Frosted Leaf and Night sky

This work of art captures both the beauty of the galaxy as well as the beauty of nature we have here on Earth. The frost on the star looks very much like the stars in the night sky. This picture was taken over Japan. In this picture, a meteor can be seen flying behind the trees on the far lower left. Next to the streak of the meteor is also the streak left behind from an airplane. Once again, capturing the similarities between Earth and the rest of our galaxy. The star with the highest magnitude, Sirius, can be seen shining brightly on the left side of the image. The constellation of Orion can be seen easily, as well as his belt of three stars in a perfectly spaced row. This belt is located benaeath the red gas giant. This gas giant is named Betelguese. To the right of the image is the star cluster of the Seven sisters, or, Pleides open star cluster.

observation

On saturday, November 20, 2010, I saw the full moon looking beautiful about 6 degrees above the horizon in the East. I was located by the bay near mote marine aquarium.

NGC 4452: An Extremely Thin Galaxy

This galaxy is so thin that it is barely visible when viewed from the side. It is a type of disk galaxy known as a lenticular galaxy. A lenticular galaxy has used up most of its stellular matter. It is made clear that NGC4452 is a lenticular galaxy due to its lack of dust surrounding it. There is very little star formation in this galaxy. It spans about 35,000 light years. There is a bulge of stars loc ated in the center of this galaxy.

Spicules: jets on the Sun

Spicules are "spikes of superheated gas" made up of plasma that are on the sun. they are 300 miles wide, and usually about 3,000 miles long. They move at a speed of 50,000 miles per hour and then vanish after about 5 minutes. this characteristic of spicules makes them very hard to study in depth.Spicules are one of many factors that generate an intense solar wind on the surface of the Sun. It is believed that the periodic regeneration of a spicule about every five minutes is caused by sound waves of a ring, much like that of a bell, being emitted  from the inside of the Sun. These sound waves form shock waves, which  make a spicule shoot out. Spicules may also contribute to the extrememly high temperature of the corona of the Sun, which is 1.8 milion degrees farenheight, much higher in temperature than the surface of the Sun. There is still  much to learn about the mysterious spicules that engulf the Sun.