Posted in Astronomy at 12:00 on 16 February 2019
According to Astronomy Picture of the Day for 11/2/19 the asteroid Ultima Thule is not two spheres stuck together as it appeared from the angle at which the New Horizons spacecraft approached it but judging from the way stars reappeared from behind it more like a pancake stuck to a walnut, as represented in the graphic below.
Posted in Astronomy at 20:00 on 1 February 2019
From Astronomy Picture of the Day for 28/1/19.
A pretty astonishing structure emanating from said galaxy. A long tail of gas.
The gas has been stripped from the galaxy due to its passage through the hot gas in a cluster of galaxies.
Posted in Astronomy at 20:00 on 6 January 2019
From Astronomy Picture of the Day for 1/1/2019. The Sombrero Galaxy (also known as M104) in infra-red:-
That central portion is much less transparent in visible light – photo from Wikipedia:-
Posted in Astronomy at 20:00 on 5 January 2019
The image of galaxy NGC 1365 on Astronomy Picture of the Day for 28/12/18 is under copyright by Martin Pugh so I shan’t reproduce it here.
But I urge you to pop over via the link on the date.
Why does this remind me of a spider?
Posted in Astronomy at 20:00 on 4 January 2019
From Astronomy Picture of the Day for 3/1/2019.
Ultime Thule from 28,000 kilometres away. This object is 6.5 billion* kilometres from the Sun. Astounding that we can get to see this.
As the pictures continue to stream in they’ll be even better I’m sure.
*(I assume that’s 65,000,000,000 not 65,000,000,000,000.)
Posted in Astronomy at 12:00 on 24 December 2018
From Astronomy Picture of the Day for 23/12/18. A video reconstruction of the famous Earthrise, photographed by Apollo 8’s astronauts, fifty years ago today.
Posted in Astronomy at 12:00 on 13 December 2018
From Astronomy Picture of the Day for 11/12/18.
A beautiful Hubble Telescope photo of the Tadpole Galaxy:-
They could have nicknamed this something else but I suppose discretion prevailed.
Posted in Astronomy at 20:00 on 14 November 2018
This one is 101955 Bennu as featured in Astronomy Picture of the Day for 13/11/2018 and photographed by the Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer aka (OSIRIS-REx) on its mission to map the asteroid’s surface.
The video collapses Bernnu’s 4.25 hour day into 7 seconds:-
Posted in Astronomy at 20:30 on 23 October 2018
It’s amazing what some of the images from Astronomy Picture of the Day resemble.
This one is from 20/10/18. The halo round the Cat’s Eye Nebula. I’ve not reproduced it here for copyright reasons but click on the link to see it.
To me it looks like a jellyfish.
The central nebula itself, NGC 6543, looks like this in X-ray and visible light:-
Posted in Astronomy at 20:00 on 13 October 2018
From the Solar Dynamic Observatory spacecraft via Astronomy Picture of the Day for 10/10/2018.
Filmed in ultraviolet light, a solar prominence almost looping the loop:-
