“Stuff Your Eyes With Wonder, Live As If You’d Drop Dead In Ten Seconds. See The World. It’s More

“Now, for the first time in its billions of years of history, our planet is protected by far-seeing sentinels, able to anticipate danger from the distant future – a comet on a collision course, or global warming – and devise schemes for doing something about it. The planet has finally grown its own nervous system: us.”

- Daniel Dennett ( We Earth Neurons )

Image Credit: NTs OMZ

In 1716, English astronomer Edmond Halleynoted,  “This is but a little Patch, but it shews itself to the naked Eye, when the Sky is serene and the Moon absent." Of course, M13 is now less modestly recognized as the Great Globular Cluster in Hercules, one of the brightest globular star clusters in the northern sky. Telescopic views reveal the spectacular cluster’s hundreds of thousands of stars. At a distance of 25,000 light-years, the cluster stars crowd into a region 150 light-years in diameter. Approaching the cluster core upwards of 100 stars could be contained in a cube just 3 light-years on a side. For comparison, the closest star to the Sun is over 4 light-years away. Along with the cluster’s dense core, the outer reaches of M13 are highlighted in this sharp color image. The cluster's evolved red and blue giant stars show up in yellowish and blue tints. For image credit and copyright guidance, please visit the image website http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap170512.html

Time And Space

On its way to Pluto back in 2007, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft captured some incredibly detailed images of Jupiters turbulent and complex cloud patterns. This is a composite of multiple images taken by the New Horizons’ Multispectral Visual Imaging Camera which recreates the colors you would see if you were on board the spacecraft.

(Image Credit: NASA, Johns Hopkins U. APL, SWRI)

Klingon Bird Of Prey (Star Trek), Check Out more here

Hubble Sees the Beautiful Side of Galaxy IC 335: This new NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows the galaxy IC 335 in front of a backdrop of distant galaxies. IC 335 is part of a galaxy group containing three other galaxies, and located in the Fornax Galaxy Cluster 60 million light-years away.

As seen in this image, the disk of IC 335 appears edge-on from the vantage point of Earth. This makes it harder for astronomers to classify it, as most of the characteristics of a galaxys morphology the arms of a spiral or the bar across the center are only visible on its face. Still, the 45000 light-year-long galaxy could be classified as an S0 type.

These lenticular galaxies are an intermediate state in galaxy morphological classification schemes between true spiral and elliptical galaxies. They have a thin stellar disk and a bulge, like spiral galaxies, but in contrast to typical spiral galaxies they have used up most of the interstellar medium. Only a few new stars can be created out of the material that is left and the star formation rate is very low. Hence, the population of stars in S0 galaxies consists mainly of aging stars, very similar to the star population in elliptical galaxies.

As S0 galaxies have only ill-defined spiral arms they are easily mistaken for elliptical galaxies if they are seen inclined face-on or edge-on as IC 335 here. And indeed, despite the morphological differences between S0 and elliptical class galaxies, they share some common characteristics, like typical sizes and spectral features.

Both classes are also deemed early-type galaxies, because they are evolving passively. However, while elliptical galaxies may be passively evolving when we observe them, they have usually had violent interactions with other galaxies in their past. In contrast, S0 galaxies are either aging and fading spiral galaxies, which never had any interactions with other galaxies, or they are the aging result of a single merger between two spiral galaxies in the past. The exact nature of these galaxies is still a matter of debate.

European Space Agency Credit: ESA/Hubble and NASA

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TRAPPIST - 1 by Guillem H. Pongiluppi

Absolutely love this shot from the extremely talented Nicholas Buer. Reminds me of this awe inspiring quote from physicist Brian Greene about the challenge humanity faces to understand the cosmos:

“We all love a good story. We all love a tantalizing mystery. We all love the underdog pressing onward against seemingly insurmountable odds. We all, in one form or another, are trying to make sense of the world around us. And all of these elements lie at the core of modern physics. The story is among the grandest – the unfolding of the entire universe; the mystery is among the toughest – finding out how the cosmos came to be; the odds are among the most daunting – bipeds, newly arrived by cosmic time scales trying to reveal the secrets of the ages; and the quest is among the deepest – the search for fundamental laws to explain all we see and beyond, from the tiniest particles to the most distant galaxies.” — Brian Greene

EMILY

New Costume Design for the captain Emily Personal Project

Ali Abed

Object Names: M33, Triangulum Galaxy

Image Type: Astronomical

Credit: Nasa, Hubble Heritage Team

Time And Space