Pic of the Week: Distant Dancing Galaxies

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Source/Credit: Galaxy cluster (described below) from NASA.

The image above is from the Hubble Space Telescope and shared on NASA’s site last month under the title “Hubble Spots a Starship-Shaped Galactic Pair.” While the author of the story below sees the USS Enterprise from Star Trek, I see a decloaking Klingon Bird-of-Prey. Here is the full description from NASA:

The subject of this image is a group of three galaxies, collectively known as NGC 7764A. They were imaged by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, using both its Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) and Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3). The two galaxies in the upper right of the image appear to be interacting with one another — indeed, the long trails of stars and gas extending from them both give the impression that they have both just been struck at great speed, thrown into disarray by the bowling-ball-shaped galaxy to the lower left of the image. In reality, however, interactions between galaxies happen over very long time periods, and galaxies rarely collide head-on with one another. It is also unclear whether the galaxy to the lower left is actually interacting with the other two, although they are so relatively close in space that it seems possible that they are. By happy coincidence, the collective interaction between these galaxies have caused the two on the upper right to form a shape, which from our Solar System’s perspective, ressembles the starship known as the USS Enterprise from Star Trek!

NGC 7764A, which lies about 425 million light years from Earth in the constellation Phoenix, is a fascinating example of just how awkward astronomical nomenclature can be. The three galaxies are individually referred to as NGC 7764A1, NGC 7764A2 and NGC 7764A3, and just to be really difficult, an entirely separate galaxy, named NGC 7764, sits in the skies about a Moon’s distance (as seen from Earth) away. This rather haphazard naming makes more sense when we consider that many of the catalogues for keeping track of celestial bodies were compiled well over 100 years ago, long before modern technology made standardising scientific terminology much easier. As it is, many astronomical objects have several different names, or might have names that are so similar to other objects’ names that they cause confusion.

Source/Credit: Klingon Bird-of-Prey from wallpapercave.com.

Pic of the Week: Russia’s Luna-25 Moon Station

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Source/Credit: The Luna-25 Moon Station from Russia’s Lavochkin Research and Production Association.

The image above is an artist’s rending of Russia’s Luna-25 Moon Station that was to be launched last year and is now scheduled to be launched in July 2022. It will be the first domestic spacecraft in the country’s modern history on the surface of the Moon. Luna-25 will be equipped with a soil-sampling robotic arm and camera to image the terrain. The last lunar mission was Luna-24 in 1976 by the then Soviet Union, which returned Moon samples to the Earth.

Pic of the Week: Jupiter and the Juno Spacecraft

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Source: Jupiter image from NASA.

The image above was taken by NASA’s Juno spacecraft on June 8, 2021. You can watch the full flyby video here that starts with the Juno spacecraft going past Jupiter’s moon Ganymede on June 7, 2021 before moving onto Jupiter. The violence of the storms in Jupiter’s atmosphere are smoothed into the beautiful giant marble we see from a great distance.

Launched by NASA in 2011, Juno’s goal is to improve our understanding of the solar system’s beginnings by revealing the origin and evolution of Jupiter. With its primary mission completed last July, the spacecraft will continue to operate through at least 2025 by continuing to observe Jupiter, its rings, and its moons.

Pic of the Week: Paris and the Moon

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Source: “Year Ender 2021: The Most Awe-inspiring Space Photos of the Year,” News18.com.

Each week the site will highlight an interesting image from the past 12 months showing a bit of this awesome universe. This week’s photo comes from a Reuters photographer. In the accompanying news story, this April 2021 view from Paris has the following label:

The full moon, known as the Super Pink Moon” rises behind the Eiffel Tower during a nationwide curfew due to tighter measures against the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Paris, France on April 27.