecraft’s vantage point in orbit around the moon!

The composite image shows Earth appear to rise over the lunar horizon from the viewpoint of the spacecraft, with the center of the Earth just off the coast of Liberia (at 4.04 degrees North, 12.44 degrees West). The large tan area in the upper right is the Sahara Desert, and just beyond is Saudi Arabia. The Atlantic and Pacific coasts of South America are visible to the left. ‚The image is simply stunning,‘ said Noah Petro, Deputy Project Scientist for LRO at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. ‚The image of the Earth evokes the famous ‚Blue Marble‘ image taken by Astronaut Harrison Schmitt during Apollo 17, 43 years ago, which also showed Africa prominently in the picture.‘ The Earth appears to rise over the lunar horizon from the viewpoint of the spacecraft, with the center of the Earth just off the coast of Liberia (at 4.04 degrees North, 12.44 degrees West).
The image was composed from a series of images taken Oct. 12, when LRO was about 83 miles (134 kilometers) above the moon’s farside crater Compton. Capturing an image of the Earth and moon with LRO’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) instrument is a complicated task. First the spacecraft must be rolled to the side (in this case 67 degrees), then the spacecraft slews with the direction of travel to maximize the width of the lunar horizon in LROC’s Narrow Angle Camera image. All this takes place while LRO is traveling faster than 3,580 miles per hour (over 1,600 meters per second) relative to the lunar surface below the spacecraft.
Since the spacecraft, Earth, and moon are all in motion, we had special processing was needed to create an image that represents the view of the Earth and moon at one particular time. From the Earth, the daily moonrise and moonset are always inspiring moments,‘ said Mark Robinson of Arizona State University #awe #earth#beautifulearth #nasa #universe#humanity#journey #travel #earthtweet by erascience

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Lying around 3,300 light years away in the constellation Draco, the Cats Eye Nebula is perhaps one of the most intricate of all known planetary nebula. Within the Cats Eye is a complex mix of expanding concentric shells and spiral bubbles which are likely powered by the intense radiation of the central star and are heated by interacting with their surroundings. The core of the Cats Eye is around 0.2 light years across and is believed to have formed within the past thousand years or so. The fainter rings located around the ‚eye‘ must have formed from material that was blown off the central star. The material was likely blown off in pulses every several thousand years. Other structures which can only be seen in infrared light likely formed from eruptions from the central star within the past 50,000 years.
Perhaps the most fascinating feature in the Cats Eye is the corkscrewing series of overlapping bubbles near its centre. Astronomers have found that that the regions within the bubbles are filled with hot, X-ray emitting gas. Astronomers believe that both the bubbles and X-rays formed due to the stellar wind being produced by the central star. Whatever the cause, the structures within the Cats Eye Nebula are absolutely stunning.

Image credit: NASA/ESA
#astronomy #astronomer #astrophysics #space #cosmos #science #physics #universe #stars #planet #astronaut #constellation #interstellar #spacetravel #outerspace #instaspace #instalike #instafollow #astrobiology #Nasa #Hubble #telescope #galaxy #stargazing #starstuff #astrophysics_ by astrophysics_