Todays pic is a very striking view of a favourite of mine, call me selfish if you will, this is posted as much for my pleasure as anybody elses. I hope however that you will enjoy looking at it as much as I do.
Rainbow Image of a Dusty Star
Resembling a rippling pool illuminated by underwater lights, the Egg Nebula offers astronomers a special look at the normally invisible dust shells swaddling an aging star. These dust layers, extending over one-tenth of a light-year from the star, have an onionskin structure that forms concentric rings around the star. A thicker dust belt, running almost vertically through the image, blocks off light from the central star. Twin beams of light radiate from the hidden star and illuminate the pitch-black dust, like a shining flashlight in a smoky room.
The artificial "Easter-Egg" colors in this image are used to dissect how the light reflects off the smoke-sized dust particles and then heads toward Earth.
Credit: NASA and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
Acknowledgment: W. Sparks (STScI) and R. Sahai (JPL)
Larger versions of this pic, as well as the full article that the above piece is taken from can be found at this page here. 56K users need not worry, the pics are linked to, not actually posted on the page. Larger versions are up to 5MB in size.
Previous Pic Of The Day posts
30th Mar 03
28th Mar 03
26th Mar 03
22nd Mar 03
21st Mar 03
20th Mar 03
19th Mar 03Courtesy of Mark G
Rainbow Image of a Dusty Star
Resembling a rippling pool illuminated by underwater lights, the Egg Nebula offers astronomers a special look at the normally invisible dust shells swaddling an aging star. These dust layers, extending over one-tenth of a light-year from the star, have an onionskin structure that forms concentric rings around the star. A thicker dust belt, running almost vertically through the image, blocks off light from the central star. Twin beams of light radiate from the hidden star and illuminate the pitch-black dust, like a shining flashlight in a smoky room.
The artificial "Easter-Egg" colors in this image are used to dissect how the light reflects off the smoke-sized dust particles and then heads toward Earth.
Credit: NASA and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
Acknowledgment: W. Sparks (STScI) and R. Sahai (JPL)
Larger versions of this pic, as well as the full article that the above piece is taken from can be found at this page here. 56K users need not worry, the pics are linked to, not actually posted on the page. Larger versions are up to 5MB in size.
Previous Pic Of The Day posts
30th Mar 03
28th Mar 03
26th Mar 03
22nd Mar 03
21st Mar 03
20th Mar 03
19th Mar 03Courtesy of Mark G
