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Space bi for @occasionally-gay

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Harvest Moon

The Wizard Nebula NGC 7380

you understand the moon, right? I dont understand the moon at all. people keep trying to explain it to me and I keep allllllmost getting it, but I still dont understand why it moves all over the damn place. one month i see it in the high in the southeast, the next I see it low to the west, and sometimes it's just *around* at like 8AM. the sun I get, completely, I can pretty reliably navigate by it, the stars are also fine, but the moon makes no sense. please help me

sure, I've never thought about it that way but I do understand the moon I guess? I should put that on my resume.

BUT ANYWAY the short explanation here is that you're thinking of the earth-moon system as a two-dimensional setup, when you should be thinking of it in 3D!

see, the moon doesn't orbit earth directly around the middle on a flat plane; the moon is actually whizzing around at a slight angle to earth's rotational axis.

and to complicate matters, the moon is actually moving AROUND the earth roughly thirty times slower than the earth's speed of rotation!

in practice, this means that the moon is performing its stately orbital dance at a rate of about one full orbit every 30 days, while the earth is spinning like a rogue beyblade in the center the whole time! LET IT RIP

so these factors combined mean you need a LOT of math to be able to predict exactly where the moon is going to be from your perspective every night, on account of you're looking at a giant rock 238,555 miles away (238,550 if you're standing on Mount Everest) moving at a speed of 2,288 miles per hour, while the even gianter rock you're standing on is rotating at roughly 1,037 miles per hour while ALSO orbiting the sun at 67,000 miles per hour, basically making Moon Divination an entirely godawful version of those two-trains problems you used to have nightmares about in Algebra II.

so if train 1 leaves Denver travelling at... aw fuck not again

really, it's best not to think about it too hard. just step outside and enjoy the view!

What's happening to this cirrus cloud? Ice crystals are acting like little floating prisms. Known informally as a fire rainbow for its flame-like appearance, a circumhorizon arc appears parallel to the horizon. For a circumhorizontal arc to be visible, the Sun must be at least 58 degrees high in a sky where cirrus clouds present below. The numerous, flat, hexagonal ice-crystals that compose the cirrus cloud must be aligned horizontally to properly refract sunlight in a similar manner. Therefore, circumhorizontal arcs are somewhat unusual to see. The featured fire rainbow was photographed earlier this month near West Virginia, USA.

Image Credit: Christa Harbig

NGC 346: Star Forming Cluster in the SMC : Are stars still forming in the Milky Way's satellite galaxies? Found among the Small Magellanic Cloud's (SMC's) clusters and nebulas, NGC 346 is a star forming region about 200 light-years across, pictured here in the center of a Hubble Space Telescope image. A satellite galaxy of the Milky Way, the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) is a wonder of the southern sky, a mere 210,000 light-years distant in the constellation of the Toucan (Tucana). Exploring NGC 346, astronomers have identified a population of embryonic stars strung along the dark, intersecting dust lanes visible here on the right. Still collapsing within their natal clouds, the stellar infants' light is reddened by the intervening dust. Toward the top of the frame is another star cluster with intrinsically older and redder stars. A small, irregular galaxy, the SMC itself represents a type of galaxy more common in the early Universe. These small galaxies, though, are thought to be building blocks for the larger galaxies present today. via NASA

Moon over the clouds l daryavaseum

Hubble Peers into a Dusty Stellar Nursery by NASA Hubble

Heart and Soul nebulae in the constellation Cassiopeia

The Heart Nebula (IC 1805) located on the right of this image, has a shape reminiscent of a classical heart symbol. To the top of the Heart nebula, lies The Fishhead nebula (IC 1795) is a part of a complex of star forming regions that lie at the edge of a large molecular cloud.

The Soul Nebula (IC 1871) is visible on bottom left of this image. Both nebulas shine brightly in the red light of energized hydrogen.

Several young open clusters of stars are visible near the nebula centers. Melotte 15 (Heart of the Heart nebula) is a popular target.

Light takes about 6,000 years to reach us from these nebulas, which together span roughly 300 light years.

Image 1 – Widefield image of The Heart and Soul nebulae

Image 2 – Cropped image rendering Melotte 15 (Heart of the Heart nebula)

Image 3- Cropped image of The Fishhead nebula

Image 4 – Soul nebula

Image 5 – Annotated version

Photos made by Sendhil

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To the Moon!

How do you watch the richest man on Earth go to space for 10 minutes of his own amusement while using more CO2 than a billion people in a year instead of idk helping fight climate change or poverty and not immediately radicalize yourself

NGC 2024, Star Sparks Of The Flame Nebula

M42 The Great Orion 

Jeff Bezos didn’t even explode :(

Cygnus Without Stars : The sky is filled with faintly glowing gas, though it can take a sensitive camera and telescope to see it. For example, this twelve-degree-wide view of the northern part of the constellation Cygnus reveals a complex array of cosmic clouds of gas along the plane of our Milky Way galaxy. The featured mosaic of telescopic images was recorded through two filters: an H-alpha filter that transmits only visible red light from glowing hydrogen atoms, and a blue filter that transmits primarily light emitted by the slight amount of energized oxygen. Therefore, in this 18-hour exposure image, blue areas are hotter than red. Further digital processing has removed the myriad of point-like Milky Way stars from the scene. Recognizable bright nebulas include NGC 7000 (North America Nebula), and IC 5070 (Pelican Nebula) on the left with IC 1318 (Butterfly Nebula) and NGC 6888 (Crescent Nebula) on the right -- but others can be found throughout the wide field. via NASA

Hubble Spots a Cosmic Cloud’s Silver Lining by NASA Goddard Photo and Video