Hubble’s Bubble

The orbit of Jupiter protects the Earth from asteroids.

So it turns out, Pluto is red.

What color is Pluto? If you search for the dwarf planet on Google, images suggest that it’s a sort of steely blue or gray color. But now, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft is closing in on it, and has learned Mars isn’t the only red planet in our solar system. But the reason it’s red couldn’t be more different from Mars.

Antennae galaxies, an intense star-forming region created when two galaxies began to collide some 200 million to 300 million years ago. The bright, blue-white areas show newly formed stars surrounded by clouds of hydrogen, which are colored pink. A similar collision is expected between our galaxy, the Milky Way, and the nearby Andromeda galaxy in several billion years.

Source: national geographic

Credit:NASA/ESA/HUBBLE

on the first day of class my astronomy professor asked us why the night sky was dark. if our universe is infinite, how can there be spaces between the stars? he didn’t answer the question until the last day– because our universe is relatively young, and is still growing. it is finite. not enough stars or galaxies have been formed to fill up the entire night sky.

but what that means to me is that somewhere, in an older universe, the night sky looks like a tapestry of diamonds. somewhere darkness is pale white and glittering. imagine being so surrounded. i haven’t gotten that image out of my head ever since– you could never navigate under such a sky but god it sounds lovely

Comet Lovejoy and The Pleiades

Shot these with my phone through my telescope

M104: The Sombrero Galaxy.

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Edge-on Spiral Galaxy

New awesome edge-on view of the galaxy NGC 1055 captured by ESO’s Very Large Telescope. This large galaxy is thought to be up to 15 percent larger in diameter than the Milky Way but shares the characteristic spiral arms. (Credit: ESO)

Grand Spiral Galaxy  - M 100

Known as a grand design spiral galaxy, M100 is a large galaxy of over 100 billion stars with spiral arms that are like our own Milky Way Galaxy. This Hubble Space Telescope image of M100 was made in 2009 and reveals bright blue star clusters and intricate winding dust lanes which are hallmarks of this class of galaxies. Studies of variable stars in M100 have played an important role in determining the size and age of the Universe.

Credit: NASA/APOD

The Infrared Visible Andromeda: This remarkable synthetic color composite image was assembled from archives of visible light and infrared astronomy image data. The field of view spans the Andromeda Galaxy are also included in the frame. via NASA

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