In June, the constellations Boӧtes, Corona Borealis and Draco, and the planets Venus, Jupiter, Mars and Saturn are all visible from the Northern Hemisphere.
“Tonight’s Sky” is produced by HubbleSite.org, online home of the Hubble Space Telescope. This is a recurring show, and you can find more episodes—and other astronomy videos—at http://hubblesite.org/videos/science
This sequence uses visible (Hubble) and X-ray (Chandra) imagery to highlight different structures within the Whirlpool galaxy (Messier 51). As seen in visible light, the familiar whirlpool shape is traced out by glowing spiral arms. These arms are composed of billions of stars orbiting about the center of the galaxy over millions of years. The pink color is from hot hydrogen gas that permeates the galaxy and indicates sites of new star formation. Silhouetted in the bright arms are dark lanes of obscuring dust that blocks visible light. The stars farther away from the center orbit more slowly and fall behind, creating the signature spiral “winding” arm. A massive black hole lies at the galaxy’s center. The black hole can’t be seen directly, but its presence is hinted at by the dense star clusters at the center. A second smaller spiral galaxy can be seen in the upper-right portion of the image. The second image shows the X-ray view, highlighting the very hottest gas at millions of degrees Fahrenheit. The X-rays most closely match the visible pink hot gas in active star-forming regions and are particularly strong near the galactic centers of both galaxies. X-rays are also penetrating obscuring dust.
Video: NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScI)
Image: NASA and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI)
360 Video – Use the mouse to scroll the view on a computer. For full immersion, watch using a virtual reality device and a 360 video player.
This visualization explores the Orion Nebula as seen in infrared-light observations from the Spitzer Space Telescope. This movie is designed to be compared and contrasted against the companion movie using visible-light observations from the Hubble Space Telescope.
As the camera flies into the star-forming region, it reveals a glowing gaseous landscape that has been illuminated and carved by the high-energy radiation and strong stellar winds from the massive hot stars in the central cluster. The infrared observations generally show cool temperature gas at a deep layer that shows the full bowl shape of the nebula. In addition, the infrared showcases many faint stars that shine primarily at longer wavelengths.
Credits: NASA, ESA, F. Summers, G. Bacon, Z. Levay, J. DePasquale, L. Hustak, M. Robberto and M. Gennaro (STScI), and R. Hurt (Caltech/IPAC)
Music: “Dvorak – Serenade for Strings Op22 in E Major larghetto”, performed by The Advent Chamber Orchestra, CC BY-SA
360 Video – Use the mouse to scroll the view on a computer. For full immersion, watch using a virtual reality device and a 360 video player.
This visualization explores the Orion Nebula as seen in visible-light observations from the Hubble Space Telescope. This movie is designed to be compared and contrasted against the companion movie using infrared-light observations from the Spitzer Space Telescope.
As the camera flies into the star-forming region, it reveals a glowing gaseous landscape that has been illuminated and carved by the high-energy radiation and strong stellar winds from the massive hot stars in the central cluster. The high-resolution visible observations show fine details including the wispy bow shocks and tadpole-shaped proplyds.
Credits: NASA, ESA, F. Summers, G. Bacon, Z. Levay, J. DePasquale, L. Hustak, L. Frattare, and M. Robberto (STScI)
Acknowledgement: R. Gendler
Music: “Dvorak – Serenade for Strings Op22 in E Major larghetto”, performed by The Advent Chamber Orchestra, CC BY-SA
360 Video – Use the mouse to scroll the view on a computer. For full immersion, watch using a virtual reality device and a 360 video player.
This visualization explores the Orion Nebula using both visible-light observations from the Hubble Space Telescope and infrared-light observations from the Spitzer Space Telescope. The contrast between visible and infrared views of the nebula are examined using two spatially matched three-dimensional models.
As the camera flies into the star-forming region, the sequence cross-fades back and forth between the visible and infrared views. The glowing gaseous landscape has been illuminated and carved by the high-energy radiation and strong stellar winds from the massive hot stars in the central cluster. The infrared observations generally show cooler temperature gas at a deeper layer of the nebula that extends well beyond the visible image. In addition, the infrared showcases many faint stars that shine primarily at longer wavelengths. The higher resolution visible observations show finer details including the wispy bow shocks and tadpole-shaped proplyds. In this manner, the movie illustrates the contrasting features uncovered by multi-wavelength astronomy.
Credits: NASA, ESA, F. Summers, G. Bacon, Z. Levay, J. DePasquale, L. Hustak, L. Frattare, M. Robberto and M. Gennaro (STScI), R. Hurt (Caltech/IPAC)
Acknowledgement: R. Gendler
Music: “Dvorak – Serenade for Strings Op22 in E Major larghetto”, performed by The Advent Chamber Orchestra, CC BY-SA
Herbig Haro 666 is a young star that is shooting out narrow collimated jets in opposite directions. The jets are a byproduct of material falling onto to the star. The material is heated and then escapes along the star’s spin axis. Blazing across space at 200,000 miles per hour, the jets provide a way for the star to slow its spin by carrying off angular momentum. The star is hidden deep within the obscuring cloud of gas and dust shown in the Hubble visible-light image. In Hubble’s infrared view, the cloud mostly disappears, revealing the stars within. The jets will extend out to a light-year before dissipating. Jets are a dramatic example of the interaction between stars and the gas and dust that surrounds them.
Video: NASA, ESA, G. Bacon (STScI)
Image: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team (STScI)
How does a car tire react to a whole bunch of hubba bubba bubble gum? I covered a Samsung Galaxy S9 in the chewing gum and took it out for a spin!
FACEBOOK:
https://www.facebook.com/techrax
TWITTER:
Tweets by TechRax
INSTAGRAM:
http://instagram.com/techrax
The Crab Nebula (Messier 1) is the remnant of a supernova that exploded in the year 1054 AD. This mysterious “new star,” as early skywatchers called it, was observed around the world and most notably recorded by Chinese astronomers. The supernova was triggered when the progenitor star abruptly collapsed onto its iron core, and rebounded to expel most of its layers of gas into a blast wave. This wave is seen as an optical and infrared set of filaments that continues to impact surrounding material. This material was expelled from the dying red giant progenitor star 20,000 years prior to the supernova. The ultra-dense remnant core, called a neutron star, is crushed to the size of a city. Spinning furiously, the neutron star sends out twin beams of radiation, like a lighthouse. A lot of this energy comes from the neutron star’s intense magnetic fields.
The initial radio image (from the Very Large Array Radio Telescope) shows the cool gas and dust blown out by the supernova winds. The infrared (Spitzer) image shows synchrotron radiation, an unusual form of light produced by electrons trapped in magnetic fields. The infrared image also shows hot gas. The visible-light image (Hubble) shows the detailed filamentary structure of the blast wave as it impacts the surrounding material. The ultraviolet image (XMM-Newton) shows hot, ionized gas. Finally, the X-ray emission (Chandra) from high-energy particles ejected from the pulsar shows the expanding nebula. The bipolar structure represents a powerful jet of material funneled along the neutron star’s spin axis.
Video: NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScI)
Radio image: VLA/NRAO/AUI/NSF
Infrared image: NASA/Spitzer/JPL-Caltech
Optical image: NASA, ESA, and Hubble (STScI)
UltraViolet image: XMM-Newton/ESA
X-ray image: NASA/Chandra/CXC
This video compares the colorful Hubble Space Telescope visible-light image of the core of the Lagoon Nebula and a Hubble infrared-light view of the same region.
This visible-light image of the central region of the Lagoon nebula reveals a fantasy landscape of ridges, canyons, pillars, and mountains of gas and dust surrounding a very hot newborn star. When the visible view crossfades into an image taken in near-infrared light, the most obvious difference is the abundance of stars that fill the field of view. Most of them are more distant, background stars located behind the nebula itself. However, some of these pinpricks of light are young stars within the Lagoon Nebula. Only the densest of the gas clouds remain in the infrared view.
Video: NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScI)
Optical and Infrared images: NASA, ESA, and STScI