Aurora And Manicouagan Crater From The Space Station : How Many Of These Can You Find In Today’s Featured

Two moons of Uranus: Titania and Oberon. Both moons were discovered by William Herschel in 1787.

Credit: NASA/JPL

lesbians in space

Nearby dust clouds in the Milky Way

Credit: NASA, ESA, and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

M51: The Whirlpool Galaxy

Credit: NASA, ESA, S. Beckwith (STScI), and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

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

Dust, stars, and cosmic rays swirling around Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, captured by the Rosetta probe. (Source)

- Carl Sagan, Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey

The Boomerang Nebula (Bow-tie Nebula)

The Boomerang Nebula is about 5000 light years away  from the Earth, situated in the constellation Centaurus and is the coldest place known in the entire universe at a temperature of  1K. According to the astronomers, the nebula houses a central dying star which has been losing one-thousandth of  a solar mass of material from the last 1500 years. The bow-tie shape of the nebula is said to have formed due to very fierce winds (blowing at about 500,000 kmph) blowing the ultra cold gas away from the dying star.

Image credit: Hubble/NASA/ESA

Pew! Pew! Pew! 

Imagine slow-motion fireworks that started exploding 170 years ago and are still continuing. This type of firework is not launched into Earth’s atmosphere, but rather into space by a doomed super-massive star, called Eta Carinae. 

Enjoy the the latest view from our Hubble Space Telescope. 

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All here… Sorry, Pluto, you don’t belong here

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