A Snippet

Yesterday we got back from five days of camping, so today I'm catching up. I'm doing plenty of laundry, but not near as much as I would've been if it weren't for my fabulous Brian doing TONS of laundry yesterday. (He's such a sweetheart.) I'll try to get a camping post up soon (ish), but until then, check out today's cool APOD pic.

Erupting Volcano Anak Krakatau

Explanation: A volcano on Krakatoa is still erupting. Perhaps most famous for the powerfully explosive eruption in 1883 that killed tens of thousands of people, ash from a violent eruption might also have temporarily altered Earth's climate as long as 1500 years ago. In 1927, eruptions caused smaller Anak Krakatau to rise from the sea, and the emerging volcanic island continues to grow at an average rate of 2 cm per day. The latest eruption of Anak Krakatau started in 2008 April and continues today. In this picture, Anak Krakatau is seen erupting from Rakata, the main island of the Krakatoai group. High above, stars including the Big Dipper are clearly apparent.

Ah-so!

Dunhuang Star Atlas

This is today's APOD. Here's their explanation:

This ancient Chinese map of planet Earth's northern sky is part of the Dunhuang Star Atlas, one of the most impressive documents in the history of astronomy. The oldest complete star atlas known, it dates to the years 649 to 684, discovered at the Silk Road town of Dunhuang in 1907. A recent analysis that examines the accuracy and projections used to make it notes the atlas marks positions of over 1,300 stars and outlines 257 Chinese star groups or asterisms. The star positions in the hand drawn atlas were found to be accurate to within a few degrees. In this example showing the north polar region, a very recognizable Big Dipper, part of the modern constellation Ursa Major, lies along the bottom of the chart. An additional 12 charts depict equatorial regions in 30 degree sections and also include a grouping resembling the modern constellation Orion. The atlas is on display at the British Library in London to celebrate the International Year of Astronomy.

Drum Roll Please...

Like a lot of you, when I first saw this picture, I thought it was water, sand, and a seashell. That's definitely what it looks like. But if that's what it really was, this wouldn't be much of a quiz.

I was impressed with your creativity. A crime scene? Lava? A wet etch-a-sketch? Excellent guesses!

Anna wins the prize for funniest comment. But no, it's not mold either.

Given my preoccupation with APOD, I thought someone might think to check the site. And it's funny to me that even though I saw this picture on APOD, I still thought it was sand and water until I saw the caption:

Flowing Barchan Sand Dunes on Mars

Mars, people. Now, that's just cool.

If you want the scientific explanation for what exactly we're looking at, don't ask me. I'll defer to NASA, as usual:

"When does Mars act like a liquid? Although liquids freeze and evaporate quickly into the thin atmosphere of Mars, persistent winds may make large sand dunes appear to flow and even drip like a liquid. Visible on the above image right are two flat top mesas in southern Mars, where the season is changing from Spring to Summer. A light dome topped hill is also visible on the far left of the image. As winds blow from right to left, flowing sand on and around the hills leaves picturesque streaks. The dark arc-shaped droplets of fine sand are called barchans, and are the interplanetary cousins of similar Earth-based sand forms. Barchans can move intact downwind and can even appear to pass through each other. Over the past few weeks, winds on southern Mars have been kicking up dust and are being watched to see if they escalate into another of Mars' famous planet-scale sand storms."

(Gee, are Mars' planet-scale sand storms famous? News to me.)

100 Days of Gratitude: Day 4

It may be weird to be grateful for a website, but (as some of you already know) I love the Astronomy Picture of the Day site. I don't love every, single picture they post, but I'm very frequently awed by what I see. The universe is an amazing place, and I love being able to see things that our ancestors never would've even dreamed about.

(The above picture is Tycho's Supernova Remnant; you can click here if you want to read more about it. And as an extra bonus, I have more on APOD below.)

Happy International Year of Astronomy!

What? You didn't know it's the International Year of Astronomy? Well, that's okay. I didn't either.

Apparently, 2009 was selected as a year of celebration because 400 years ago Galileo peered through one of the first telescopes, discovering craters on the moon and rings around Saturn. I wonder what he'd think about the kinds of things we're seeing now?

In honor of the International Year of Astronomy (and because I was going to do this anyway) here is a sampling of some recent APOD pics (along with their text - thanks again NASA).

The Galactic Core in Infrared

(It is definitely worth clicking on the link for a better view of this amazing pic.)

What's happening at the center of our Milky Way Galaxy? To help find out, the orbiting Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes have combined their efforts to survey the region in unprecedented detail in infrared light. Infrared light is particularly useful for probing the Milky Way's center because visible light is more greatly obscured by dust. The above image encompasses over 2,000 images from the Hubble Space Telescope's NICMOS taken last year. The image spans 300 by 115 light years with such high resolution that structures only 20 times the size of our own Solar System are discernable. Clouds of glowing gas and dark dust as well as three large star clusters are visible. Magnetic fields may be channeling plasma along the upper left near the Arches Cluster, while energetic stellar winds are carving pillars near the Quintuplet Cluster on the lower left. The massive Central Cluster of stars surrounding Sagittarius A* is visible on the lower right. Why several central, bright, massive stars appear to be unassociated with these star clusters is not yet understood.

In the Shadow of Saturn

In the shadow of Saturn, unexpected wonders appear. The robotic Cassini spacecraft now orbiting Saturn recently drifted in giant planet's shadow for about 12 hours and looked back toward the eclipsed Sun. Cassini saw a view unlike any other. First, the night side of Saturn is seen to be partly lit by light reflected from its own majestic ring system. Next, the rings themselves appear dark when silhouetted against Saturn, but quite bright when viewed away from Saturn, slightly scattering sunlight, in this exaggerated color image. Saturn's rings light up so much that new rings were discovered, although they are hard to see in the image. Seen in spectacular detail, however, is Saturn's E ring, the ring created by the newly discovered ice-fountains of the moon Enceladus and the outermost ring visible above. Far in the distance, at the left, just above the bright main rings, is the almost ignorable pale blue dot of Earth.

A Lenticular Cloud Over New Zealand

What's happening above those mountains? Several clouds are stacked up into one striking lenticular cloud. Normally, air moves much more horizontally than it does vertically. Sometimes, however, such as when wind comes off of a mountain or a hill, relatively strong vertical oscillations take place as the air stabilizes. The dry air at the top of an oscillation may be quite stratified in moisture content, and hence forms clouds at each layer where the air saturates with moisture. The result can be a lenticular cloud with a strongly layered appearance. The above picture was taken in 2002 looking southwest over the Tararua Range mountains from North Island, New Zealand.

Planetary Nebula NGC 2818

NGC 2818 is a beautiful planetary nebula, the gaseous shroud of a dying sun-like star. It could well offer a glimpse of the future that awaits our own Sun after spending another 5 billion years or so steadily using up hydrogen at its core, and then finally helium, as fuel for nuclear fusion. Curiously, NGC 2818 seems to lie within an open star cluster, NGC 2818A, that is some 10,000 light-years distant toward the southern constellation Pyxis (the Compass). At the distance of the star cluster, the nebula would be about 4 light-years across. But accurate velocity measurements show that the nebula's own velocity is very different from the cluster's member stars. The result is strong evidence that NGC 2818 is only by chance found along the line of sight to the star cluster and so may not share the cluster's distance or age. The Hubble image is a composite of exposures through narrow-band filters, presenting emission from nitrogen, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms in the nebula as red, green, and blue hues.

The Bubble Nebula

Blown by the wind from a massive star, this interstellar apparition has a surprisingly familiar shape. Cataloged as NGC 7635, it is also known simply as The Bubble Nebula. This colorful telescopic image includes a long exposure through a hydrogen alpha filter to reveal details of the cosmic bubble and its environment. Although it looks delicate, the 10 light-year diameter bubble offers evidence of violent processes at work. Above and right of the Bubble's center is a hot, O-type star, several 100,000 times more luminous and approximately 45 times more massive than the Sun. A fierce stellar wind and intense radiation from that star has blasted out the structure of glowing gas against denser material in a surrounding molecular cloud. The intriguing Bubble Nebula lies a mere 11,000 light-years away toward the boastful constellation Cassiopeia.

The Milky Way Over Mauna Kea

Have you ever seen the band of our Milky Way Galaxy? In a clear sky from a dark location at the right time, a faint band of light becomes visible across the sky. Soon after your eyes become dark adapted, you might spot the band for the first time. It may then become obvious. Then spectacular. One reason for a growing astonishment might be the realization that this fuzzy swath contains billions of stars and is the disk of our very own spiral galaxy. Since we are inside this disk, the band appears to encircle the Earth. Visible in the above image, high above in the night sky, the band of the Milky Way Galaxy arcs. The bright spot just below the band is the planet Jupiter. In the foreground lies the moonlit caldera of the volcano Haleakala, located on the island of Maui in Hawaii, USA. A close look near the horizon will reveal light clouds and the dark but enormous Mauna Kea volcano on the Big Island of Hawaii. If you have never seen the Milky Way band or recognized the planet Jupiter, this year may be your chance. Because 2009 is the International Year of Astronomy, an opportunity to look through a window that peers deep into the universe may be coming to a location near you.

Oooooh... Ahhhhh.....

What a great APOD pic. Here's NASA's blurb, if you're interested:

NGC 1569: Starburst in a Dwarf Irregular Galaxy

Grand spiral galaxies often seem to get all the glory, flaunting their young, bright, blue star clusters in beautiful, symmetric spiral arms. But small, irregular galaxies form stars too. In fact, as pictured here, dwarf galaxy NGC 1569 is apparently undergoing a burst of star forming activity, thought to have begun over 25 million years ago. The resulting turbulent environment is fed by supernova explosions as the cosmic detonations spew out material and trigger further star formation. Two massive star clusters - youthful counterparts to globular star clusters in our own spiral Milky Way galaxy - are seen left of center in the gorgeous Hubble Space Telescope image. The above picture spans about 8,000 light-years across NGC 1569. A mere 11 million light-years distant, this relatively close starburst galaxy offers astronomers an excellent opportunity to study stellar populations in rapidly evolving galaxies. NGC 1569 lies in the long-necked constellation Camelopardalis.

Dark Doodad Nebula

"Dark Doodad Nebula." Three words I'd never expect to go together.




Normally, I go to the APOD site looking for something breathtaking. This isn't exactly breathtaking. Interesting maybe, and it has a funny name. But what really got me was NASA's commentary (below is just an excerpt, click here if you want to read the whole thing).

"What is that strange dark ribbon on the sky? When observing the great globular cluster NGC 4372, observers frequently take note of a strange dark streak nearly three degrees in length running near it. Unnamed, the streak, actually a long molecular cloud, has become known as the Dark Doodad Nebula. (Doodad is slang for a thingy or a whatchamacallit.) Pictured above in a rich and colorful star-field, the Dark Doodad Nebula can be found sweeping across the image center."

Now NASA's commentary is always peppered with links, so if you want to know more about "globular clusters" or "molecular clouds", that tantilizing information is just a click away. What struck me as funny was not just their inclination to further clarify "doodad" as a "thingy" or "whatchamacallit" (LOL), but the fact that "thingy" and "whatchamacallit" were both links.

Where on earth are THOSE links going to take me? I wondered.

I should've guessed Wikipedia. They have a whole article on placeholder names, a LONG article, listing everything from "doohickey" to "thingamajig".

Maybe I'm a word nerd, but this article cracked me up. Where else are you going to see these ridiculous words so carefully categorized? The placeholder names for things (as above) are in a different section from placeholder names for people ("Joe Shmoe", "Frick and Frack"), places ("Boonies", "Timbucktoo"), and times ("oh-dark-thirty", "half past a freckle").

There were words I'd never heard before ("Joe Snuffy"), and words I thought were missing (shouldn't "dingle-hopper" have a place?).

I regret I'll probably never have a reason to use is this one: "A wigwam for a goose's bridle" which is an Australian answer to a naïve "What is that?" Too funny.

So if you ever hear me utter the words "Up the Boohai hunting pukekos with a long handled shovel", now you'll know the reason why.

I blame it on NASA.

False Kiva

Did I say Italy? Nevermind, I want to go here:

A true image from False Kiva

(For an enlarged picture, click this link for the APOD explanation:) "Is there any place in the world you could see a real sight like this? Yes. Pictured above is a single exposure image spectacular near, far, and in between. Diving into the Earth far in the distance is part of the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy, taken with a long duration exposure. Much closer, the planet Jupiter is visible as the bright point just to band's left. Closer still are picturesque buttes and mesas of the Canyonlands National Park in Utah, USA, lit by a crescent moon. In the foreground is a cave housing a stone circle of unknown origin named False Kiva. The cave was briefly lit by flashlight during the long exposure. Astrophotographer Wally Pacholka reports that getting to the cave to take this image was no easy trek. Also, mountain lions were a concern while waiting alone in the dark for just the right exposure."


Wait, did he say mountain lions? Scratch that, I'll keep Italy. ;)


Here's another spectacular photo of False Kiva :

This archaeological site is not on the official maps. The trail is treacherous and not easy and the site is not protected from vandalism. There is a good chance you won't meet a soul on the trail and at the ruins. Hiking along the canyon top is not for the faint of heart, but the destination is well worth the effort. (Photo and explanation found here)

Ain't It Grand?

Grand Spiral Galaxy NGC 1232

I love this stuff.

But Where Are the Little Green Men?

Here's another great pic from Astronomy Picture of the Day (the explanation that follows is theirs too):

High Cliffs Surrounding Echus Chasma on Mars

(This is not how I picture Mars, so I think this is cool.)

Explanation: What created this great cliff on Mars? Did giant waterfalls once plummet through its grooves? With a four-kilometer drop, this high cliff surrounding Echus Chasma, near an impressive impact crater, was carved by either water or lava. A leading hypothesis is that Echus Chasma, at 100-kilometers long and 10-kilometers wide, was once one of the largest water sources on Mars. If true, water once held in Echus Chasma likely ran over the Martian surface to carve the impressive Kasei Valles, which extends over 3,000 kilometers to the north. Even if initially carved by water, lava appears to have later flowed in the valley, leaving an extraordinarily smooth floor. Echus Chasma lies north of tremendous Valles Marineris, the largest canyon in the Solar System. The above image was taken by the robotic Mars Express spacecraft currently orbiting Mars.

Now THAT'S What I'm Talking About...

Cool pic, cool name. This APOD has it all...

The Witch's Broom Nebula

Best APOD Ever!

Love, love, love this picture from Astronomony Picture of the Day. Not only is it gorgeous, but it's red. What more could I want?

A cool name perhaps. This close up of a star-forming region has the unfortunate name of IC 1396 H-Alpha. I mean, that's no fun.

A least this little guy has an awesome name, Horsehead Nebula. Now that's what I'm talking about:

I think the reason I like these pictures is because it's like looking at a work of art... straight from God's canvas.

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Brian and I used to go to NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day site to see what cool pics were featured that day. Some pics are boring, but some are downright amazing. We'd put our favorites as backgrounds on our computer desktop (but these days our backgrounds are pics of our nephew and baby nieces).

Anyway, I went back to the site and trolled around because I thought it would be fun to post a few of the better ones on the blog. Some of these are like art. They're so amazing....

Star Forming Region NGC 3582

Fox Fur Nebula

M78 and Reflecting Dust Clouds in Orion

Crab Nebula from Hubble

(This is what's left from an exploded star!)

"Above the Clouds"

With each picture, APOD gives an explanation. Here's what they say about "Above the Clouds":

"From the windswept peak of Mauna Kea, on the Big Island of Hawaii, your view of the world at night could look like this. At an altitude of about 13,500 feet, the mountain top is silhouetted in the stunning skyscape recorded near dusk in early December of 2005. The volcanic peak rises just above a sea of storm clouds illuminated by a bright Moon. Planet Venus is setting near the Moon as the brilliant evening star. The scene also includes the faint, milky band of our own galaxy's disk of stars and cosmic dust clouds stretching from the horizon into the sky along the right edge of the frame."

Like I needed another reason to want to go to Hawaii...

But we have it pretty good here too. I was surprised to see this:

A Protected Night Sky Over Flagstaff

"This sky is protected. Yesterday [April 16, 2008] marked the 50 year anniversary of the first lighting ordinance ever enacted, which restricted searchlight advertisements from sweeping the night skies above Flagstaff, Arizona, USA. Flagstaff now enjoys the status of being the first International Dark Sky City, and maintains a lighting code that limits lights from polluting this majestic nighttime view. The current dark skies over Flagstaff not only enable local astronomers to decode the universe but allow local sky enthusiasts to see and enjoy a tapestry contemplated previously by every human generation. The above image, pointing just east of north, was taken two weeks ago at 3 am from Fort Valley, only 10 kilometers from central Flagstaff. Visible in the above spectacular panorama are the San Francisco Peaks caped by a lenticular cloud. Far in the distance, the plane of the Milky Way Galaxy arcs diagonally from the lower left to the upper right, highlighted by the constellations of Cassiopeia, Cepheas, and Cygnus. On the far right, the North America Nebula is visible just under the very bright star Deneb."

Coolness.