Image (Credit): The Hubble Space Telescope’s view of Galaxy UGC 8091. ( ESA/Hubble, NASA Y. Choi (NOIRLab), K. Gilbert (Space Telescope Science Institute), J. Dalcanton (Flatiron Institute and University of Washington))
The image this week is from the NASA/European Space Agency’s (ESA) Hubble Space Telescope. It shows an irregular dwarf galaxy, UGC 8091, that is about seven million light-years away. What I see appears to be jellyfish within some cloudy water. I also the variety of other galaxies you can see throughout the image (see below).
A collection of stars and galaxies fill the scene against a dark background. The image is dominated by a dense collection of stars that make up the irregular galaxy UGC 8091. The stars span a variety of colours, including blue and orange, with patches of blue occupying the central part of the galaxy. There are also visible circular regions of red/pink gas within the galaxy.
Image (Credit): Section of the above image – upper left hand corner. (ESA/Hubble, NASA Y. Choi (NOIRLab), K. Gilbert (Space Telescope Science Institute), J. Dalcanton (Flatiron Institute and University of Washington))
The last Full Moon of 2023 rises over the Mediterranean as seen from Aci Castello on Dec. 26. The ten frames in this composite image ranged from 1/800 to 1/100 second at ISO 400 with a zoom lens at 200 mm and f/13.
Image (Credit): SpaceX launch of the X-37B space plane on December 28, 2023. (SpaceX and John Kraus)
This week’s image is a little more than an hour old. It shows the SpaceX Falcon Heavy’s launch of the USSF-52 mission from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida earlier today. The mission involves the Air Force’s top secret X-37B, which will stay in orbit for an undisclosed period of time doing whatever it does up there.
Image (Credit): Apollo 17’s flag on the lunar surface. (NASA)
NASA is sharing a 51-year old photo from Apollo 17 showing both the American flag placed on the lunar surface by the crew as well as their home planet. It is a great shot that gives us plenty to thing about as the U.S. plans a return to the moon (with at least one other national flag to be planted, as noted the other day by Vice President Harris).
Fifty-one years ago, one of the Apollo 17 astronauts on the Moon took this close-up of the U.S. flag they deployed with the Earth visible in the distance. The lunar module crew spent 75 hours on the lunar surface, deploying a U.S. flag early in EVA-1 — their mission’s first walk on the Moon. This particular flag had flown in the Mission Operations Control Room (MOCR) in Houston during Apollo and was noticeably larger than the flags deployed on the previous missions. You may notice the support rod in the top part of the flag. The support rod ensured that the flag was extended and visible in photographs, despite there being no wind on the lunar surface to make the flag wave. Six U.S. flags in total were planted on the lunar surface, one during each Apollo mission. Experts believe it’s highly unlikely the Apollo flags could have endured the decades of exposure to vacuum, temperature swings from 242 °F (117 °C) during the day to -280 °F (-173 °C) during the night, micrometeorites, radiation, and ultraviolet light. While the flags are likely no longer there, Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter imagery taken decades later showed that the flagpoles were still standing and casting shadows.
Image (Credit): Supernova Remnant Cassiopeia A. (NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; D. Milisavljevic (Purdue University), T. Temim (Princeton University), I. De Looze (University of Gent))
This week’s image captured by the James Webb Space Telescope is both violent yet beautiful. It is also NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day for today.
Here are some details about the image from NASA:
Massive stars in our Milky Way Galaxy live spectacular lives. Collapsing from vast cosmic clouds, their nuclear furnaces ignite and create heavy elements in their cores. After only a few million years for the most massive stars, the enriched material is blasted back into interstellar space where star formation can begin anew. The expanding debris cloud known as Cassiopeia A is an example of this final phase of the stellar life cycle. Light from the supernova explosion that created this remnant would have been first seen in planet Earth’s sky about 350 years ago, although it took that light 11,000 years to reach us. This sharp NIRCam image from the James Webb Space Telescope shows the still hot filaments and knots in the supernova remnant. The whitish, smoke-like outer shell of the expanding blast wave is about 20 light-years across. Light echoes from the massive star’s cataclysmic explosion are also identified in Webb’s detailed image of supernova remnant Cassiopeia A.
Our Awesome Universe 