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1. Robert McNees (mcnees@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 20-Nov-2022 18:03:33 UTC Robert McNees

   Former spiral galaxies NGC 4038 and NGC 4039 –– the Antennae Galaxies –– are a few hundred million years into a merger that will result in a single, elliptical galaxy.
   ImageL: ESA/Hubble & NASA

   • Stephen Sekula likes this.
   • Robert McNees (mcnees@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 20-Nov-2022 18:03:24 UTC Robert McNees

     in reply to

     The globular cluster NGC 1866 in the Large Magellanic Cloud.
     Image: ESA/Hubble & NASA
     https://esahubble.org/images/potw1847a/

   • Robert McNees (mcnees@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 23-Nov-2022 03:12:30 UTC Robert McNees

     in reply to

     The Hubble Ultra Deep Field is a patient stare into a tiny patch of sky in the constellation Fornax. Over 11 days of exposure revealed 10,000 galaxies, including some of the oldest known.
     
Almost every dot, smudge, and whorl of light in the image is a galaxy. (There are a few stars in there – you can spot them by their diffraction spikes.) The deepest red ones are galaxies that probably formed when the Universe was less than a billion years old.
     
Image: NASA, ESA, S. Beckwith (STScI), HUDF Team

   • bobo_of_id (bobo_of_id@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 28-Nov-2022 12:22:49 UTC bobo_of_id

     in reply to

     @mcnees i need MOAR space time-lapses!

   • Robert McNees (mcnees@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 28-Nov-2022 12:22:59 UTC Robert McNees

     in reply to

     This time-lapse of Hubble images taken between 1994 and 2016 shows the shockwave from Supernova 1987a slamming into and superheating a ring of material ejected 20,000 years earlier.

     Credits: NASA, ESA, R. Kirshner (HSCfA, Gordon and Betty Moore Fnd), P. Challis (HSCfA)

   • Robert McNees (mcnees@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 28-Nov-2022 12:23:07 UTC Robert McNees

     in reply to

     Hubble, the Spitzer Space Telescope, and the Chandra X-ray Observatory all contributed to this multi-wavelength image of our galactic center, made for the International Year of Astronomy back in 2009.
     Image: NASA, ESA, SSC, CXC and STScI

   • Robert McNees (mcnees@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 28-Nov-2022 12:23:16 UTC Robert McNees

     in reply to

     The Hubble Space Telescope captured this image of the Lagoon Nebula for its 28th anniversary in 2018. The image shows a region about 4 light years across; the entire nebula is roughly 55 light years high by 20 light years wide.

     The Lagoon Nebula is a bit over 4000 light years away. The light in this image left the nebula around the same time the Middle Kingdom period in Egypt was getting underway.

     Image: NASA, ESA, STScI
     https://esahubble.org/images/heic1808a/

   • Robert McNees (mcnees@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 28-Nov-2022 12:58:50 UTC Robert McNees

     in reply to

     • Appagal Crochet

     @AppalachianCrochet Hahaha. Out of curiosity, what part of Appalachia are you in?

   • Appagal Crochet (appalachiancrochet@home.social)'s status on Monday, 28-Nov-2022 12:59:42 UTC Appagal Crochet

     in reply to

     @mcnees As my niece would say, "I'm shook!"

   • Robert McNees (mcnees@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 28-Nov-2022 13:41:08 UTC Robert McNees

     in reply to

     • femme anonyme

     @femmeanonyme My pareidolia runs wild with images like this.

   • femme anonyme (femmeanonyme@universeodon.com)'s status on Monday, 28-Nov-2022 13:41:17 UTC femme anonyme

     in reply to

     @mcnees beautiful.
     Is it me, but I swear I see a child holding a finger to their mouth and saying "shhhh". [Yes, I've had some beers]

   • Robert McNees (mcnees@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 28-Nov-2022 15:16:27 UTC Robert McNees

     in reply to

     NBD, just a shockwave from a supernova catching up with material ejected around 20,000 years before the explosion, heating it so intensely that it glows in X-ray.

   • Robert McNees (mcnees@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 29-Nov-2022 04:56:48 UTC Robert McNees

     in reply to

     The Orion Nebula (M42) was the first deep sky object I found with my telescope when I was a kid.
     Image: NASA, ESA, M. Robberto ( Space Telescope Science Institute/ESA), Hubble Space Telescope Orion Treasury Project Team

   • Stephanie J Lahey, PhD (sjlahey@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 29-Nov-2022 05:07:02 UTC Stephanie J Lahey, PhD

     in reply to

     @mcnees beautiful

   • Robert McNees (mcnees@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 30-Nov-2022 04:30:24 UTC Robert McNees

     in reply to

     Caldwell 30 (also known as NGC 7331) is a handsome spiral galaxy about 45 million light-years away in the constellation Pegasus. It's mass and dimensions are very similar to our Milky Way.

     Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA / D. Milisavljevic (Purdue University)

   • Robert McNees (mcnees@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 30-Nov-2022 05:53:51 UTC Robert McNees

     in reply to

     The globular cluster Terzan 4, about 26,000 light years away in the constellation Scorpius. It’s about 12 billion years old, home to around a million mostly old and metal-poor stars.

     Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, R. Cohen

   • Robert McNees (mcnees@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 30-Nov-2022 15:18:32 UTC Robert McNees

     in reply to

     • Jeremy Schnittman

     @SchnittGetsReal As I understand, that is an artifact of the way they colored the various filters. Those are primarily orange-red stars, while the red here shows emissions closer to IR. Tricky because I think at least one of the other Terzan clusters is known for having two populations of stars with very different ages.

   • Jeremy Schnittman (schnittgetsreal@astrodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 30-Nov-2022 15:18:41 UTC Jeremy Schnittman

     in reply to

     @mcnees why are there so many blue stars in such an old GC?

   • Robert McNees (mcnees@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 01-Dec-2022 05:28:13 UTC Robert McNees

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     A towering pillar of cold gas in the Eagle Nebula (M16), about 10 light years high. It's being boiled away by intense UV radiation from a cluster of new stars just off the top edge of the image. Stars are likely forming within.
     Credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

   • Robert McNees (mcnees@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 03-Dec-2022 03:52:26 UTC Robert McNees

     in reply to

     The star-forming region S106 in the constellation Cygnus, practically next door at only 3,300 light years. Just hanging out forming stars and whatnot!
     Image: NASA & ESA

   • Robert McNees (mcnees@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 04-Dec-2022 14:47:59 UTC Robert McNees

     in reply to

     • Judy Schmidt

     A region in NGC 1569, a little galaxy about 11 million light years away in Draco. Gas in the galaxy is compressed by gravitational interactions with the larger IC 342 galaxy group, driving rapid star formation.

     Galaxies like this one are said to be in "starburst," experiencing rates of star formation more than a hundred times greater than a typical galaxy. It's a very poetic term!

     Image: ESA/Hubble & NASA, Aloisi, Ford
     Acknowledgement: Judy Schmidt (@spacegeck)

   • Robert McNees (mcnees@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 14-Dec-2022 01:02:51 UTC Robert McNees

     in reply to

     The Bubble Nebula (NGC 7635), an emission nebula about 8,000 lightyears from Earth in the constellation Cassiopeia.
     Image: NASA, ESA, Hubble Heritage Team