Thread: The Universe. Whats out there?

speaking of which, I really like the images that the Chandra Xray satellite produces.

Here is Saturn's rings.



Credit: X-ray: NASA/MSFC/CXC/A.Bhardwaj et al.; Optical: NASA/ESA/STScI/AURA Chandra images reveal that the rings of Saturn sparkle in X-rays (blue dots in this X-ray/optical composite). The likely source for this radiation is the fluorescence caused by solar X-rays striking oxygen atoms in the water molecules that comprise most of the icy rings.
As the image shows, the X-rays in the ring mostly come from the B ring, which is about 25,000 kilometers wide and is about 40,000 kilometers (25,000 miles) above the surface of Saturn (the bright white inner ring in the optical image). There is some evidence for a concentration of X-rays on the morning side (left side, also called the East ansa) of the rings. One possible explanation for this concentration is that the X-rays are associated with optical features called spokes, which are largely confined to the dense B ring and most often seen on the morning side.
Spokes, which appear as radial shadows in the rings, are due to transient clouds of fine ice-dust particles that are lifted off the ring surface, and typically last an hour or so before disappearing. It has been suggested that the spokes are triggered by meteoroid impacts on the rings, which are more likely in the midnight to early morning hours because during that period the relative speed of the rings through a cloud of meteoroids would be greater.
The higher X-ray brightness on the morning side of the rings could be due to the additional solar fluorescence from the transient ice clouds that produce the spokes. This explanation may also account for other Chandra observations of Saturn, which show that the X-ray brightness of the rings varies significantly from one week to the next.

• Quasars are some of the most luminous objects in the Universe.
• The system SDSS 1254+0846 has a pair of them -- the first time this has been seen.
• This double quasar is likely the result of a merger of two galaxies.

This composite image shows the effects of two galaxies caught in the act of merging. A Chandra X-ray Observatory image shows a pair of quasars in blue, located about 4.6 billion light years away, but separated on the sky by only about 70 thousand light years. These bright sources, collectively called SDSS J1254+0846, are powered by material falling onto supermassive black holes. An optical image from the Baade-Magellan telescope in Chile, in yellow, shows tidal tails - gravitational-stripped streamers of stars and gas -- fanning out from the two colliding galaxies.
This represents the first time a luminous pair of quasars has been clearly seen in an ongoing galaxy merger. "Quasars are the most luminous compact objects in the Universe, and though about a million of them are now known, it's incredibly hard work to find two quasars side by side," said Paul Green, from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, MA, who led the study.
This pair of quasars was first detected by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, a large-scale astronomical survey of galaxies and quasars. They were observed with the Magellan telescope to determine whether the quasars were close enough to show clear signs of interactions between their host galaxies. "The tidal tails fanning out from the galaxies that we see in the optical image are a sure sign, the litmus test of an ongoing galaxy merger," said Green.
This result represents strong evidence for the prediction that a pair of quasars would be triggered during a merger. The galaxy disks both appear to be nearly face-on to Earth, which may explain why the X-rays from Chandra show no signs of absorption by intervening gas or dust.

Originally Posted by lob

shit, gotta advertise my ignorance. whats EM??.

electro magnetic radiation eg: light and that sort of stuff

Originally Posted by Panda

My own theory

Originally Posted by Panda

I didnt do physics after high school

fair enough, that may help

Originally Posted by The Gentleman Scamp

Because everybody knows it is beyond comprehension

how can you know it is beyond comprehension if you don't understand it?

simple things like gravity were apparently beyond comprehension until they were comprehended

Originally Posted by The Gentleman Scamp

what a daft thing to say

only if you think everything is already understood and there will be no more progress

Anything interesting to add DrA? Other than smart arsed comments about other posters.

Thought not.

We (earth) may be an ant farm for all we know.

The vastness of the universe is mind boggling and I truly wish to know more as the God concept did not convince me of the origin of life.

What an old load of horseshite!

Originally Posted by Panda

Anything interesting to add DrA? Other than smart arsed comments about other posters.

Thought not.

if you had actually read and understood what I wrote, then you would not have posted that, Pandapoo

Originally Posted by melvbot

NGC 1055

That name is a bit older than NASA, it stems from the 1880ies.

And what is wrong with

New General Catalogue entry Nr. 1050?



I love those pictures and use a few of them as desktop backgrounds.

Not pretty picture but taken by NASA

Oil Slick Spreads off Gulf Coast
NASA's Aqua satellite captured this image of the Gulf of Mexico on April 25, 2010 using its Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument. With the Mississippi Delta on the left, the silvery swirling oil slick from the April 20 explosion and subsequent sinking of the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform is highly visible. The rig was located roughly 50 miles southeast of the coast of Louisiana.

The oil slick may be particularly obvious because it is occurring in the sunglint area, where the mirror-like reflection of the Sun off the water gives the Gulf of Mexico a washed-out look. Oil slicks are notoriously difficult to spot in natural-color (photo-like) satellite imagery because a thin sheen of oil only slightly darkens the already dark blue background of the ocean. Under unique viewing conditions, oil slicks can become visible in photo-like images, but usually, radar imagery is needed to clearly see a spill from space.

Image Credit: NASA/MODIS Rapid Response Team

A solar prominence eruption taken in March this year.



This photo is of the sun, the different colours are false colours used to trace the different gas temperatures.



NASA - NASA's New Eye on the Sun Delivers Stunning First Images

Originally Posted by Panda

Originally Posted by lob

shit, gotta advertise my ignorance. whats EM??.

electro magnetic radiation eg: light and that sort of stuff

cheers man. looked that up now so more ofa. had an idea it was something to do with electrons but couldn't square it away.

Unless they have gravity like we do then they will look pretty fukin weird an scary. and they'll hardly be talkin about the weather .

Originally Posted by Chairman Mao

Of course there may well be billions of universes, billions of big bangs... Our universe just one of a billion. Each with different laws of physics and number of dimensions.

Also being generally accepted that our universe will one day collapse in on itself, and be left as nothing as it was before it created itself... waiting to create itself again via its next big bang. How many times has this happened before? Zero, ten, a million?

Must confess. I never thought of it that way....ever.

I knew I joined TD for some reason.

Thanks.....you just broadened my perspective.

Originally Posted by melvbot

I was driving to work today at about 0530 and had a real clear view of the moon. I think most people take the moon for granted as its a permanent fixture in the night sky but this morning it just had more impact for some reason, a planet that you can see every night more or less with nothing more than the naked eye.

The moon ranges between 220,000 and 250,000 miles away depending on its orbit which put things in perspective (again) Mars is a bloody long way away

This is about as good as it gets with the naked eye for Mars

Jupiter and the moon are our biggest defenses against meteorites.

Originally Posted by bangkokbonecollector

Jupiter and the moon are our biggest defenses against meteorites.

why is that?

^ Gravity pulling them away

It's all going away.

Originally Posted by 9999

^ Gravity pulling them away

not much gravitational pull from the moon

whatever, they haven't done a very good job in the past

List of impact craters on Earth - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

that list is of the known ones, there were probably many other hits but on the sea, leaving no trace except maybe massive Tsunami evidence

Originally Posted by Chairman Mao

Of course there may well be billions of universes, billions of big bangs... Our universe just one of a billion. Each with different laws of physics and number of dimensions.

Also being generally accepted that our universe will one day collapse in on itself, and be left as nothing as it was before it created itself... waiting to create itself again via its next big bang. How many times has this happened before? Zero, ten, a million?

Any idea when? I like to make plans.

We are infants in this vast universe.