The Prettiest Space Pics From The American Astronomical Society Meeting

[n2doc]

Cygnus X: Star Birth in Vivid Color
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Harvard-Smithsonian CfA
Captured in infrared by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, this image of Cygnus X (part of the constellation Cygnus, or the Swan) is made beautiful by massive stars that have blown huge bubbles in the gas and dust in the region. This rather violent process causes both star birth and star death--and makes for a really nice image. Since the human eye can’t see light in these wavelengths, the colors have been assigned to make them visible to us. The shortest wavelengths are blue, the longer red, and the mid-range light is green.




A Milky Way Mosaic
NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA
Captured by NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), this image is actually a number if images cobbled together to capture a huge swath of our own Milky Way. In it, we see a number of nebulae, reminders that while it feels like we live in a pretty stable place within our little solar system, all around us stars are being born, stars are dying, and the galaxy is otherwise churning.



The Large Magellanic Cloud
ESA/NASA/JPL-Caltech/STScI
Another tandem Herschel/Spitzer shot, this one captures the bigger of the Magellanic Clouds. Though it looks like a giant flaming mass, what you’re actually looking at is flows of dust rippling out from the center for tens and hundreds of light-years. The brightest region at center-left is home to the Tarantula Nebula, so named for its appearance in visible light.

the rest
http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2012-01/prettiest-space-pics-american-astronomical-society-meeting-2012

[MarianJack]

1. I LOVE Astronomy!

Thank you for sharing these beautiful pictures and their link!

PEACE!

[truedelphi]

2. Thanks for the pictures and also the tidbit

Of important information that the human eye cannot see the actual colors so these were assigned.

I am re-reading all my old Omni and Discover magazines, and so many late nights I am pondering the birth of the stars.

Nice to have illustrations of what I am reading about. (The explanation of helium and hydrogen atom collapse is a bit abstract - so good to have some fab illustrations to go along with it.)

[tridim]

3. I miss OMNI so much.

[Glassunion]

4. A front row seat to creation.

The death of one star breathing life into another one with such power and energy that all the elements of life are crushed together into existence from simple gasses to float in space for millions of years before crashing down onto a planetary body and kick off simple life forms placing them on the long road of evolution and eventually intelligence, where life will move from individual survival and learn to communicate thus networking themselves into an intelligent society that creates and builds a sustainable future for themselves who bicker and argue with the mouth breathing republicans.