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363.140+093 ZSSKC, Bratislava Železná studienka - Lamač (Pn 58060), 29.8.2015
Po tom ako 93. eso dostalo v Rači príprah 140tku, vezú spolu po stanicu Zohor ucelený vlak wapiek z Hanisky pri Košiciach do Rohožníka. Od Zohoru sa s ním na viackrát budú musieť potrápiť rušne radu 742.
mientras unos viven el kaoz de la gran ciudad , yo disfruto de la montaña, de ese atardecer, de ese silencio, de esa calma ...de ese no se que... que lo hace unico. SIEMPRE
Thomas Arthur Reiter (born 23 May 1958 in Frankfurt, West Germany) is a retired European astronaut and is a Brigadier General in the German Air Force currently working as ESA Interagency Coordinator and Advisor to the Director General at the European Space Agency (ESA). He was one of the top 25 astronauts in terms of total time in space. With his wife and two sons he lives near Oldenburg in Lower Saxony.
Source and more info: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Reiter
See also:
ESTEC
The European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) is the European Space Agency's main technology development and test centre for spacecraft and space technology. It is situated in Noordwijk, South Holland, in the western Netherlands.
At ESTEC, about 2500 engineers, technicians and scientists work hands-on with mission design, spacecraft and space technology. ESTEC provides extensive testing facilities to verify the proper operation of spacecraft, such as the Large Space Simulator (LSS), acoustic and electromagnetic testing bays, multi-axis vibration tables and the ESA Propulsion Laboratory (EPL). Prior to launch, almost all of the equipment that ESA launches is tested in some degree at ESTEC.
Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Space_Research_and_Technol...
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope observation has captured the galaxy CGCG 396-2, an unusual multi-armed galaxy merger which lies around 520 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Orion.
This observation is a gem from the Galaxy Zoo project, a citizen science project involving hundreds of thousands of volunteers from around the world who classified galaxies to help scientists solve a problem of astronomical proportions: how to sort through the vast amounts of data generated by telescopes. A public vote selected the most astronomically intriguing objects for follow-up observations with Hubble. CGCG 396-2 is one such object, imaged here by Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys.
Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, W. Keel
#NASA #MarshallSpaceFlightCenter #MSFC #Marshall #HubbleSpaceTelescope #HST #astrophysics #gsfc #galaxy
A spectacular trio of merging galaxies in the constellation Boötes takes centre stage in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. These three galaxies are set on a collision course and will eventually merge into a single larger galaxy, distorting one another’s spiral structure through mutual gravitational interaction in the process. An unrelated foreground galaxy appears to float serenely alongside the collision, and the smudged shapes of much more distant galaxies are visible in the background.
This colliding trio — known to astronomers as SDSSCGB 10189 — is a relatively rare combination of three large star-forming galaxies lying within only 50 000 light-years of one another. While that might sound like a safe distance, for galaxies this makes them extremely close neighbours! Our own galactic neighbours are much further away; Andromeda, the nearest large galaxy to the Milky Way, is more than 2.5 million light-years away from Earth.
This observation was designed to help astronomers understand the origin of the largest, most massive galaxies in the universe. These galactic behemoths are called Brightest Cluster Galaxies (BCGs) and — as the name suggests — are defined as the brightest galaxies in any given galaxy cluster. Astronomers suspect that BCGs form through the merger of large, gas-rich galaxies like the ones in this image. They turned to Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 and Advanced Camera for Surveys to investigate this galactic trio in painstaking detail, hoping to shed light on the formation of the Universe’s most massive galaxies.
[Image description: Three galaxies stand together just right of centre. They are close enough that they appear to be merging into one. Their shapes are distorted, with strands of gas and dust running between them. Each is emitting a lot of light. Further to the left is an unconnected, dimmer spiral galaxy. The background is dark, with a few smaller, dim and faint galaxies and a couple of stars.]
Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, M. Sun; CC BY 4.0
Une montagne couronnée de rose-orangé.
A mountain with a pink and orange crown.
Credits: ESA/NASA–T. Pesquet
513C4101
Macro 1X con apilamiento de foco por control de anillo de enfoque
Macro 1X by focus stacking using the focus ring control
Ingredientes:
-Nikon D600 + Nikor 105mm macro 1X
-Helicon Remote para control automático de la pila de foco mediante el anillo de enfoque (por medio de USB)
-Helicon Soft para apilamiento de foco (36 shots, Method B, R=4, S=2)
-Helicon lo puedes bajar a prueba durante 1 mes gratis, o una licencia para un año por 50€, controla casi todas las Nikon y Canon mediante USB. Existen otros proveedores de soft para stacking (apilamiento), p. ej. Zerene, ControlMyNikon o Canon, Combine Z, etc
-Opcional: impresora 3D (Up Plus 2) para la fabricación de focos, soportes, mesa de trabajo, etc. Puedes utilizar el sencillo 123D Design (free soft) para diseñar las piezas.
Receta:
-Montamos el bodegón con sujeto y fondo
-Lo iluminamos con 4 o 5 micro-focos de leds. Los focos se pueden diseñar e imprimir utilizando una impresora 3D y después montar los leds (alta luminosidad y 5300K), la alimentación es de 12vdc para grupos de 3 o 4 leds. La ventaja frente al uso de flash, es que se pueden dirigir los focos y componer la iluminación antes del disparo, además del volumen que se consigue jugando con la iluminación.
-Disparamos las fotografías utilizando, p. ej., Helicon Remote: Helicon controla el enfoque con el movimiento del anillo de enfoque antes de disparar cada foto, todo el proceso de toma de fotos es automático, se pueden ver videos en youtube
-Para 1X se necesitan de 20 a 100 fotos, según valor de f, focal utilizada y profundidad de campo necesaria, lo calcula el soft automáticamente. Se suele utilizar el punto dulce de la lente (normalmente en el entorno de f5.6) para optimizar los resultados
-Apilamos el stack de n fotografías utilizando Helicon Soft
-Utilizamos Lightroom o similar para eliminar “halos” y “artefactos”
-Una vez se tiene práctica, todo el proceso puede durar 15 min
pepo
/ POOR ENGLISH
Macro 1X by focus stacking using the focus ring control
How do you can do it :
Ingredients:
-Nikon D600 + 105mm macro nikor 1X
-Helicon Remote control for automatic focus stack using the camera focus ring (using USB)
-Helicon Soft Focus Stacking (36 shots, Method B, R = 4, S = 2)
-Helicon: You can download a free trial for 1 month, or a license for a year for € 50, it controls almost many Nikon and Canon via USB. There are other suppliers of soft for stacking, p. ex. Zerene, ControlMyNikon or Canon, Combine Z, etc.
-optional: 3D (Up Plus 2) printer to manufacture light bulbs, brackets, desk, etc. You can use the friendly 123D Design (free soft) for pieces designing.
Recipe:
-Ilumination with 4 or 5 micro-LED bulbs. The lighters can be designed and printed using a 3D printer and then mount the LED´s (high brightness and 5300K), the power is 12VDC for groups of 3 or 4 LEDs. The advantage over use of flash, is that you can positioning the lights and lighting make up before shooting, in addition to the volume to be achieved by playing with these lighting.
-Shot photographs using, p. eg Helicon Remote. Helicon controls the approach to the movement of the focus ring before the photo shot, the whole process of taking pictures is automatic, you can watch videos on youtube
-For 1X do you needed 20-100 photos, depending on value of f, focal and deep of field needed, automatically calculated by the soft. Often used the sweet spot of the lens (usually in the vicinity of f5.6) to optimize results
-Now we stack of shots using Helicon Soft
-We can use Lightroom or the like to remove "halos" and "artifacts"
-Once you have practice, the whole process can take 15 min
-And sorry my English, please.
pepo
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Ojalá hubiese grabao toas las fotos y tos los videos que habías enviado
Y esta noche mi mente te hubiese visitado
Ya que no te consigo por tenerme bloqueado
¿Dónde estarás que ya no respondes?
¿En qué cama nueva te escondes?
¿Y cómo se llama esa cabrona que ahora gritas su nombre?
Dime por qué no llamas,
Si yo sé que piensas en mi cuando estás con ella en la cama
Fumo pa no pensarte y me sale tu holograma
No olvido cómo mama y cómo te daba en toas las poses
El se hizo completo porque tenía el corazón roto
Borré los videos del carrete, pero en mi mente quedó tu foto
Solo dime dónde es que estás, que esto me está volviendo loca
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope observation has captured the galaxy CGCG 396-2, an unusual multi-armed galaxy merger which lies around 520 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Orion.
This observation is a gem from the Galaxy Zoo project, a citizen science project in which hundreds of thousands of volunteers classified galaxies to help scientists solve a problem of astronomical proportions — how to sort through the vast amounts of data generated by robotic telescopes. Following a public vote, a selection of the most astronomically intriguing objects from the Galaxy Zoo were selected for follow-up observations with Hubble. CGCG 396-2 is one such object, and was captured in this image by Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys.
The Galaxy Zoo project originated when an astronomer was set an impossibly mind-numbing task; classifying more than 900 000 galaxies by eye. By making a web interface and inviting citizen scientists to contribute to the challenge, the Galaxy Zoo team was able to crowdsource the analysis, and within six months a legion of 100 000 volunteer citizen astronomers had contributed more than 40 million galaxy classifications.
Since its initial success, the Galaxy Zoo project and its successor projects have contributed to more than 100 peer-reviewed scientific articles and led to a rich variety of intriguing astronomical discoveries above and beyond their initial goals. The success of the project also inspired more than 100 citizen science projects on the Zooniverse portal, ranging from analysing data from the ESA Rosetta spacecraft's visit to Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko to counting killer whales around remote Alaskan islands!
Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, W. Keel; CC BY 4.0
This Copernicus Sentinel-3 image shows the dust storm that has covered Beijing in the last few days. Taken on 15 March 2021. It shows a thick layer of dust/sand moving towards China from the west
Credits: contains modified Copernicus Sentinel missions (2020), processed by ESA; CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
The Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission takes us over the Pyrenees Mountains in southwest Europe. The mountain range forms a natural border between France and Spain with the small, landlocked country of Andorra sandwiched in between.
Stretching from the shores of the Mediterranean Sea on the east to the Bay of Biscay (Atlantic Ocean) on the west, this international mountain range is 430 km long. The area pictured in this image, captured on 30 January 2022, spans around 120 km from the village of Escallare in the east to Panticosa to the west.
Located in the Spanish province of Huesca in the Posets-Maladeta Natural Park lies Pico de Aneto, the highest mountain peak in the Pyrenees. It rises to an elevation of 3404 m and is also the third-highest mountain in Spain. Click on the circle in the image to take a closer look at Pico de Aneto.
Geological studies have revealed that the Pyrenees Mountains have been around for longer than the Alps, with their sediments first deposited in coastal basins during the Paleozoic and Mesozoic eras. The entire mountain range formed due to the upwelling of large sedimentary rocks by the collision of the Iberian and the Eurasian plate around 100 to 150 million years ago, followed by intense erosion from ice and water.
Snow covers many of the peaks year-round, especially those in the centre-section of the chain. The western Pyrenees typically receive greater precipitation than the eastern Pyrenees owing to moisture blowing in from the Atlantic Ocean. The mountain range is also home to several small glaciers, as well as many mountain lakes and some of the highest waterfalls in Europe including Gavarnie Falls which, at 422 m, is France’s highest waterfall.
Few people live at the Pyrenees’ highest elevations; however, Andorra is nestled among peaks near the eastern end of the chain (not visible in the image). With an area of around 468 sq km, Andorra is the sixth smallest country in Europe.
The Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission is designed to play a key role in mapping differences in land cover to understand the landscape, map how it is used and monitor changes over time. As well as providing detailed information about Earth’s vegetation, it can also systematically map different classes of cover such as forest, grassland, water surfaces and artificial cover like roads and buildings.
This image is also featured on the Earth from Space video programme.
Credits: contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2022), processed by ESA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
Hace mucho que deseaba parar en este rincon de la costa para hacer fotos. Esa tarde fui alli a proposito porque el cielo estaba decorado con unas nubes blancas de ensueño que iban a combinar muy bien con los colores tierra del suelo. Cuando contemplo paisajes como este, en solitario, me invaden fuertes emociones.
Cassini ended its 13-year mission at Saturn on 15 September 2017 when it plunged into the gas giant's atmosphere, but the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope is still keeping an eye on the ringed planet.
This is a composite image taken by Hubble on 6 June 2018 showing a fully-illuminated Saturn and its rings, along with six of its 62 known moons. The visible moons are (from left to right) Dione, Enceladus, Tethys, Janus, Epimetheus and Mimas (click here for an annotated version). Dione is the largest moon in the picture, with a diameter of 1123 km, compared to the smallest, oddly-shaped Epimetheus with a diameter around 116 km.
During Cassini’s mission, Enceladus was identified as one of the most intriguing moons, with the discovery of water vapour jets spewing from the surface implying the existence of a subsurface ocean. Icy moons with subsurface oceans could potentially offer the conditions to harbour life, and understanding their origins and properties are essential for furthering our knowledge of the Solar System. ESA's JUpiter ICy moons Explorer (Juice), due to launch in 2022, aims to continue this theme by studying Jupiter's ocean-bearing moons: Ganymede, Europa, and Callisto.
The Hubble image shown here was taken shortly before Saturn's opposition on 27 June, when the Sun, Earth and Saturn were aligned so that the Sun fully illuminated Saturn as seen from Earth. Saturn's closest approach to Earth occurs around the same time as opposition, which makes it appear brighter and larger and allows the planet to be imaged in greater detail.
In this image the planet’s rings are seen near their maximum tilt towards Earth. Towards the end of Cassini’s mission, the spacecraft made multiple dives through the gap between Saturn and its rings, gathering spectacular data in this previously unchartered territory.
The image also shows a hexagonal atmospheric feature around the north pole, with the remnants of a storm, seen as a string of bright clouds. The hexagon-shaped cloud phenomenon is a stable and persistent feature first seen by the Voyager 1 space probe when it flew past Saturn 1981. In a study published just last week, scientists using Cassini data collected between 2013 and 2017, as the planet approached northern summer, identified a hexagonal vortex above the cloud structure, showing there is still much to learn about the dynamics of Saturn’s atmosphere.
The Hubble observations making up this image were performed as part of the Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy (OPAL) project, which uses Hubble to observe the outer planets to understand the dynamics and evolution of their complex atmospheres. This was the first time that Saturn was imaged as part of OPAL. This image was first published on 26 July.
Credits: NASA, ESA, A. Simon (GSFC) and the OPAL Team, and J. DePasquale (STScI); CC BY 4.0
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ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst took this image of Hurriacane Florence on 12 September 2018, 400 km high from the International Space Station. He commented:
"Watch out, America! Hurricane Florence is so enormous, we could only capture her with a super wide angle lens from the International Space Station, 400 km directly above the eye. Get prepared on the East Coast, this is a no-kidding nightmare coming for you."
Alexander is on his second six-month Space Station mission. Follow him and the Horizons mission on social media on his website and on his blog.
Credits: ESA/NASA–A. Gerst
No creo que esas cosas puedan hacerte daño, pero si ves algo que no te guste limítate a mirar hacia otro lado, y cuando vuelvas a fijarte, la cosa habrá desaparecido.
Durante el inicio del verano, se procedió al traslado de un transformador eléctrico a cargo de la 319.301 de Continental Rail, donde sin dudarlo fuimos a hacerle un buen seguimiento hasta Alcazar de San Juan (final de esa etapa).
La primera foto que le hicimos fue en un sitio al que yo personalmente, tenía una espinita clavada, por las nubes que "estropeó" la foto del Al Andalus que hice años atrás.
Far away in the Ursa Major constellation is a swirling galaxy that would not look out of place on a coffee made by a starry-eyed barista. NGC 3895 is a barred spiral galaxy that was first spotted by William Herschel in 1790 and was later observed by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.
Hubble's orbit high above the Earth's distorting atmosphere allows astronomers to make the very high resolution observations that are essential to opening new windows on planets, stars and galaxies — such as this beautiful view of NGC 3895. The telescope is positioned approximately 570 km above the ground, where it whirls around Earth at 28 000 kilometres per hour and takes 96 minutes to complete one orbit.
Credits: ESA/Hubble, NASA, and R. Barrows; CC BY 4.0
While scanning the sky to chart a billion stars in our Milky Way galaxy, ESA’s Gaia satellite is also sensitive to celestial bodies closer to home, and regularly observes asteroids in our Solar System.
This view shows the orbits of more than 14 000 known asteroids (with the Sun at the centre of the image) based on information from Gaia’s second data release, which was made public in 2018.
The majority of asteroids depicted in this image, shown in bright red and orange hues, are main-belt asteroids, located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter; Trojan asteroids, found around the orbit of Jupiter, are shown in dark red.
In yellow, towards the image centre, are the orbits of several tens of near-Earth asteroids observed by Gaia: these are asteroids that come to within 1.3 astronomical units (AU) to the Sun at the closest approach along their orbit. The Earth circles the Sun at a distance of 1 AU (around 150 million km) so near-Earth asteroids have the potential to come into proximity with our planet.
Most asteroids that Gaia detects are already known, but every now and then, the asteroids seen by ESA's Milky Way surveyor do not match any existing observations. This is the case for the three orbits shown in grey in this view: these are Gaia’s first asteroid discoveries.
The three new asteroids were first spotted by Gaia in December 2018, and later confirmed by follow-up observations performed with the Haute-Provence Observatory in France, which enabled scientists to determine their orbits. Comparing these informations with existing observations indicated the objects had not been detected earlier.
While they are part of the main belt of asteroids, all three move around the Sun on orbits that have a greater tilt (15 degrees or more) with respect to the orbital plane of planets than most main-belt asteroids.
The population of such high-inclination asteroids is not as well studied as those with less tilted orbits, since most surveys tend to focus on the plane where the majority of asteroids reside. But Gaia can readily observe them as it scans the entire sky from its vantage point in space, so it is possible that the satellite will find more such objects in the future and contribute new information to study their properties.
Alongside the extensive processing and analysis of Gaia’s data in preparation for subsequent data releases, preliminary information about Gaia’s asteroid detections are regularly shared via an online alert system so that astronomers across the world can perform follow-up observations. To observe these asteroids, a 1-m or larger telescope is needed.
Once an asteroid detected by Gaia has been identified also in ground-based observations, the scientists in charge of the alert system analyse the data to determine the object’s orbit. In case the ground observations match the orbit based on Gaia’s data, they provide the information to the Minor Planet Center, which is the official worldwide organization collecting observational data for small Solar System bodies like asteroids and comets.
This process may lead to new discoveries, like the three asteroids with orbits depicted in this image, or to improvements in the determination of the orbits of known asteroids, which are sometimes very poorly known. So far, several tens of asteroids detected by Gaia have been observed from the ground in response to the alert system, all of them belonging to the main belt, but it is possible that also near-Earth asteroids will be spotted in the future.
A number of observatories across the world are already involved in these activities, including the Haute-Provence Observatory, Kyiv Comet station, Odessa-Mayaki, Terskol, C2PU at Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur and Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network. The more that join, the more we will learn about asteroids – known and new ones alike.
Acknowledgement: Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium (DPAC); Gaia Coordinating Unit 4; B. Carry, F. Spoto, P. Tanga (Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur, France) & W. Thuillot (IMCCE, Observatoire de Paris, France); Gaia Data Processing Center at CNES, Toulouse, France
Credits: ESA/Gaia/DPAC
The plane of the Milky Way is rich in star-forming regions, such as the one pictured in this stunning scene by ESA’s Herschel space observatory. To the far-infrared eye of Herschel, this region reveals an intricate network of gas filaments and dark bubbles interspersed by bright hotspots where new stars come to life.
The cooler regions, which emit light at longer wavelengths, are displayed in a red-brownish colour. Hotter areas, where star formation is more intense, shine in blue and white tones. Some areas are particularly bright, suggesting a number of luminous, massive stars are forming there.
Particularly striking is the chaotic web of gas filaments we see in this scene. Astronomers think there is a link between star formation and the filamentary structures in the interstellar medium. In the densest strands, the gas that makes up the filaments becomes unstable and forms clumps of material bound together by gravity. If dense enough, these collapsed blobs of gas eventually go on to become newborn stars.
Observations by Herschel showed the filamentary complexity to be ubiquitous in the plane of our Galaxy, from a few to hundreds of light-years. In nearby star-forming clouds, within 1500 light-years of the Sun, these filaments seem to be roughly all the same width – about a third of a light-year. This suggests a common physical mechanism in their origin, possibly linked to the turbulent nature of interstellar gas clouds.
The star-formation region in this image, centred around –70º longitude in galactic coordinates, is located in the Carina neighbourhood, home to the glorious Carina Nebula. Located some 7500 light-years away, Carina is one of the largest clouds of gas and dust in the plane of the Milky Way. It hosts the famous Eta Carinae, one of the most luminous and massive stellar systems in our galaxy.
Herschel, which operated from 2009 until 2013, was a large space telescope observing in the far-infrared and submillimetre parts of the spectrum. This spectral range is ideal to observe the glow from cool dust in the regions where stars form. As part of Hi-GAL, the Herschel infrared Galactic Plane Survey, the observatory surveyed the plane of our Galaxy, exploring the Milky Way’s star-formation regions in unprecedented detail. This image, a product of Hi-GAL, combines observations at three different wavelengths: 70 microns (blue), 160 microns (green) and 250 microns (red).
Credits: ESA/Herschel/PACS, SPIRE/Hi-GAL Project. Acknowledgement: UNIMAP / L. Piazzo, La Sapienza - Università di Roma; E. Schisano / G. Li Causi, IAPS/INAF, Italy
Processed using orange, green, and blue filtered images of Earth taken by Rosetta on November 12 2009.
ESA/MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/RSSD/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA/Kevin M. Gill
'Swage' was the word of the day on Monday as ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano carried out the third spacewalk to service the cosmic ray hunting Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer AMS-02. Luca swaged, or joined, the instrument’s tubes to a new pump system that will give it a new lease on life.
Riding on the International Space Station’s robotic arm, Luca soared to the cosmic ray detector’s worksite for nearly five hours of space plumbing.
Yesterday’s spacewalk was the most critical of four spacewalks planned to service the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer that has provided scientists with invaluable data on cosmic particles long after its original three-year mission. In 2017 the decision was made to service the instrument after all four cooling systems wore out.
Luca and NASA astronaut Andrew Morgan began by passing the cooling system to each other as they inched their way from the airlock to the Space Station’s robotic arm. Luca then attached himself to the arm and – aided by astronaut Jessica Meir who operated this from inside the Station – transported the system to the hard-to-reach worksite.
Luca rode the arm into position, seen in this image, and together with Drew screwed the new pump onto AMS. The system was powered on and Luca was moved to a different location by robotic arm for the swage operations. Luca did six swages before taking the robotic arm ride again to the underside of AMS for the last two and finish the job.
The spacewalk was a success, with Luca and Drew finishing their delicate and unprecedented work ahead of schedule. They returned to the Space Station airlock ending the spacewalk at six hours and two minutes. A fourth and last spacewalk for AMS is planned at a later date.
Credits: NASA
Though it resembles a peaceful rose swirling in the darkness of the cosmos, NGC 3256 is actually the site of a violent clash. This distorted galaxy is the relic of a collision between two spiral galaxies, estimated to have occurred 500 million years ago. Today it is still reeling in the aftermath of this event.
Located about 100 million light-years away in the constellation of Vela (The Sails), NGC 3256 is approximately the same size as our Milky Way and belongs to the Hydra-Centaurus Supercluster. It still bears the marks of its tumultuous past in the extended luminous tails that sprawl out around the galaxy, thought to have formed 500 million years ago during the initial encounter between the two galaxies, which today form NGC 3256. These tails are studded with young blue stars, which were born in the frantic but fertile collision of gas and dust.
When two galaxies merge, individual stars rarely collide because they are separated by such enormous distances, but the gas and dust of the galaxies do interact – with spectacular results. The brightness blooming in the centre of NGC 3256 gives away its status as a powerful starburst galaxy, host to vast amounts of infant stars born into groups and clusters. These stars shine most brightly in the far infrared, making NGC 3256 exceedingly luminous in this wavelength domain. Because of this radiation, it is classified as a Luminous Infrared Galaxy.
NGC 3256 has been the subject of much study due to its luminosity, its proximity, and its orientation: astronomers observe its face-on orientation, that shows the disc in all its splendour. NGC 3256 provides an ideal target to investigate starbursts that have been triggered by galaxy mergers. It holds particular promise to further our understanding of the properties of young star clusters in tidal tails.
As well as being lit up by over 1000 bright star clusters, the central region of NGC 3256 is also home to crisscrossing threads of dark dust and a large disc of molecular gas spinning around two distinct nuclei – the relics of the two original galaxies. One nucleus is largely obscured, only unveiled in infrared, radio and X-ray wavelengths.
These two initial galaxies were gas-rich and had similar masses, as they seem to be exerting roughly equal influence on each other. Their spiral disks are no longer distinct, and in a few hundred million years' time, their nuclei will also merge and the two galaxies will likely become united as a large elliptical galaxy.
NGC 3256 was previously imaged through fewer filters by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope as part of a large collection of 59 images of merging galaxies, released for Hubble's 18th anniversary on 24 April 2008.
Credits: ESA/Hubble, NASA, CC BY 4.0
A small forest of antennas sprouts from the roof of ESA’s Navigation Laboratory, based at the ESTEC technical centre in the Netherlands, which is among the most frequently satnav-fixed locations on Earth. This is also the site of the very first Galileo positioning fix, acquired back in 2014 using the first quartet of Galileo satellites.
“The antenna is a critical component of any Global Navigation Satellite System user segment, capturing power from the electromagnetic waves it receives, then converting it into electrical current to be processed by the rest of the receiver chain,” explains Radio Navigation Engineer Michelangelo Albertazzi.
“Up here we have a variety of antenna designs in place – such as omnidirectional, high gain and arrays – from leading world receiver manufacturers, which acquire signals from all major global GNSS constellations, including Galileo, GPS, the Russian Glonass and China’s Beidou, as well as regional systems such as Europe’s EGNOS.”
The NavLab is also equipped with state-of-the-art equipment to record, replay and analyze the RF signals picked up by these antennas, to help with its main goal of performing tests, analyses and characterisation of navigation systems for both ESA and external customers.
To find out more about working with ESA facilities, check our new website on the duties and resources of ESA’s Directorate of Technology, Engineering and Quality.
Credits: ESA-Remedia
Madrugué para que los primeros rayos del sol aparecieran por miespalda y con esa luz dorada del amanecer pusieran color, en este caso, a untrocito de la Ría de Vigo, con su inconfundible puente de Rande que forma yadesde hace décadas, del paisaje de las Rías Baixas.
Captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission on 11 January 2021 at 12:14 CET, this image of Madrid in Spain appears to have been taken in black and white. In fact, it is a true-colour image – but the heaviest snowfall in 50 years has blanketed the region, turning the landscape white.
Storm Filomena hit Spain over the weekend, blanketing parts of the country in thick snow and leaving half of the country on red alert. Madrid, one of the worst affected areas, was brought to a standstill with the airport having to be closed, trains cancelled and roads blocked.
Although this satellite image was taken after the storm had passed, it is clear to see that much snow still remains, especially in the outskirts of the city. For example, some runways at the airport, which is visible in the top-right of the image, are still covered by snow. The unusual cold weather on the Iberian Peninsula is expected to last until later this week with temperatures forecasted to plunge to –12°C. The race is on to clear roads so that supplies of essential goods such as food supplies and Covid vaccines can be delivered.
Copernicus Sentinel-2 is a two-satellite mission. Each satellite carries a high-resolution camera that images Earth’s surface in 13 spectral bands. Together they cover all Earth’s land surfaces, large islands, inland and coastal waters every five days at the equator.
Credits: contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2021), processed by ESA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
This pretty, cloud-like object may not look much like a galaxy — it lacks the well-defined arms of a spiral galaxy, or the reddish bulge of an elliptical — but it is in fact something known as a lenticular galaxy. Lenticular galaxies sit somewhere between the spiral and elliptical types; they are disc-shaped, like spirals, but they no longer form large numbers of new stars and thus contain only ageing populations of stars, like ellipticals.
NGC 2655’s core is extremely luminous, resulting in its additional classification as a Seyfert galaxy: a type of active galaxy with strong and characteristic emission lines. This luminosity is thought to be produced as matter is dragged onto the accretion disc of a supermassive black hole sitting at the centre of NGC 2655. The structure of NGC 2655’s outer disc, on the other hand, appears calmer, but it is oddly-shaped. The complex dynamics of the gas in the galaxy suggest that it may have had a turbulent past, including mergers and interactions with other galaxies.
NGC 2655 is located about 80 million light-years from Earth in the constellation of Camelopardalis (The Giraffe). Camelopardalis contains many other interesting deep-sky objects, including the open cluster NGC 1502, the elegant Kemble’s Cascade asterism, and the starburst galaxy NGC 2146.
Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, A. Fillipenko, CC BY 4.0