Astronomy Picture of the Day: 12/26/13 - The Celestial Snow Angel

In this awesome image, captured by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, we see a stellar nursery. But this isn"t just any nursery; it seems that these stellar babies are guarded by a colossal celestial angel. Talk about a mind-blowing case of pareidolia, right?

The region, dubbed Sharpless 2-106 (otherwise known as Sh2-106 or S106), is located more than 2,000 light-years away in the constellation of Cygnus. One massive star is responsible for the bulk of the properties seen in the area. The angel shape was created by twin lobes of superheated gas expanding in two separate directions from the central region (where the star remains).

Inside the wings of our angel, we can see the stark contrast between the heat and the motion of the gas, projected with a much colder medium. Through interactions between the gas, dust, and the interstellar medium, we get the hour-glass shape seen surrounding the central star.

Sources & Additional Resources: http://www.fromquarkstoquasars.com/apod-sharples-2-106/

Image Credit: NASA/ESA

Astronomy Picture of the Day: 12/16/13 - The Pinwheel Galaxy

The Pinwheel Galaxy, which can be found more than 21 million light-years from Earth in the constellation of Ursa Major, is one of the most majestic galaxies in the observable universe. The only thing more impressive than the galaxy"s beauty is its size. It comes in with a staggering diameter of 170,000 light-years, making it about 70% larger than our home galaxy, the Milky Way (it, in contrast, is about 100,000 light-years across).

You may not know this, but capturing a detailed image of distant galaxies isn"t as easy as clicking a button on a camera. For instance, take the beautiful photograph of the Pinwheel Galaxy seen here. Instead of it being one shot, it"s actually a composite of four shots taken in infrared, visible light, ultraviolet and x-ray. Optical data was collected by the Hubble Space Telescope (in yellow). The Chandra X-ray Observatory captured the galaxy at x-ray wavelengths (seen in purple), while the Spitzer Space Telescope viewed it at infrared wavelengths (seen in red). Ultraviolet data was taken by GALEX - the Galaxy Evolution Explorer - in blue.

Sources & Further Reading: http://www.fromquarkstoquasars.com/astronomy-picture-of-the-day-121613-the-pinwheel-galaxy/

Image Credit: Chandra X-ray Observatory, Spitzer Satellite, Hubble Space Telescope, and GALEX Satellite

Astronomy Picture of the Day: 12/07/13 - Smoke Ring Galaxies

These two galaxies,collectively known as Arp 147, are located about 450 million light-years from Earth in the Cetus constellation. Several hundreds of millions of years ago, the gravitational pull of the galaxies eventually brought the two close enough to do the celestial tango - each coming together slowly to create one, single galaxy.

Before the merger, One of the galaxies was a spiral and the other was elliptical. The "rings" were formed when one galaxy passed through the other, which spqwned an interesting circular wave structure (similar ones can be seen when you toss a pebble into a pond, watching as little ripples form around the point in which the stone and the water meet). After the collision, the galaxy underwent a period of furious star formation, forming millions of extremely massive, metal-poor blue stars that will burn intensely for a few million years before exploding in a violent (albeit, beautiful) supernova blast. They will then contract to form neutron stars, pulsars or stellar-mass black holes.

Sources & Further Reading: http://www.fromquarkstoquasars.com/astronomy-picture-of-the-day-120713-smoke-ring-galaxies/

Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and M. Livio (STScI)

Astronomy Picture of the Day: 11/25/13 - Infrared Look at the Rosette Nebula

This is the Rosette Nebula as you"ve never seen it before. The region, which can be found about 5,200 light-years from Earth in the constellation Monoceros (the Unicorn), is named as such due to its flowery appearance. Only, this cosmic flower is rather large - measuring in at about 130 light-years in diameter (with an estimated 10,000 solar masses of material) - and very unflower-like, as its filled with the light of thousands of energetic baby stars. (Many of said stars are still encased in their stellar cocoons, not yet fully awakened from their eternal slumber.)

Regardless of this, the hot UV radiation has had a substantial impact on the overall shape of this region. For that matter, if you look closely, you"ll note a rather large hole. This "hole," in all actuality, is a cavity carved into the surrounding material thanks to the close proximity from the stellar nursery. (It can be seen in much more clarity in other images) The stars - in all their fury - eject large quantities of ultraviolet radiation into the superheated materials through stellar winds, which is, in turn, responsible for the erosion.

Apart from my being favorite look at the Rosette nebula, this particular image was taken at infrared wavelengths. The little bubbles reveal the locations of very hot O-type stars. Stars of this stellar classification have temperatures that can reach about 25,000 kelvins.

Sources & Additional Reading: http://www.fromquarkstoquasars.com/astronomy-picture-of-the-day-112513-infrared-look-at-the-rosette-nebula/

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona

Feast Your Eyes on One of the Most Distant (Known) Galaxies in the Universe

In the attached image, the pixelated photo on the lower right may not look like much, but it may very well be the most distant galaxies ever photographed by Spitzer and Hubble. This galaxy is so distant that light first shone from it when the universe was a mere 500 MILLION years old. It may provide some valuable answers to astronomers about the transitional period between the dark and colorless early universe to a modern cosmic expanse filled with the light of trillions of stars -- with brilliant nebulae looming through stellar nurseries and an untold number of planets that circle alien suns.

Learn about this amazing find at
http://www.fromquarkstoquasars.com/feast-your-eyes-on-one-of-the-most-distant-known-galaxies-in-the-universe/

Image source:
NASA