Enceladus looms

This is a picture of one of Saturn's moons, Enceladus. The white line at the bottom of the picture is sunlight pouring over Saturn's darkened surface. This light from the sun also lights only a small crescent of Saturns moon as well. This moon has a diameter of about 500 km. By looking at the illuminated part of the moon in this picture, one can see water vapor and ice being ejected from fissures along the surface.These fissures have used the nickname of "tiger stripes" for these fissures along it's surface. Astronomers refer to the ejections from the fissures as plumes. These ice plumes spewing from the surface could be evidence that there is water on the surface of Enceladus. This image was taken from the Cassini spacecraft, only 6,000 kilometers away from Enceladus (which was actually closer than Saturn is to it's moon).

Zooniverse

Over the past four weeks, i have done work with Old Weather as well as MOONZOO on zooniverse.org. It is interesting to do all of the detailed work that astronomers and scientists would do. Although the work isnt always the most interesting, it is vital in making important observations about our Eath and our universe. I have spent about 8 hours altogether in class working on zooniverse.

The Southern Cliff in the Lagoon

For months now I have been writing M8 and  M20 in the miscellaneous part on my constellation quizzes, yet I never knew what they actually looked like. This picture shows M8, which is also called the lagoon nebula. This is a star forming region. In these clouds of dust, many newborn stars are observed. Along with these stars are Herbig Hare objects. These objects are produced by newly formed stars as powerful jets. This is the result of the heat produced by star formation. This nebula is found in the constellation Saggitarius. This colorful picture is not the true color of what this nebula would look like to human eyes, as the image was taken in the infrared. This gorgeous image was captured by the Gemini South Telescope. It is certaintly not a picture of the entire nebula, but rather, a small portion of it.

A starry Night of Iceland

This breathtaking imsge was captured in Iceland, and to no suprise won a photography award for being so beautiful. This is a picture of the largest glacial lake in Iceland, known as the Jokulsarlon.The bright green lights above and reflection off of this lake are called auroral rings. These auroral rings are the result of the collision of charged particles in Earth's atmosphere.This phenomena takes places in the ionosphere, usually at night or around dusk. These lights are directed by Earth's magnetic field and typically occur within polar regions. Amazingly, these auroras can also be seen out in space, and have been found to also occur on planets! In the backround of these auroras, the andromeda galaxy can be seen along with the Milky Way and the Pleiades. As we near the solar maximum, we will experience an increased number of these beautiful auroras.

Shadow of a Martion Robot

This picture doesnt even seem real to me, it could be the cover of a science fiction book! However, this piture is very real as it is the shadow of a robot that was sent to Mars to collect samples and research the red planet. This robot is named Opportunity, and its sister robot is named Spirit, both sent to study Mars. These robots are responsible for many stunning pictures of the surface of Mars and its surroundings in space. Also because of these robots, evidence has been found of water once existing on Mars. The shadow of the robot is being cast toward a crater named the endeavour. The opportunity still continues to help researches gain a greater knowledge of this expansive crater. However, the Spirit is no longer in operation as it has been stuck somewhere on the rocky surface of Mars.

Wonder and Mystery above Chili

This beautiful image shows a wide stretch on the horizon. Included in this horizon are 5 extremely large telescopes canopied by a myriad of stars and astronomical objects. To the far left, one might notice that the bottom of the picture is glowing a rather orange color, although the rest f the sky indicates that it is past sunset. This light is not a sunset but is rather referred to as zodiacal light. This is formed when light reflects off of dust particles in the milky way. Above this zodaical light, Venus can be observed, shining brightly. The reason Venus shines is also a result of the reflection of sunlight. In the middle of the picture, a large arc of our milky way can be seen, and it consumes most of this image. However, this is just one of manyy branches in the enormous galaxy that we live in. Two other galaxies besides our own can also be viewed in this picture, located just under the wide arch of our milky way galaxy. These galaxies are named the small magellanic and the large magellanic galaxies. Many constellations can be seen in this picture including Orion, Gemini, and Centaurus. The orange dot above one of the telescopes is actually the moon, as this picture was taken during a total lunar eclipse.

Unexpected flares from the crab nebula.

It has been found that the crab nebula puts out flares that dramatically increase its brightness. These flares last only a few days, and have been found to be flares of gamma rays.Objects in the sky that emit a substantial amount of gamma rays are very rare and few are able to be observed from Earth. Because this nebula is a good source of gamma rays, and can be studied from Earth, it is a major subject of research to many astronomers.Because gamma rays have such intense amounts of energy, these flares increase the crab nebula's brightness to five times what is normal.One possible explanation for this phenomenon is that there is a very powerful pulsar at the center of the crab. This would indicate that the crab nebula is a nuetron star with a rotation period of 1/30 th of a second. This an extremely fast rotation for a pulsar. This pulsar has the mass of the sun jammed into a space that is only 12 to 18 miles across,making it extremely dense.