*** The Official Astronomy & Universe Thread ***

It really is incredible on what they are doing to find answers about our universe, we really are in the golden age of astronomy and the quest for knowledge.

As mrk says.

Rock on :)
 

The icon in the lower right corner shows how the view changes over time, from our position in the Milky Way.

The mosaic comes primarily from the GLIMPSE360 project, which stands for Galactic Legacy Mid-Plane Survey Extraordinaire. It consists of more than 2 million snapshots taken in infrared light over ten years, beginning in 2003 when Spitzer launched.

This infrared image reveals much more of the galaxy than can be seen in visible-light views. Whereas visible light is blocked by dust, infrared light from stars and other objects can travel through dust to reach Spitzer's detectors. For instance, when looking up at our night skies, we see stars that are an average of 1,000 light-years away; the rest are hidden. In Spitzer's mosaic, light from stars throughout the galaxy -- which stretches 100,000 light-years across -- shines through. This picture covers only about three percent of the sky, but includes more than half of the galaxy's stars and the majority of its star formation activity.

The red color shows dusty areas of star formation. Throughout the galaxy, tendrils, bubbles and sculpted dust structures are apparent. These are the result of massive stars blasting out winds and radiation. Stellar clusters deeply embedded in gas and dust, green jets and other features related to the formation of young stars can also be seen for the first time. Looking towards the galactic center, the blue haze is made up of starlight -- the region is too far away for us to pick out individual stars, but they contribute to the glow. Dark filaments that show up in stark contrast to the bright background are areas of thick, cold dust that not even infrared light can penetrate.

The GLIMPSE360 map will guide astronomers for generations, helping them to further chart the unexplored territories of our own Milky Way.
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More:

http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/glimpse360
 
StriderX said:
When is the date for the Gas collapse at Sagittarius A?
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They are saying any time from now to the end of April.


http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/18/science/its-snack-time-in-the-cosmos.html?_r=0

Its orbit has it barreling almost straight toward the black hole, though it will pass at a distance of about 100 times the space between Earth and the sun. It’s expected to reach its closest approach to the black hole next month, and science, in a first, will be able to watch the encounter in real time.
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http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/massive-gas-cloud-collide-black-hole-get-watch-live/
 

The Horsehead Nebula is a dark cloud of dense gas and dust located just below the belt of Orion on the sky. A visible light view shows a strong silhouette resembling the horse's head used for a knight in chess. Infrared light, however, reveals a more complex scene, as shown in Hubble's 2013 image. The warm parts of the clouds glow in infrared light, plus longer infrared wavelengths can penetrate deeper into the clouds. A dark and relatively featureless scene is revealed as a glowing gaseous landscape.

This video presents a scientific visualization of the Horsehead Nebula as seen in infrared light. To fill out the widescreen frame, the central Hubble image has been augmented by ground-based observations from the European Southern Observatory's Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA). The three-dimensional interpretation has been sculpted to create a wispy and mountainous environment, with stars distributed in an approximate and statistical manner. The computer graphics model is intended to be scientifically reasonable, but not fully accurate. This imaginative traverse provides an inspiring spaceflight experience that brings the celestial scene to life.
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The star-forming region Sharpless 2-106 (S106) has a bi-polar shape that, in a December 2011 Hubble press release, was likened to a "celestial snow angel". The "wings" of the nebula are actually bubbles of hot gas created by stellar winds and high energy radiation coming from a massive, hot, newborn star in the center. A ring of dense gas and dust encircles that star and forces the outflows into two oppositely directed lobes. The blue light in the S106 image represents hotter gas along the interior of the lobes, while the red light comes from cooler gas along the exterior.

This movie presents a scientific visualization of S106 in which the Hubble image has been augmented with additional field-of-view from the Subaru Infrared Telescope. A couple research articles in science journals described the basic hourglass-like shape of the nebula. Based on those papers, and augmented by intuition and artistic license as needed, the stars and the lobes of glowing gas from the Hubble/Subaru two-dimensional image have been separated and sculpted to create the depth in the movie. This three-dimensional view illustrates and emphasizes that many of the objects contained within astronomical images are not at the same distance, but, in fact, spread across many light-years of space. Note, however, that the relative distances between stars and the nebula have been compressed.
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Did a bit of solar yesterday - here's the current sun spots in the centre of the sun:

13579101835_927d5d92c8.jpg


3350mm focal length (f31.9) with the pentax and some solar film. Cropped to remove the dust motes!
 
Saturn's moon enceladus contains water apparently.

Thanks to Cassini.
Saturn moon hides 'great lake'
New measurements by Nasa's Cassini probe suggest Saturn's moon Enceladus hides a mass of liquid water as big as Lake Superior under its icy surface.
3 April 2014
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http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-26872184

Imagine the possibilities if every country gave a theoretical international space organisation 1% of its budget?
 
Yep, interesting news, we need some probes out there. But no exploration. The next nasa budget proposal is cut backs, that will scrap the purposed Europa mission.
And put curiosity in jeopardy.
 
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