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the Week is the spiral galaxy NGC 2566, which sits 76 million light-years away in the constellation Puppis. A prominent bar of stars stretches across the centre of this galaxy, and spiral arms emerge from each end of the bar. Because NGC 2566 appears tilted from our perspective, its disc takes on an almond shape, giving the galaxy the appearance of a cosmic eye.
As NGC 2566 gazes at us, astronomers gaze right back, using Hubble to survey the galaxy’s star clusters and star-forming regions. The Hubble data are especially valuable for studying stars that are just a few million years old; these stars are bright at the ultraviolet and visible wavelengths to which Hubble is sensitive. Using these data, researchers will measure the ages of NGC 2566’s stars, helping to piece together the timeline of the galaxy’s star formation and the exchange of gas between star-forming clouds and stars themselves.
Several other astronomical observatories have examined NGC 2566, including the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope. The Webb data complement this Hubble image, adding a view of NGC 2566’s warm, glowing dust to Hubble’s stellar portrait. At the long-wavelength end of the electromagnetic spectrum, NGC 2566 has also been observed by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). ALMA is a network of 66 radio telescopes that work together as one to capture detailed images of the clouds of gas in which stars form. Together, Hubble, Webb and ALMA provide an overview of the formation, lives and deaths of stars in galaxies across the Universe.
[Image Description: An oval-shaped spiral galaxy. Its core is a compact, glowing blue spot. A bright bar of light, lined with dark reddish dust, extends horizontally to the edge of the disc. A spiral arm emerges from each end of the bar and follows the edge of the disc, lined with blue and red glowing patches of stars, to the opposite end and a little off the galaxy. Blue stars are scattered between us and the galaxy.]
Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, D. Thilker; CC BY 4.0
I took this shot at the hypocenter of the nuclear blast in Hiroshima, which is the surface location directly below the nuclear explosion.
On Monday, August 6, 1945, at 8:15 a.m., the nuclear weapon "Little Boy" was dropped on Hiroshima from the Enola Gay, and detonated approximately 600m directly above this exact spot, immediately killing at least 70,000 and destroying 70% of the city's buildings. In short, with a vanishingly small number of exceptions, anybody standing within 3/4 kilometer of where I was standing ceased to exist instantaneously. Of course the casualty numbers expanded dramatically over the coming days, and indeed months.
Truth be told, I'm not a bleeding heart, and can understand those who rationalize the necessity of this event, as much as those who believe it is an inexcusable horror that should never have happened. It did happen though, and the consequences were real and undeniable, and still can be felt when you stand in a place such as this. If you have the means and opportunity to visit Hiroshima sometime in your life, do.
This image from ESA’s Mars Express shows volcanoes, impact craters, tectonic faults, river channels and a lava sea.
This image comprises data gathered by ESA’s Mars Express using its High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on 13 May and 2 June 2021. The colour image was created using data from the nadir channel, the field of view aligned perpendicular to the surface of Mars, and the colour channels of the HRSC. The ground resolution is approximately 17 m/pixel and the images are centred at about 242°E/19°N. North is up.
Credits: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. If you wish to license them for commercial purposes, want to purchase prints or are interested in commissioning me to take photos, please send me a Flickr mail or visit my website, www.memoriesbymike.zenfolio.com/, for contact information. Thanks.]
1966 by Jess (American, 1923-2004)
Born Burgess Collins, Jess had worked as an engineer on the Manhattan Project. This multimedia work is part of "Plugged In: Art and Electric Light" currently at the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, California. My wife and I went there this past Friday for a mental health break while we are not able to return to our home in Altadena due to the Eaton Fire.
This is how trees should be topped! This osprey was getting buffeted around a bit in the wind, the grainy background was a mizzle falling. So cool to get a bit of time to do some wildlife photography again.
Today is day 198 of Project 365 (Friday).
Today’s ESA/Hubble Picture of the Week features the spiral galaxy NGC 4535, which is situated about 50 million light-years away in the constellation Virgo (The Maiden). This galaxy has been nicknamed the ‘Lost Galaxy’ because it’s extremely faint when viewed through a small telescope. With a mirror spanning 2.4 metres across, Hubble is well equipped to observe dim galaxies like NGC 4535 and pick out features like its massive spiral arms and central bar of stars.
On full display in this Hubble image are NGC 4535’s young star clusters, which dot the galaxy’s spiral arms. Many of the groupings of bright blue stars are enclosed by glowing pink clouds. These clouds, called H II (‘H-two’) regions, are a sign that the galaxy is home to especially young, hot, and massive stars that are blazing with high-energy radiation. By heating the clouds in which they were born, shooting out powerful stellar winds, and eventually exploding as supernovae, massive stars certainly shake up their surroundings.
This Hubble image incorporates data from an observing programme that will catalogue roughly 50 000 H II regions in nearby star-forming galaxies like NGC 4535. A previous image of NGC 4535 was released in 2021. Both the 2021 image and today’s image incorporate observations from the PHANGS programme, which seeks to understand the connections between young stars and cold gas. Today’s image adds a new dimension to our understanding of NGC 4535 by capturing the brilliant red glow of the nebulae that encircle massive stars in their first few million years of life.
[Image Description: A close-in view of a spiral galaxy that faces the viewer. Brightly lit spiral arms swing outwards through the galaxy’s disc, starting from an elliptical region in the centre. Thick strands of dark reddish dust are spread across the disc, mostly following the spiral arms. The arms also contain many glowing pink-red spots where stars form. The galaxy is a bit fainter beyond the arms, but speckled with blue stars.]
Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, F. Belfiore, J. Lee and the PHANGS-HST Team; CC BY 4.0
The flower pods form in whorls along the stems, creating a striking visual effect with their dark blue to violet blooms
Raspberry blackout cake. loads of home grown raspberries (red and yellow) in this cake!
And plum jam in the cake mix too.
No awards... Merci :)
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All rights reserved - Tous droits réservés
Model : Ludivine
Christine Lebrasseur - Photographe
French Website / Site en français
... maybe it's behind these trees.
These are immature Bishop Pines, this area was devastated by a fire more than 20 years ago in 1995, and most of the fauna and flora are still recovering.
Today is day 17 of Project 365.
What kind of astronomical object is this? It doesn’t look quite like the kinds of galaxies, nebulae, star clusters or galaxy clusters which Hubble normally brings us images of. In fact, this is a spiral galaxy, named UGC 10043 — we just happen to be seeing it directly from the side! Located roughly 150 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Serpens, UGC 10043 is one of the somewhat rare spiral galaxies that are seen edge-on.
From this point of view, we see the galaxy’s disc as a sharp line through space, overlain with a prominent dust lane. This dust is spread across the spiral arms of UGC 10043, but it looks very thick and cloudy when viewed from the side. You can even see the lights of some active star-forming regions in the arms, shining out from behind the dust. Strikingly, we can also see that the centre of the galaxy sports a glowing, almost egg-shaped ‘bulge’, rising far above and below the disc. All spiral galaxies have a bulge like this one as part of their structure, containing stars that orbit the galactic centre on paths above and below the whirling disc; it’s a feature that isn’t normally obvious in pictures of galaxies. The unusually large size of this bulge compared to the galaxy’s disc is possibly thanks to UGC 10043 siphoning material from a nearby dwarf galaxy. This may also be why the disc is warped, bending up at one end and down at the other.
Like most of the full-colour Hubble images released by ESA/Hubble, this image is a composite, made up of several individual snapshots taken by Hubble at different times and capturing different wavelengths of light. You can see the exact images used in the sidebar on this page. A notable aspect of this image is that the two sets of Hubble data used were collected 23 years apart, in 2000 and 2023! Hubble’s longevity doesn’t just afford us the ability to produce new and better images of old targets; it also provides a long-term archive of data which only becomes more and more useful to astronomers.
[Image Description: A spiral galaxy seen directly from the side, such that its disc looks like a narrow diagonal band across the image. A band of dark dust covers the disc in the centre most of the way out to the ends, and the disc glows around that. In the centre a whitish circle of light bulges out above and below the disc. The tips of the disc are a bit bent. The background is black and mostly empty.]
Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, R. Windhorst, W. Keel; CC BY 4.0
NO AWARDS... MERCI.
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All rights reserved - Tous droits réservés
Model : Nathalie
Make-up : Emmanuelle Legrain
Hairstyle : Jessica Chatelain
Christine Lebrasseur - Photographe
French Website / Site en français
Christine Lebrasseur Photo Studio on Facebook
DNA - Ipernity - YouTube - JPGMag - Facebook Page
We dont actually get much snow so always a bit of novelty factor associated. All the better on a day I dont have to go to work. Having said that I have not actually gone out in it - just lit the fire and pointed the camera out various windows!
Lou Doillon - Snowed In
No awards... Merci :)
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All rights reserved - Tous droits réservés
Model : Ludivine
Christine Lebrasseur - Photographe
French Website / Site en français
When the rain is over you can get very nice pictures playing with light and the remains of water.
Licencia (cc) creative commons by-sa
In celebration of the 34th anniversary of the launch of the legendary NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers took a snapshot of the Little Dumbbell Nebula (also known as Messier 76, M76, or NGC 650/651) located 3400 light-years away in the northern circumpolar constellation Perseus. The photogenic nebula is a favourite target of amateur astronomers.
M76 is classified as a planetary nebula. This is a misnomer because it is unrelated to planets. But its round shape suggested it was a planet to astronomers who first viewed it through low-power telescopes. In reality, a planetary nebula is an expanding shell of glowing gases that were ejected from a dying red giant star. The star eventually collapses to an ultra-dense, hot white dwarf.
M76 is composed of a ring, seen edge-on as the central bar structure, and two lobes on either opening of the ring. Before the star burned out, it ejected the ring of gas and dust. The ring was probably sculpted by the effects of the star that once had a binary companion star. This sloughed-off material created a thick disc of dust and gas along the plane of the companion’s orbit. The hypothetical companion star isn’t seen in the Hubble image, and so it could have been later swallowed by the central star. The disc would be forensic evidence for that stellar cannibalism.
The primary star is collapsing to form a white dwarf. It is one of the hottest stellar remnants known at a scorching 120 000 degrees Celsius, 24 times our Sun’s surface temperature. The sizzling white dwarf can be seen as a pinpoint in the centre of the nebula. A star visible in projection beneath it is not part of the nebula.
Pinched off by the disc, two lobes of hot gas are escaping from the top and bottom of the ‘belt’ along the star’s rotation axis that is perpendicular to the disc. They are being propelled by the hurricane-like outflow of material from the dying star, tearing across space at two million miles per hour. That’s fast enough to travel from Earth to the Moon in a little over seven minutes! This torrential ‘stellar wind’ is ploughing into cooler, slower-moving gas that was ejected at an earlier stage in the star’s life, when it was a red giant. Ferocious ultraviolet radiation from the super-hot star is causing the gases to glow. The red colour is from nitrogen, and blue is from oxygen.
The entire nebula is a flash in the pan by cosmological timekeeping. It will vanish in about 15 000 years.
[Image description: A Hubble image of the Little Dumbbell Nebula. The name comes from its shape, which is a two-lobed structure of colourful, mottled glowing gases that resemble a balloon that has been pinched around a middle waist. Like an inflating balloon, the lobes are expanding into space from a dying star seen as a white dot in the centre. Blistering ultraviolet radiation from the super-hot star is causing the gases to glow. The red colour is from nitrogen, and blue is from oxygen.]
Credits: NASA, ESA, STScI, A. Pagan (STScI); CC BY 4.0
It is definitely the weather for our wood burning stove.
The BBC weather says it will be minus 7 tonight which is very cold for us.
Been seeing a few of these on widow sills - Not quite sure what they are. Maybe Chrysolina sp.
the lines on the card are 8mm apart so the body of the beetle is about 1.2 cm I think (or maybe a bit less)
Caught a coyote watching me from cover this morning. I think it was eating laurel nuts
Today is day 188 of Project 365 (Wednesday).
Café Wilder on Christianshavn, Denmark.
Shot with the ultrawide (rectilinear) Venus Optics LAOWA 9mm f/5.6 W-Dreamer lens (M-mount version) mounted on a Canon EOS R6 via adapter.
Handheld, 1/10s, ISO 10.000.
A Sailor (statue) looks across at San Francisco with the Golden Gate Bridge obscured in cloud. My Friday evening commute.
Every street has paper lanterns, some more than others. These were on one of the side streets near Senso-Ji.
in the vegetation in the pond margin, quite a few seem to fall into the pond
about to fly but the shutter got to click first
Billy Nomates - balance is gone
Images taken by hoan luong is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.