Featured in Nature's selection of the best #science images of the month: a composite image of the Cassiopeia A #supernova remnant that brings together data from several #NASA telescopes: X-rays from #Chandra, infrared from #JWST & #Spitzer, optical data from #Hubble.
There is a nice bright #Supernova right now in NGC 4216 (in Virgo). Visible later in the evening, for North America. Discovered/appeared 4 January - but still pretty bright!
This is from last night. Image is noisy with artifiacts etc, due to hazy conditions, bright moonlight and short exposure time. But did not crop - wanted to show the many other galaxies in this area of the sky/universe.
Gravitational lensing has to be one of the most visually striking phenomena in astronomy
Gravitational lensing is a phenomenon where a massive object bend the light of a distant source as it approaches the observer. Most often this takes the form of enormous galaxy clusters bending the light of even more distant galaxies into warped images of their true selves. They typically follow an arc around the massive object in the foreground like ripples in a pond.
Here's a few of my favourite gravitational lensing events.
Abel 1689 – Virgo
Abel 1689 is a one of the largest galaxy clusters in the known universe. It's located about 2.459 billion light-years away in constellation Virgo. Not only is this image visually beautiful, but the sheer number of gravitationally lensed galaxies across the entire image is just mind-blowing.
In 2008, one of the lensed galaxies, A1689-zD1, became known as the most distant galaxy from Earth based on a photometric redshift. 2008 also happens to be the same year the astronomy bug really bit me and it became one of my life-long passions.
PSZ1 G311.65-18.48 is a massive galaxy cluster located 4.6 billion light-years away in the constellation Apus. What's especially remarkable about this image is that it features a bright galaxy that's been lensed 12 separate times along four arcs. Three of these arcs are visible to the upper right of the cluster, while a fainter fourth arc is partially obscured by a bright foreground star to the bottom left of the cluster. This galaxy is almost 12 billion light-years away from Earth, which given its title as the brightest gravitationally lensed galaxy is quite a remarkable feat.
I don't talk about astronomy nearly enough, so let's change that!
One of the most groundbreaking developments in astronomy has been the absolutely mind-blowing work the James Webb Space Telescope has been putting out in a fraction of the time it took the old Hubble Space Telescope to produce similar work. Here are a couple of recent images I find particularly remarkable.
S1 LMC N79 – Dorado
Honestly, this image is just beautiful to look at. It’s even more breathtaking when you consider that this is just one cloud within this star-forming region of the Large Magellanic Cloud, which itself is an irregular galaxy located about 163,000 light-years from Earth. If you live in the Southern Hemisphere and find yourself a suitably dark place, you can gaze up and see this whole other galaxy as a milky blotch in the night sky.
A gravitationally lensed supernova in MRG-M0138 – Cetus
It's pretty wild seeing the immense force of gravity contained within these galactic clusters warp distant points of light in these visually striking ways. Each arc is a galaxy far beyond the cluster itself that allow us to peer further back in time. Sometimes these warped images mirror themselves on the complete opposite side of the cluster, like ripples on a pond. In the case of this distant supernova, the light emanating from that cataclysmic event is being reflected in such a way that it's reappearing further down the length of the arc, making it seem as though there are two supernovae happening when in fact they are the same.
🌠🌠🌠
Archaeologists have discovered a 2,400-year-old stone map of the night sky in Italy. The map shows 29 stars carved on a circular stone, including Orion, Scorpius and Pleiades. The map is very accurate, except for one mysterious star that might have been a supernova or a black hole. 🌠🌠🌠
Both studies, independent of each other, have observed a supernova light curve in decline (i.e., the afterglow of the blast but fading over time) with a ~12 periodicity spike in it.
The papers outline how this is likely due to the formation of a compact remnant (like a neutron star or black hole) which remains in orbit (after the supernova!) and is accreting material as it goes around (causing energy spikes).
What's special about this is that we have not really seen strong evidence in the past linking a supernova explosion with a compact remnant (from the supernova light itself) as well as confirmation that binary systems can survive destructive supernova events.
To make this more impressive, this all happened in a galaxy ~75 million light years away!
Remember when our fav red supergiant that refuses to go supernova dimmed in 19-20?
Well now, another colossal star - RW Cephei - has been caught in the act, dimming significantly (1/3 brightness!) likely caused by an eruption of gas that cooled to dust. 👀
I know lots of folks don’t want Betelgeuse to go supernova because it would ruin Orion - a constellation that humans have observed since the beginning times, and I feel this too.
But I need a ‘local’ supernova in my lifetime.
So RW Cephei will do. Also, hurry TF up Eta Carinae. We’re waiting.
An article published in "The Astronomical Journal" reports evidence that the supernova remnant cataloged as 30 Doradus B, or simply 30 Dor B, is the result of at least two separate supernovae and not just one.
I'm getting to the point where I want to ditch Outlook for an alternative. Outlook 2016 was nice, Outlook 365 is horrible, but I can't get Outlook 2016 back :( #microsoft
Behold: in this Hα/OIII/SII + broadband RGB composite image of total exposure time 258 hours, the newly discovered #supernova remnant G107.5-5.2 in the constellation #Cassiopeia.
El 07/12/2004 la Fundación Mozilla publicó la primera versión del gestor de correo #Thunderbird
Desde entonces esta poderosa herramienta se ha ido transformando y actualmente se encuentra en su versión 115 #Supernova disponible en diversas distribuciones GNU/Linux.
We want you to have a great experience on Thunderbird, and that means fonts that are the perfect size and density for you. Find out how to go from "too small" or "too big" to just right in our latest blog post - and dig in to the technical details behind any trickier issues in the linked KB article.