Astronomy Picture Of The Day

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is there a thread about politics/economics/future of space travel/nasa/china/the moon, etc.?

is there a thread about politics/economics/future of space travel/nasa/china/the moon, etc.?

We were sorta talking about it here: NASA: "We're going back to the moon!"

ta.

today's pic of saturn is mindboggling. the thinness of the rings. and those shadows.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap100215.html

Umm... WOW

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/1002/shuttleapproaching_nasa.jpg

I know this isn't APOD, but is anyone else following the tweeting astronaut?

http://twitter.com/Astro_Soichi

Every day he posts a couple of pictures of random cities on earth that the space station has flown over. It's beautiful and amazing, and well worth following.

The cities at night are beautiful, but my favourites are always the natural land formations. It's kind of like APOD meets Google Earth...

http://twitpic.com/14zd4k

that's one long lens...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/8547114.stm

right, someone help me out here. Am i seeing things or are parts of the clouds over the oceans quite clearly PShopped/cloned ?

oh it's probably because the images are pieced together from smaller ones, still i can't stop looking at those parts now and its ruining the image for me

I was gonna go "what you talking about?" then I saw it. Hrmmm. I don't know. Clouds can be pretty fractally self similar but I don't think they're *that* self similar. But then again, would a moving weather formation really hold its shape so perfectly if it was pieced together from smaller pictures at a time delay?

it looks weird - but i'm 99% sure it's not shopped.

the shapes are similar but no parts looks exactly the same as any other bits - which it probably would if anyone had cloned anything.

No, there are two bits in the lower left hand corner of the second picture that are just *too* exact not to have been manipulated in some way or other.

i didn't even see the second image - you're totally right!

oh it's probably because the images are pieced together from smaller ones

ding ding ding - someone completed incomplete patterns since they could just as well have made a completely cloudless picture (why didn't they?) and the Clone Tool is how you do that if you're not an artist.

There's more detail on Goddard's Flickr page for the photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/gsfc/4392965590

The tip-off to me was the odd looking sun reflection over Baja in picture #2

And yeah, @Astro_Soichi is a must-follow.

yeah the most prominent one is bottom left on the second pic, but there's quite a lot if you really look on both pics.

Of interest to the people who like APOD: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/pluto/mail-01a.html

Angry letters from 3rd-graders about Pluto not being considered a planet.

Devo!

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap100312.html

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/space/article7074839.ece

this guy is amazing - floated a camera up using a weather balloon to get some amazing pix

neeeeeeeeerrrrrrdddddddd

3D map of Dark Matter in the universe
http://news.discovery.com/space/2010/03/26/hubble-dark-energy-825x804.jpg
http://news.discovery.com/space/hubble-3d-map-universe-dark-matter.html

http://blogs.discovery.com/.a/6a00d8341bf67c53ef0120a7c734e8970b-320wi

Does Your Halo Ever Give You A Headache?

They figured out that in order to fit the entire orbit of Sagittarius into one model at the same time, it was necessary to allow the the dark matter halo to have different axis lengths in all three dimensions -- in other words, the halo must be triaxial, from which the team inferred that its shape looks for all the world like a beach ball squashed from the side.

That, too, was a bit of a surprise, the three astronomers reported at the meeting. It means that the halo of dark matter and the stars in our galaxy are perpendicular to each other -- an exciting result because it answers one question only to raise a new one, namely, "how our galaxy formed in its present orientation."

http://news.discovery.com/space/does-your-halo-ever-give-you-a-headache.html

^^^ one nano-subfield away from what my phd is about btw.

The perpendicular thing kind of made me think of Hypercubes for some reason. Is it possible that normal matter the 3d manifestation of 4d dark matter?

they mean perpendicular like the galaxy is a rugby ball lying on its side and the dark halo is a rugby ball on its end.

there are a lot of theories about the nature of dark matter, but they are all pretty prosaic and call for regular particles we just haven't detected yet. dark energy is another matter, and they hide all sorts of nonsense in other dimensions to explain that iirc.

worst photoshopping ever.

I LOLled.

fucking adaptive optics

http://www.astro.caltech.edu/palomar/images/blog/LCROSS.gif

wow dudes dig astronomy picture from today
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6B0Kd9vk11Y&feature=player_embedded

HOLY MARY MOTHER OF GOD!

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2010/7/5/1278341858795/Planck-composite-image-007.jpg

"We are opening the door to an El Dorado where scientists can seek the nuggets that will lead to deeper understanding of how our universe came to be and how it works now. The image itself and its remarkable quality is a tribute to the engineers who built and have operated Planck," said David Southwood, director of science and robotic exploration at the European Space Agency (Esa).

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/jul/05/planck-telescope-postcard-universe

Next Flaming Lips album cover plz.

Also this, first direct picture of extrasolar planet (at top left):
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/1007/exoplanet_gemini.jpg

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap100704.html

Yeah, that Planck survey pic is my new desktop. <3 <3 <3

Not apod, technically, but wow nevertheless: http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/09/around_the_solar_system.html

Love these images, nice one!

Yeah, stunning stuff - thanks for linking.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11776703

perspective madness, when did Italy become so big?

http://parriswakefield.com/uploads/page/546/a3b24254f83e8bff94493902d5a75058-small.png

http://parriswakefield.com/page/portfolio/music/joy_division/-

THE SUN IS ANGRY

http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/wiredscience/2010/12/SDO-giant-filament.jpg

giant ring of black holes

http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/516469main_image_1864_946-710.jpg

fucking hell!

Chap combines multiple NASA images to make gorgeous huge pictures of solar system objects: http://www.themorningnews.org/archives/galleries/beyond_the_known/

Incredible, esp. like Saturn, Mimas and Tethys.

http://27.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lmvoveChr51qzt4vjo1_r1_500.gif

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/1108/mycn18_hst_1280.jpg

apologies if that's huge, i keep images off.

more crucially, though, aaaaaaaah

Whoa, the abyss staring back... What is it?