Official Space is Awesome Thread

[Argonne69]

SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule.

 

 

Image: Cory Huston/NASA

 

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NASA's Opportunity rover, launched in 2003 to study Mars' surface, spent 15 years exploring more than 28 miles of the planet's surface before finally failing during a planet-wide dust storm last June. This is the last panoramic photo taken by the rover on the rim of Endeavour Crater.

 

 

Image: NASA, JPL-Caltech, Cornell, ASU

 

 

Image: NASA, JPL-Caltech, Cornell, ASU

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Stardust in M78 in Orion's belt.

 

 

Image: Richard S Wright Jr.

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The Pinwheel Galaxy M101. This large spiral galaxy is almost twice the size of the Milky Way, measuring ~170,000 light-years across. It is located ~23 million light-years away in the northern constellation of Ursa Major.

 

 

Image: Christoph Kalteis, CEDIC 2019

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The Flaming Star Nebula, an emission nebula, lies ~1500 light-years away in the constellation of Charioteer. The nebula is ~5 light-years across.

 


 

 

Image: Amir Abolfath (TWAN)

Edited December 2, 2021 by Argonne69

[Argonne69]

NGC 1333, a stellar nursery in Perseus. This large molecular cloud lies just 1000 light-years away, and spans 15 light-years. The reflection nebula contains hundreds of newly formed stars (less than a million years old) hidden within the dust cloud.

 


 

 

Image: Steve Milne, Barry Wilson

[Argonne69]

No, it's not a photo of a star taken on a hazy night. The Hubble Space Telescope captured this image of the elliptical galaxy M49 that contains ~200 billion stars that are roughly 6 billion years old. At the center is a supermassive black hole with ~500 million stellar masses. The galaxy lies ~56 million light-years away.

 


 

 

Image: ESA/Hubble/NASA

 

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'Nice view of the Milky Way taken in Campinho, Portugal

 


 

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M15, a 13 billion year old globular cluster, sits just outside the Milky Way at a distance of 35,000 light-years. The cluster is ~200 light-years in diameter. It's one of ~170 globular clusters located around the halo of our galaxy. Globular clusters are dense structures often containing hundreds of thousands of stars.

 

 


 

 

Image: Robert Vanderbei (Princeton University), ESA, Gaia, DPAC

 

If our Sun was located in a globular cluster, our night sky would look a bit like this:

 


 

 

Image: William Harris, Jeremy Webb

 

[Argonne69]

A stunning view of M104, the famous Sombrero Galaxy. Located 28 million light-years away, it's approximately half the size of our Milky Way at 50,000 light-years wide.

 


 

 

Image: NASA, ESA, Hubble, Rogelio Bernal Andreo

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The northern lights as view from a frozen Lake Superior.

 


 

 

Image: Lorenzo Ranieri Tenti

 

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Westerhout 40 (W40), the Butterfly Nebula, is located ~1400 light-years from Earth.

 


 

Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech

 

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M11, the Wild Duck Cluster, is located ~6000 light-years from Earth. Astronomers believe the cluster is only 220 million years old. The open cluster contains ~2,900 stars, and is only 20 light-years across, making it one of the most dense open clusters known.

 


 

Image: ESO

 


 

 

Image: ESA/NASA/Hubble/P. Dobbie et al

[Argonne69]

A stunning view of the Horesehead Nebula. It's located 1,500 light-years away in the constellation of Orion.

 


 

 

Image: Mario Zauner

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A wonderful image from Hubble of the central 40 light-years of the M2 globular cluster. M2 is one of the largest globular clusters that sit just outside the Milky Way. It is located ~55,000 light-years from Earth, and contains ~150,000 stars in a total diameter of ~175 light-years. The cluster is believed to be 13 billion years old.

 


 

 

Image: ESA/Hubble, NASA, G. Piotto et al.

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No, the ISS didn't get booted out of Earth orbit. Using an exposure time of 1/667 of a second, the ISS is captured during a 0.5 second transit of the Moon.

 


 

Image: Eric Holland

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On this day 60 years ago, NASA introduced the Mercury 7 astronauts. Front row, left to right: Walter M. Schirra, Jr., Donald K. Deke Slayton, John H. Glenn, Jr., and M. Scott Carpenter; back row, Alan B. Shepard, Jr., Virgil I. Gus Grissom, and L. Gordon Cooper, Jr.

 


 

Image: NASA

 

[Argonne69]

The first-ever picture of a black hole. This supermassive back hole sits in the center of M87, a massive elliptical galaxy containing several trillion stars in the Virgo galaxy cluster 55 million light-years away. The mass of the back hole is 6.5 billion times that of our Sun. The bright ring is a disk of gas that orbits the black hole. As the gas orbits at very high speed, friction causes the gas to heat to extremely high temperatures.

 


 

Image: Event Horizon Telescope

 

[i*windows]

Black hole anyone

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqzO9qTtCDs&feature=youtu.be

ESO's telescopes (where I work) where used to generate a large percentage of the data which photographed the first black hole.

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'Very nice pic of the Moon occulting Saturn taken in South Africa.

 


 

 

Image: Cory Schmitz

 

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The Rose Nebula, NGC 2237. The nebula lies ~5,000 light-years away, and is ~50 light-years in diameter.

 


 

 

Image: Jean Dean

 

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The two side boosters from SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket prepare to land back at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on April 11, 2019, after successfully launching a 6000 kg Arabsat-6A communications satellite into orbit. The center booster of the three booster rocket successfully landed shortly after on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

 


 

 

Image: Joe Raedle

 


 

Image: Joe Raedle

 


 

Image: SpaceX

[Argonne69]

In the vicinity of the Cone Nebula.

 


 

 

Image: Utkarsh Mishra

 

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This Hubble image is made from 7,500 photos taken over 16 years by the telescope. It contains ~265,000 galaxies, some over 13.3 billion light-years away, in an area smaller than the Moon's apparent size.

 


 

Image: NASA/ESA

 

Here's a link to a full resolution image (25,500 x 25,500, 672 Mb): [imgsrc.hubblesite.org/hvi/uploads/image_file/image_attachment/31683/STSCI-H-p1917a-f-25500x25500.png](http://imgsrc.hubblesite.org/hvi/uploads/image_file/image_attachment/31683/STSCI-H-p1917a-f-25500x25500.png "imgsrc.hubblesite.org/hvi/uploads/image_file/image_attachment/31683/STSCI-H-p1917a-f-25500x25500.png")

 

This is a more manageable interactive view: [gigapan.com/gigapans/215519](http://www.gigapan.com/gigapans/215519 "gigapan.com/gigapans/215519")

 

 

[Argonne69]

Spiral galaxy NGC 2903 is located ~30 million light-years (6 trillion miles) from Earth.

 


 

 

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NGC 4921 is located ~300 million light-years away, and is ~200,000 light-years across.

 


 

Image: NASA/ESA/Kem Cook/Leo Shatz

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M8, the large nebula just left of center, and M20 (upper left) in the constellation of Sagittarius.

 


 

 

Image: Emilio Rivero Padilla

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The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has captured a photo of a new crater on Mars.

 


 

 

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NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft takes its closest photo of the asteroid Bennu at ~1 miles above the surface.

 


 

Photo: NASA/Gaddard/University of Arizona/Lockheed Martin

 

[scotee]

Love the thread! Can you give me a recommendation for a good free android star gazing app?