Hypercritical universe department

16/01/2020

A new Hubble image features a behemoth spiral galaxy that played a part in the discovery of dark matter.

15/01/2020

• X-ray & Optical Images of LHA 120-N 44 in the LMC
14.1.2020

• This region of star formation features a giant bubble that is blowing out from the middle of this image due to winds flowing off young stars. Chandra data (purple and pink) show this superbubble of hot gas, while Hubble data (orange and light blue) reveals the gas and dust in the system.

The Large Magellanic Cloud is a small neighbouring galaxy to the Milky Way. It contains many regions where clouds of gas and dust are forming new stars. One such region, surrounding the star cluster NGC 1929, is shown in close-up in this new image from ESO’s Very Large Telescope. This nebula is officially known as LHA 120–N 44, or just N 44 for short. Hot young stars in NGC 1929 are emitting intense ultraviolet light and causing the gas to glow. This effect highlights the aptly-named superbubble, a vast shell of material around 325 by 250 light-years across. For comparison, the nearest star to our Sun is just over four light-years distant.

The N 44 superbubble has been produced by the combination of two processes. Firstly, stellar winds — streams of charged particles from the very hot and massive stars in the central cluster — cleared out the central region. Then massive cluster stars exploded as supernovae creating shockwaves and pushing the gas out further to form the glowing bubble.

Although the superbubble is shaped by destructive forces, new stars are forming around the edges where the gas is being compressed. Like recycling on a cosmic scale, this next generation of stars will breathe fresh life into NGC 1929.

• Credit: Enhanced Image by Judy Schmidt (CC BY-NC-SA) based on images provided courtesy of NASA/CXC/SAO & NASA/STScI. Text: ESO
Scale: Image is about 7.9 arcmin across (367 light years)
Category: Normal Stars
Coordinates (J2000): RA 05h 22m 06.9s | Dec -67° 56' 46"
Constellation: Dorado
Observation Dates: Sept 22, 2002
Observation Time: 5 hours 11 minutes
Obs. IDs: 3356
Instrument: ACIS
Color Code: X-ray: Red (0.3-0.95 keV), Green (0.95-2.87 keV), Blue (2.87-7.0 keV); Optical: Orange (WFC3 F814W), Cyan (WFC3 F555W)
Distance Estimate About 160,000 light years

Source: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/chandra/main/index.html

15/01/2020

Located about 3,000 light years from Earth, NGC 7027 is one of the brightest planetary nebulas in the night sky! While science shows it's actually somewhat of a small nebula, this bubble of multimillion degree gas still spans a distance of about 13,000 times that of Earth to the Sun!

14/01/2020

A star that's as old as the universe 🌌🕐🕖

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11/01/2020

Binary stars are two stars orbiting a common center of mass. More than four-fifths of the single points of light we observe in the night sky are actually two or more stars orbiting together.

11/01/2020

We've only scratched the surface

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11/01/2020

Titania, the largest moon of Uranus, was named for a character in Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream." The moon was discovered on this date in 1787. Almost 200 years later, Voyager 2 captured this image. https://go.nasa.gov/2FLE0nH

07/01/2020

LOOK: Another Earth-sized planet is found!

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center shows an artists' illustration of planet TOI 700 d, the first Earth-size habitable-zone planet discovered by NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). Released Monday, January 6. 📷 Handout/NASA/AFP

03/01/2020

02/01/2020

The second law of Thermodynamics states that the entropy disorder of a system will increase over time. The universe is full of irreversible processes that continuosly increase its total entropy thus tending to disorder rather than order.

02/01/2020