APOD 3.8

NGC 6384: Spiral Beyond the Stars

To see galaxies within the universe, astronomers must look out beyond the stars of our galaxy, the milky way. The image above shows spiral galaxy NGC 6384 abour 80 million light years away in the direction of the constellation Ophiuchus. It spans an approximate 150,000 light-years. You can see the galaxy's blue spiral arms and yellowish core.

Observation 3/17/11

I went outside on my driveway at about 9:30 pm. Directly overhead was a bright full moon. What was special about this observation today, was that there was a lighter aura circling the moon - an effect of the atmosphere. When I saw the star Betelgeuse in the constellation Orion, I couldn't stop thinking about The Universe Video we watched in class today and how at any moment - tomorrow, 100 years - Betelgeuse will explode into a supernova!! Pretty neat.

APOD 3.7

Saturn's Hyperion: A Moon with Odd Craters

Nobody is sure what lies at the bottom of Hyperion's strange craters. The robot Cassini spacecraft (which is now orbiting Saturn) swooped past the the sponge-textured moon in 2005 and 2010 and took images with unprecedented detail. The picture above is an image from 2005 shown in false color and depicts a remarkable world strewn with strange craters and a generally odd surface. The slight differences in color most likely show differences in surface composition. Hyperion is about 250 kilometers across, roatates chaotically, and has a density so low it might house a vast system of caverns inside.