There’s more to the ring nebula than meets the eye
27 Monday May 2013
Posted nebulae
in27 Monday May 2013
Posted nebulae
in15 Sunday Apr 2012
Posted Photo of the week, Star
inTags
ESO, European South Observatory, Fomalhaut, galaxy, Hubble, hubble photographs, hubble space telescope
The European Southern Observatory released a photograph of the star Fomalhut. The image – which combines ALMA and Hubble photographs – shows a ring of dust surrounding the star, which lies about 25-light-years away. This discovery leads scientists to believe that planets orbiting the bright star are much smaller than originally anticipated.
Aaron Boley, a leader in the study, said this in a release:
Combining ALMA observations of the ring’s shape with computer models, we can place very tight limits on the mass and orbit of any planet near the ring …The masses of these planets must be small; otherwise the planets would destroy the ring.
Read more here.
03 Tuesday Jan 2012
Tags
I found a video that shows how Hubble images – with all their beautiful colors – are created.
While the video is kind of cool, I’m not sure how I really feel about it. When people see images of a galaxy or nebula, I think they believe the image is what they’d actually see in space. How disappointing is it to know that the galaxies or nebulae are not really that colorful?
“Images must be woven together from the incoming data from the cameras, cleaned up and given colors that bring out features that eyes would otherwise miss.”
Hmm.
See more behind-the-scenes Hubble information here.
18 Sunday Dec 2011
Posted nebulae, Photo of the week
inEveryone loves nebula shots.
This ‘snow angel’ beat out newly released images of Dione – one of Saturn’s moons – and the most detailed picture of the spiral galaxy NGC 253.
This region of space is called Sharpless 2-106, according to NASA.
Twin lobes of super-hot gas, glowing blue in this image, stretch outward from the central star. This hot gas creates the “wings” of our angel. A ring of dust and gas orbiting the star acts like a belt, cinching the expanding nebula into an “hourglass” shape.
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