😊

Holiday Lights from the Universe

Although there are no seasons in space, some cosmic vistas invoke thoughts of a frosty winter landscape. Here are a few stellar images of holiday wonderlands from across the galaxy…

Located in our galaxy about 5,500 light years from Earth, this region is actually a “cluster of clusters,” containing at least three clusters of young stars, including many hot, massive, luminous stars.

The outstretched “wings” of this nebula looks like a soaring, celestial snow angel. Twin lobes of super-hot gas, glowing blue in this image, stretch outward from the central star. This hot gas creates the “wings” of our angel. A ring of dust and gas orbiting the star acts like a belt, clinching the expanding nebula into an “hourglass” shape.

At this time of year, holiday parties often include festive lights. When galaxies get together, they also may be surrounded by a spectacular light show. This pair of spiral galaxies has been caught in a grazing encounter. This region has hosted three supernova explosions in the past 15 years and has produced one of the most bountiful collections of super-bright X-ray lights known.

What do the following things have in common: a cone, the fur of a fox and a Christmas tree? Answer: they all occur in the constellation of the unicorn (Monoceros). Pictured as a star forming region, the complex jumble of cosmic gas and dust is about 2,700 light-years away.

Resembling festive lights on a holiday wreath, this Hubble Space Telescope image of a nearby spiral galaxy is an iconic reminder of the impending season. Bright knots of glowing gas light up the spiral arms, indicating a rich environment of star formation.

The Hubble Space Telescope captured two festive-looking nebulas, situated so as to appear as one. Intense radiation from the brilliant central stars is heating hydrogen in each of the nebulas, causing them to glow red…like a holiday light.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

3K notes View Post

verginia-blog1

8 years ago

GODS AND GODDESSES OF THE ANCIENT WORLD: Enki (Sumerian God Of Wisdom, Water, Magic, Creation And Chaos)

GODS AND GODDESSES OF THE ANCIENT WORLD: Enki (Sumerian god of wisdom, water, magic, creation and chaos)

ENKI (also known as Ea, Enkig, Nudimmud, Ninsiku) was the Sumerian god of wisdom, fresh water, intelligence, trickery and mischief, crafts, magic, exorcism, healing, creation, virility, fertility, and art.

Iconography depicts him as a bearded man wearing a horned cap and long robes as he ascends the Mountain of the Sunrise; flowing streams of water run from his shoulders, emphasizing his association with life-giving water, while trees representing the male and female principle stand in the background. The streams are interpreted as the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers which, according to one myth, were formed from Enki’s semen. His name means “Lord of the Earth” and his symbols are the fish and the goat, both representations of fertility.

Article by Joshua J. Mark on AHE

145 notes View Post

verginia-blog1

8 years ago

New Impact Hypothesis Might Explain Our Moon’s Uniqueness

New Impact Hypothesis Might Explain Our Moon’s Uniqueness

“This also helps explain some nice oddities all in one go. “What’s beautiful about this work is that we can end up with the current state of the moon — its orbit, its chemistry — with just one step, without invoking any other event,” says Sarah Stewart, a coauthor on the study. If the Earth rotated on its axis before the impact, and if the protoplanet that collided with Earth were in the Earth-Sun plane, none of this would be possible. But with this, we not only get a rapidly spinning young Earth and a 24-hour, 23.5º tilted Earth today, but a Moon that orbits out of the plane, nearly locked to the Sun rotationally, and locked to the Earth revolution-wise. The pieces all fall together beautifully.”

Why is our Moon so unlike every other moon in the Solar System? No other moon is such a large percent of its parent planet’s mass or size; no other moon rotates so far afield of its planet’s rotational axis; no other moon orbits so far out of the planet-Sun plane. Yet our Moon does it all. The giant impact hypothesis might explain why the Moon is made of the same material as Earth, but wouldn’t explain these features. Unless, that is, the giant impact occurred with a very large velocity out of the plane of proto-Earth’s orbit. Unless, again, the Earth weren’t rotating at 23.5º prior to the impact. This new tweak on the impact hypothesis, put forth by a team of authors earlier this week in the journal Nature, might explain the unique history of the Earth-Moon system, including some features we don’t normally think about as being puzzling.

It isn’t just Earth that’s unique in our Solar System, but the Moon as well. Combined, the great cosmic detective story might have a new lead suspect!

43 notes View Post

verginia-blog1

8 years ago

😁

CYGNSS rockets into orbit atop Pegasus

The first Cygnus launch from Cape Canaveral in nearly 10 years successfully placed NASA’s eight CYGNSS satellite into orbits Thursday, December 15. Pegasus, attached to the belly of Orbital ATK’s L-1011 Stargazer aircraft, lifted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station’s Skid Strip runway at 7:38am EDT. After reaching an altitude of 39,000 feet and within the 10 by 40 mile launch box, Pegasus was commanded for release, falling away from the mothership at 8:37am. Less than five seconds later, the first stage ignited, beginning a 14-minute climb to orbit for Pegasus and the eight CYGNSS satellites.

CYGNSS, short for Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System, will use high-fidelity GPS signals to help forecasters better measure and predict hurricanes. In honor of the storm recently affecting the space coast, the Pegasus rocket launching CYGNSS was named Matthew. This was the 43rd launch of the Pegasus rocket, which made history in 1990 as the world’s first successfully-launched commercially-developed rocket vehicle. It remains the only air-launched rocket system in operation. CYGNSS was originally scheduled for launch Monday, but a faulty hydraulic pump in the rocket’s release mechanism promoted a delay into today. P/C: NASA.

241 notes View Post

verginia-blog1

8 years ago

Fright Night, The Witches Hour & The Darkest Hour By DVerissimo - Like It? Find Out More And Buy HERE

Fright Night, The Witches Hour & The Darkest Hour by DVerissimo - Like it? Find out more and buy HERE (t-shirts, phone & laptop cases, prints, pillows, stickers, mugs, calendars, etc…)

Check this post for ACTIVE COUPONS, SPECIAL OFFERS & DISCOUNTS (daily updated) —–> https://goo.gl/jBWO6E

1K notes View Post