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[apod]

2024 April 18

Facing NGC 1232
Image Credit & Copyright: Neil Corke

Explanation: From our vantage point in the Milky Way Galaxy, we see NGC 1232 face-on. Nearly 200,000 light-years across, the big, beautiful spiral galaxy is located some 47 million light-years away in the flowing southern constellation of Eridanus. This sharp, multi-color, telescopic image of NGC 1232 includes remarkable details of the distant island universe. From the core outward, the galaxy’s colors change from the yellowish light of old stars in the center to young blue star clusters and reddish star forming regions along the grand, sweeping spiral arms. NGC 1232’s apparent, small, barred-spiral companion galaxy is cataloged as NGC 1232A. Distance estimates place it much farther though, around 300 million light-years away, and unlikely to be interacting with NGC 1232. Of course, the prominent bright star with the spiky appearance is much closer than NGC 1232 and lies well within our own Milky Way.

∞ Source: apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap240418.html

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[apod]

2024 April 15

The Cigar Galaxy from Hubble and Webb
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Alberto Bolatto (UMD)

Explanation: Something strange happened to this galaxy, but what? Known as the Cigar Galaxy and cataloged as M82, red glowing gas and dust are being cast out from the center. Although this starburst galaxy was surely stirred up by a recent pass near its neighbor, large spiral galaxy M81, this doesn’t fully explain the source of the red-glowing outwardly expanding gas and dust. Evidence indicates that this material is being driven out by the combined emerging particle winds of many stars, together creating a galactic superwind. In the featured images, a Hubble Space Telescope image in visible light is shown on the left, while a James Webb Space Telescope image of the central region in infrared light is shown on the right. Detailed inspection of the new Webb image shows, unexpectedly, that this red-glowing dust is associated with hot plasma. Research into the nature of this strange nearby galaxy will surely continue.

∞ Source: apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap240415.html

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[apod]

2024 April 16

Filaments of the Vela Supernova Remnant
Image Credit: CTIO, NOIRLab, DOE, NSF, AURA; Processing: T. A. Rector (U. Alaska Anchorage), M. Zamani & D. de Martin (’s NOIRLab)

Explanation: The explosion is over, but the consequences continue. About eleven thousand years ago, a star in the constellation of Vela could be seen to explode, creating a strange point of light briefly visible to humans living near the beginning of recorded history. The outer layers of the star crashed into the interstellar medium, driving a shock wave that is still visible today. The featured image captures some of that filamentary and gigantic shock in visible light. As gas flies away from the detonated star, it decays and reacts with the interstellar medium, producing light in many different colors and energy bands. Remaining at the center of the Vela Supernova Remnant is a pulsar, a star as dense as nuclear matter that spins around more than ten times in a single second.

∞ Source: apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap240416.html

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[pagewoman]

Plum Blossom and Rough Fell Sheep

by Alison O’Neill

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“The notion that children are somehow a burden, what are they interfering with? What have you got to do that is so important? You’re going to drink 2000 less 26s of vodka with your idiot friends at the bar? That’s your brilliant alternative to growing up? And I do believe it’s very hard for people to grow up if they don’t have children. There are other ways of growing up, but it’s very hard. Because you are not mature until someone else clearly matters more than you do. And if you aren’t narcissistic beyond redemption, that absolutely happens to you when you have children. And then you are an adult! Even if you are not that good at it, as long as that other person is now something you would die for, or something you would live for, then you’re an adult.”

Jordan Peterson

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[savaravah]

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[enchantedengland]

   Fellows’ Garden Gate, Balliol College, Oxford University. (Oxford, England image pcgn7 flickr) I would love to visit Oxford, but I am afraid I would never ever leave.