Latest Posts by glaretum - Page 4

Vía Láctea en Enchanted Rock State Natural Area - Texas Parks and Wildlife.

Crédito: Spencer McGee

https://www.facebook.com/TheSpencerMcGee

https://instagram.com/thespencermcgee

https://www.youtube.com/c/TwoBrothers4K

~Antares

NASA’s Search for Life: Astrobiology in the Solar System and Beyond

Are we alone in the universe? So far, the only life we know of is right here on Earth. But here at NASA, we’re looking.

We’re exploring the solar system and beyond to help us answer fundamental questions about life beyond our home planet. From studying the habitability of Mars, probing promising “oceans worlds,” such as Titan and Europa, to identifying Earth-size planets around distant stars, our science missions are working together with a goal to find unmistakable signs of life beyond Earth (a field of science called astrobiology).

Dive into the past, present, and future of our search for life in the universe.

Mission Name: The Viking Project

Launch: Viking 1 on August 20, 1975 & Viking 2 on September 9, 1975

Status: Past

Role in the search for life: The Viking Project was our first attempt to search for life on another planet. The mission’s biology experiments revealed unexpected chemical activity in the Martian soil, but provided no clear evidence for the presence of living microorganisms near the landing sites.

Mission Name: Galileo

Launch: October 18, 1989

Status: Past

Role in the search for life: Galileo orbited Jupiter for almost eight years, and made close passes by all its major moons. The spacecraft returned data that continues to shape astrobiology science –– particularly the discovery that Jupiter’s icy moon Europa has evidence of a subsurface ocean with more water than the total amount of liquid water found on Earth.

Mission Name: Kepler and K2

Launch: March 7, 2009

Status: Past

Role in the search for life: Our first planet-hunting mission, the Kepler Space Telescope, paved the way for our search for life in the solar system and beyond. Kepler left a legacy of more than 2,600 exoplanet discoveries, many of which could be promising places for life.

Mission Name: Perseverance Mars Rover

Launch: July 30, 2020

Status: Present

Role in the search for life: Our newest robot astrobiologist is kicking off a new era of exploration on the Red Planet. The rover will search for signs of ancient microbial life, advancing the agency’s quest to explore the past habitability of Mars.

Mission Name: James Webb Space Telescope

Launch: 2021

Status: Future

Role in the search for life: Webb will be the premier space-based observatory of the next decade. Webb observations will be used to study every phase in the history of the universe, including planets and moons in our solar system, and the formation of distant solar systems potentially capable of supporting life on Earth-like exoplanets.

Mission Name: Europa Clipper

Launch: Targeting 2024

Status: Future

Role in the search for life: Europa Clipper will investigate whether Jupiter’s icy moon Europa, with its subsurface ocean, has the capability to support life. Understanding Europa’s habitability will help scientists better understand how life developed on Earth and the potential for finding life beyond our planet.

Mission Name: Dragonfly

Launch: 2027

Status: Future

Role in the search for life: Dragonfly will deliver a rotorcraft to visit Saturn’s largest and richly organic moon, Titan. This revolutionary mission will explore diverse locations to look for prebiotic chemical processes common on both Titan and Earth.

For more on NASA’s search for life, follow NASA Astrobiology on Twitter, on Facebook, or on the web.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

Cielos de Suiza

Focus stacking o apilamiento de imágenes.

Esta técnica consiste en realizar varias fotos enfocando a un mismo objeto, sin mover la cámara, pero sí cambiando la distancia de enfoque para aumentar la profundidad de campo y conseguir que esté en foco todo lo que queramos, ya que el resultado final es la unión de todas esas imágenes.

Canon 6D astro mod, Samyang 20mm f/1 .8

Tracked/Stacked sky shots blended with a stacked foreground

Sky: 5 images, I min each, f/2.8, iso1600

Forearound: 3 stacked shots. 2 min each. iso6400

Crédito: Vasyl Yatsyna

https://instagram.com/vasylyatsyna

~Antares

📸 Anthony Fuentes

Ig: https://instagram.com/fuentesphotocr

📍 Puntarenas, Costa Rica

~Félicette

Vía láctea sobre el Monte Ruapehu, uno de los volcanes más activos de Nueva Zelanda en la salida de la luna.

Crédito: Galactic Kiwi

https://instagram.com/galactic_kiwi

https://www.galactickiwi.nz/

~Antares

"Night Sky"

La Vía Láctea sobre Dead Vlei en el desierto de Namib en Namibia.

Panorama de 3 fotos individuales: Sony A75 l Sigma mm F / 1 .8 || s l IS0 5000

Crédito: Stefan Liebermann

https://instagram.com/stefanliebermannphoto

https://www.stefanliebermann.de/

~Antares

"Stars on Earth"

📍Oasi zegna

Crédito: Erick Colombo

https://buff.ly/3igPhBf

~Antares

Lago Gallineta, Idaho, con las montañas Sawtooth en el fondo.

EXIF: Sony a7riii, lente Sony 24 mm f/ 1.4 GM

Sky-3 fotos en IS01600, 2 minutos en f / 2.0 (rastreado usando un sky adventurer tracking mount)

Foreground-3 fotos en IS01600, minutos en f / 1 .4

Reflexión de fondo-fotos en IS06400, 20 segundos en la f1.4.

Crédito: Bryony Richards & Eric Benedetti 🇺🇸🇬🇧

✨ Astrophotography of Utah & beyond ✨

https://www.utahastrophotography.com/

https://instagram.com/utahastrophotography

~Antares

Eclipse lunar total en el 2019

Compuesto reprocesado de dos imagenes, una de la luna y otra de las estrellas.

Crédito: Dan Stein

https://danieljstein.com/

~Antares

"La Vía Láctea se precipitó en diagonal a través de los cielos, recordándome mi absoluta insignificancia, y al mismo tiempo mi completa interconexión con todo. Yo era solo una pequeña partícula de conciencia, y sin embargo yo era la conciencia misma", comentarios del autor.

Crédito: Evan Amos

Poncitlán, Jalisco.

Vía láctea sobre el lago de Chapala.

22 de abril del 2020.

Cámara Canon EOS SL3.

20 ligths + darks.

20 seg. de exposición ISO 3200 f/4.5 18mm.

Revelado en Photoshop.

Crédito: Alejandra Stella

@astronomiaandromeda

https://www.facebook.com/mariale.lopez.8

Luna Llena

Crédito: Victor Soto

https://instagram.com/arquitrovo

https://www.facebook.com/Vitorsoto

~Antares

Reflection

Crédito: Tero Marin

https://instagram.com/teromarin

https://www.teromarin.com/

~Antares

Behold our beautiful Moon as seen from lunar orbit during the Apollo 15 mission, August 2, 1971.

Vía Lactea en Lake Powell

Crédito: Julio C. Lozoya

https://instagram.com/julio_c_lozoya

~Antares

What’s Inside a ‘Dead’ Star?

Matter makes up all the stuff we can see in the universe, from pencils to people to planets. But there’s still a lot we don’t understand about it! For example: How does matter work when it’s about to become a black hole? We can’t learn anything about matter after it becomes a black hole, because it’s hidden behind the event horizon, the point of no return. So we turn to something we can study – the incredibly dense matter inside a neutron star, the leftover of an exploded massive star that wasn’t quite big enough to turn into a black hole.

Our Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer, or NICER, is an X-ray telescope perched on the International Space Station. NICER was designed to study and measure the sizes and masses of neutron stars to help us learn more about what might be going on in their mysterious cores.

When a star many times the mass of our Sun runs out of fuel, it collapses under its own weight and then bursts into a supernova. What’s left behind depends on the star’s initial mass. Heavier stars (around 25 times the Sun’s mass or more) leave behind black holes. Lighter ones (between about eight and 25 times the Sun’s mass) leave behind neutron stars.

Neutron stars pack more mass than the Sun into a sphere about as wide as New York City’s Manhattan Island is long. Just one teaspoon of neutron star matter would weigh as much as Mount Everest, the highest mountain on Earth!

These objects have a lot of cool physics going on. They can spin faster than blender blades, and they have powerful magnetic fields. In fact, neutron stars are the strongest magnets in the universe! The magnetic fields can rip particles off the star’s surface and then smack them down on another part of the star. The constant bombardment creates hot spots at the magnetic poles. When the star rotates, the hot spots swing in and out of our view like the beams of a lighthouse.

Neutron stars are so dense that they warp nearby space-time, like a bowling ball resting on a trampoline. The warping effect is so strong that it can redirect light from the star’s far side into our view. This has the odd effect of making the star look bigger than it really is!

NICER uses all the cool physics happening on and around neutron stars to learn more about what’s happening inside the star, where matter lingers on the threshold of becoming a black hole. (We should mention that NICER also studies black holes!)

Scientists think neutron stars are layered a bit like a golf ball. At the surface, there’s a really thin (just a couple centimeters high) atmosphere of hydrogen or helium. In the outer core, atoms have broken down into their building blocks – protons, neutrons, and electrons – and the immense pressure has squished most of the protons and electrons together to form a sea of mostly neutrons.

But what’s going on in the inner core? Physicists have lots of theories. In some traditional models, scientists suggested the stars were neutrons all the way down. Others proposed that neutrons break down into their own building blocks, called quarks. And then some suggest that those quarks could recombine to form new types of particles that aren’t neutrons!

NICER is helping us figure things out by measuring the sizes and masses of neutron stars. Scientists use those numbers to calculate the stars’ density, which tells us how squeezable matter is!

Let’s say you have what scientists think of as a typical neutron star, one weighing about 1.4 times the Sun’s mass. If you measure the size of the star, and it’s big, then that might mean it contains more whole neutrons. If instead it’s small, then that might mean the neutrons have broken down into quarks. The tinier pieces can be packed together more tightly.

NICER has now measured the sizes of two neutron stars, called PSR J0030+0451 and PSR J0740+6620, or J0030 and J0740 for short.

J0030 is about 1.4 times the Sun’s mass and 16 miles across. (It also taught us that neutron star hot spots might not always be where we thought.) J0740 is about 2.1 times the Sun’s mass and is also about 16 miles across. So J0740 has about 50% more mass than J0030 but is about the same size! Which tells us that the matter in neutron stars is less squeezable than some scientists predicted. (Remember, some physicists suggest that the added mass would crush all the neutrons and make a smaller star.) And J0740’s mass and size together challenge models where the star is neutrons all the way down.

So what’s in the heart of a neutron star? We’re still not sure. Scientists will have to use NICER’s observations to develop new models, perhaps where the cores of neutron stars contain a mix of both neutrons and weirder matter, like quarks. We’ll have to keep measuring neutron stars to learn more!

Keep up with other exciting announcements about our universe by following NASA Universe on Twitter and Facebook.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.

La imagen ganadora presentada fue tomada sobre el lago glacial más grande de Islandia . El fotógrafo combinó seis exposiciones para capturar no solo dos anillos de auroras verdes , sino también sus reflejos en el lago sereno. Visible en el cielo de fondo distante es la banda de nuestra Vía Láctea y la galaxia de Andrómeda .

Créditos: Stephane Vetter

Black Holes: Seeing the Invisible!

Black holes are some of the most bizarre and fascinating objects in the cosmos. Astronomers want to study lots of them, but there’s one big problem – black holes are invisible! Since they don’t emit any light, it’s pretty tough to find them lurking in the inky void of space. Fortunately there are a few different ways we can “see” black holes indirectly by watching how they affect their surroundings.

Speedy stars

If you’ve spent some time stargazing, you know what a calm, peaceful place our universe can be. But did you know that a monster is hiding right in the heart of our Milky Way galaxy? Astronomers noticed stars zipping superfast around something we can’t see at the center of the galaxy, about 10 million miles per hour! The stars must be circling a supermassive black hole. No other object would have strong enough gravity to keep them from flying off into space.

Two astrophysicists won half of the Nobel Prize in Physics last year for revealing this dark secret. The black hole is truly monstrous, weighing about four million times as much as our Sun! And it seems our home galaxy is no exception – our Hubble Space Telescope has revealed that the hubs of most galaxies contain supermassive black holes.

Shadowy silhouettes

Technology has advanced enough that we’ve been able to spot one of these supermassive black holes in a nearby galaxy. In 2019, astronomers took the first-ever picture of a black hole in a galaxy called M87, which is about 55 million light-years away. They used an international network of radio telescopes called the Event Horizon Telescope.

In the image, we can see some light from hot gas surrounding a dark shape. While we still can’t see the black hole itself, we can see the “shadow” it casts on the bright backdrop.

Shattered stars

Black holes can come in a smaller variety, too. When a massive star runs out of the fuel it uses to shine, it collapses in on itself. These lightweight or “stellar-mass” black holes are only about 5-20 times as massive as the Sun. They’re scattered throughout the galaxy in the same places where we find stars, since that’s how they began their lives. Some of them started out with a companion star, and so far that’s been our best clue to find them.

Some black holes steal material from their companion star. As the material falls onto the black hole, it gets superhot and lights up in X-rays. The first confirmed black hole astronomers discovered, called Cygnus X-1, was found this way.

If a star comes too close to a supermassive black hole, the effect is even more dramatic! Instead of just siphoning material from the star like a smaller black hole would do, a supermassive black hole will completely tear the star apart into a stream of gas. This is called a tidal disruption event.

Making waves

But what if two companion stars both turn into black holes? They may eventually collide with each other to form a larger black hole, sending ripples through space-time – the fabric of the cosmos!

These ripples, called gravitational waves, travel across space at the speed of light. The waves that reach us are extremely weak because space-time is really stiff.

Three scientists received the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics for using LIGO to observe gravitational waves that were sent out from colliding stellar-mass black holes. Though gravitational waves are hard to detect, they offer a way to find black holes without having to see any light.

We’re teaming up with the European Space Agency for a mission called LISA, which stands for Laser Interferometer Space Antenna. When it launches in the 2030s, it will detect gravitational waves from merging supermassive black holes – a likely sign of colliding galaxies!

Rogue black holes

So we have a few ways to find black holes by seeing stuff that’s close to them. But astronomers think there could be 100 million black holes roaming the galaxy solo. Fortunately, our Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will provide a way to “see” these isolated black holes, too.

Roman will find solitary black holes when they pass in front of more distant stars from our vantage point. The black hole’s gravity will warp the starlight in ways that reveal its presence. In some cases we can figure out a black hole’s mass and distance this way, and even estimate how fast it’s moving through the galaxy.

For more about black holes, check out these Tumblr posts!

⚫ Gobble Up These Black (Hole) Friday Deals!

⚫ Hubble’s 5 Weirdest Black Hole Discoveries

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.

¿Se imaginan poder ver ese cielo siempre? Esta fotografía fue tomada desde Kiruna, Suecia.

Crédito: Mia Stålnacke

@AngryTheInch

https://www.facebook.com/angryinch https://www.buymeacoffee.com/angrytheinch

Crédito: Babak Tafreshi

Republicado desde @BabakTafreshi

Vía Láctea sur y las nubes de Magallanes sobre el vasto océano Austral en Victoria, Australia, a lo largo de la carretera del gran océano.

~Antares

¿Cómo empezó? ➡️ ¿Cómo va?

Las imágenes del Hubble de la Nebulosa Stingray tomadas con 20 años de diferencia muestran la forma cambiante de la nebulosa y una pérdida dramática de brillo.

📸 NASA, ESA, B. Balick (Universidad de Washington), M. Guerrero (Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía) y G. Ramos-Larios (Universidad de Guadalajara)

~Félicette

Una imagen compuesta de la subida de la Luna llena el 29 de diciembre de 2020 en una tarde muy clara del cielo crepúsculo, aquí sobre las Badlands del Parque Provincial Dinosaur, Alberta. Esta es una mezcla en capas de 13 exposiciones tomadas a intervalos de 5 minutos, desde la salida de la luna justo antes de la puesta del sol, hasta la altura de la luna en un cielo oscuro más de una hora después. El suelo y el cielo cerca del horizonte es una mezcla de las primeras cuatro exposiciones, mientras que el cielo superior es de las dos últimas exposiciones para colocar la luna ahora brillante en un cielo más oscuro como realmente apareció. La Luna mueve su propio diámetro en unos 2 minutos, por lo que las tomas tomadas con 5 minutos de diferencia proporcionan un buen espacio para un disparo con este campo de vista. Estos marcos fueron tomados como parte de un lapso de tiempo de 800 marcos con la cámara en la exposición automática para asegurar que cada marco estuviera bien expuesto para el suelo y el cielo. Pero a medida que la luna ilumina mientras se levanta, inevitablemente sobreexpone el disco de la Luna - la secuencia de exposición que utilizo aquí funciona para el time-lapse pero no es tan ideal para una imagen compuesta como esta. Si hubiera querido que se tomara esto solo para un compuesto de imágenes quietas, habría tenido que arreglar la exposición a más o menos lo que era a mitad de secuencia aquí, para mantener el disco lunar en ese brillo y detalle. ¡Que así sea! Todos estaban con la lente de Rokinon 85 mm y Canon 6 D Mklll a ISO 100.

Crédito: Alan Dyer

https://www.amazingsky.com/

La temporada de la Vía Láctea a la vuelta de la esquina.

Crédito: Freelance Photographer

@vandusenvisuals

https://www.vandusenphotography.com/

'' Arboreal Chiaroscuro ''

Crédito: IG: Kiravictoriar

EXIF:

IS06400,17mm, f/2.8, 15.0 sec

Nikon D850,14-24mm (f2.8),

Induro CLT303 Classic Series 3 Stealth Carbon Fiber Tripod,

Indulto BHD2 Ball Head, Edited in LR

Luna

Cámara digital compacta Canon Powershot Sx60hs X85 zoom, sin telescopio.

Crédito: Hidehiko Akazawa

Los árboles de Deadvlei llevan muertos más de 500 años. Ubicados en el Parque Namib-Naukluft en Namibia. Muy por encima y en la distancia, la banda de nuestra Vía Láctea forma un arco sobre un gran tallo en esta imagen compuesta oportuna.

Créditos: Stefan Liebermann

Cielo estrellado sobre el lago Erhai en la provincia de Yunnan, al sudoeste de la República popular China.

Crédito: Jeff Dai

Fotógrafo en The World at Night - TWAN

@jeffdaiphoto

http://twanight.org/profile/jeff-dai/

TWAN

TWAN | Jeff Dai

Dedicated nightscape photographer who spends most of his imaging nights in Tibet.

Vía Láctea

ISO 6400 / f2.8 / 15s (X5) cielo, 50s (suelo)

Sony A7 y Tamron 17-28mm.

Crédito: Javier Martínez Morán

@jmartinezmoran

https://jmartinezmoran.com/#

¿Qué está pasando en la nebulosa de la Estatua de la Libertad?

Se están formando y liberando estrellas brillantes y moléculas interesantes. La compleja nebulosa reside en la región de formación estelar llamada RCW 57. Se cree que los PAH se crean en el gas de enfriamiento de las regiones de formación de estrellas, y su desarrollo en la nebulosa de formación del Sol hace cinco mil millones de años puede haber sido un paso importante en el desarrollo de la vida en la Tierra. La imagen presentada fue tomada en el Observatorio Interamericano Cerro Tololo en Chile.

Créditos: S. Mazlin , J. Harvey , R. Gilbert y D. Verschatse

-Betelgeuse

"iPrimera Vía láctea de 2021 1 "

Seguimiento / apilado / mezclado

El autor de esta fotografía nos comparte su suerte de poder vivir a 20 minutos de una buena calidad de cielo. En el sur de Francia estan en un Bortle 5-4 para que puedan ver la Vía Láctea a simple vista.

Para esta imagen utilizo su nuevo filtro Halpha en su D800 Astrodon y aquí está el resultado.

Nikon D800 astrodon + Sigma 35mm Art & NISI filtro de luz natural.

Montura de seguimiento de Star Adventurer

Cielo: 10 Ha B 120 segundos F3.2 iso4000

8 RGB B 120 segundos F3.2 iso2000

FG: 120 segundos FI l iso iso800

Crédito: @anthonylp.photography

Facebook: Anthony LP Photography