Happy 4th Of July… From Space!
Happy 4th of July… From Space!
In Hollywood blockbusters, explosions and eruptions are often among the stars of the show. In space, explosions, eruptions and twinkling of actual stars are a focus for scientists who hope to better understand their births, lives, deaths and how they interact with their surroundings. Spend some of your Fourth of July taking a look at these celestial phenomenon:
Credit: NASA/Chandra X-ray Observatory
An Astral Exhibition
This object became a sensation in the astronomical community when a team of researchers pointed at it with our Chandra X-ray Observatory telescope in 1901, noting that it suddenly appeared as one of the brightest stars in the sky for a few days, before gradually fading away in brightness. Today, astronomers cite it as an example of a “classical nova,” an outburst produced by a thermonuclear explosion on the surface of a white dwarf star, the dense remnant of a Sun-like star.
Credit: NASA/Hubble Space Telescope
A Twinkling Tapestry
The brilliant tapestry of young stars flaring to life resemble a glittering fireworks display. The sparkling centerpiece is a giant cluster of about 3,000 stars called Westerlund 2, named for Swedish astronomer Bengt Westerlund who discovered the grouping in the 1960s. The cluster resides in a raucous stellar breeding ground located 20,000 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Carina.
Credit: NASA/THEMIS/Sebastian Saarloos
An Illuminating Aurora
Sometimes during solar magnetic events, solar explosions hurl clouds of magnetized particles into space. Traveling more than a million miles per hour, these coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, made up of hot material called plasma take up to three days to reach Earth. Spacecraft and satellites in the path of CMEs can experience glitches as these plasma clouds pass by. In near-Earth space, magnetic reconnection incites explosions of energy driving charged solar particles to collide with atoms in Earth’s upper atmosphere. We see these collisions near Earth’s polar regions as the aurora. Three spacecraft from our Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms (THEMIS) mission, observed these outbursts known as substorms.
Credit: NASA/Hubble Space Telescope//ESA/STScI
A Shining Supermassive Merger
Every galaxy has a black hole at its center. Usually they are quiet, without gas accretions, like the one in our Milky Way. But if a star creeps too close to the black hole, the gravitational tides can rip away the star’s gaseous matter. Like water spinning around a drain, the gas swirls into a disk around the black hole at such speeds that it heats to millions of degrees. As an inner ring of gas spins into the black hole, gas particles shoot outward from the black hole’s polar regions. Like bullets shot from a rifle, they zoom through the jets at velocities close to the speed of light. Astronomers using our Hubble Space Telescope observed correlations between supermassive black holes and an event similar to tidal disruption, pictured above in the Centaurus A galaxy.
Credit: NASA/Hubble Space Telescope/ESA
A Stellar Explosion
Supernovae can occur one of two ways. The first occurs when a white dwarf—the remains of a dead star—passes so close to a living star that its matter leaks into the white dwarf. This causes a catastrophic explosion. However most people understand supernovae as the death of a massive star. When the star runs out of fuel toward the end of its life, the gravity at its heart sucks the surrounding mass into its center. At the turn of the 19th century, the binary star system Eta Carinae was faint and undistinguished. Our Hubble Telescope captured this image of Eta Carinae, binary star system. The larger of the two stars in the Eta Carinae system is a huge and unstable star that is nearing the end of its life, and the event that the 19th century astronomers observed was a stellar near-death experience. Scientists call these outbursts supernova impostor events, because they appear similar to supernovae but stop just short of destroying their star.
Credit: NASA/GSFC/SDO
An Eye-Catching Eruption
Extremely energetic objects permeate the universe. But close to home, the Sun produces its own dazzling lightshow, producing the largest explosions in our solar system and driving powerful solar storms.. When solar activity contorts and realigns the Sun’s magnetic fields, vast amounts of energy can be driven into space. This phenomenon can create a sudden flash of light—a solar flare.The above picture features a filament eruption on the Sun, accompanied by solar flares captured by our Solar Dynamics Observatory.
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More Posts from Duxgregis and Others
Mustard gas and roses - Slaughter House 5 by Kurt Vonnegut
Candle + Book Giveaway
Hey everyone! The Literary Snob is teaming up with The Happy Bard Candle Co. to do a double giveaway this September. We’re all on the same trivia team in the real world (Sean Bean Lives!) and I absolutely love Happy Bard’s literary inspired candles. They’re about to release their next line of literary candles and one of the new scents will be a fan submission! So we’re holding a contest and double giveaway to find the fairest combo in the land.
Reblog this post with your submission for a literary candle scent. You can send in as many submissions as your heart desires and tag anyone who dreams of being a candle virtuoso. The Happy Bard Candle Co. will pick their favorite submission at the end of the contest, create the candle, and send it to you! Plus I will send the winner one of the newly released Vintage Minis of your choice.
GIVEAWAY RULES
Reblog this post with a book & fragrance combo suggestion
Follow The Happy Bard Candle Co. on either Instagram or Facebook
Follow The Literary Snob on Tumblr
Have fun and be creative!
RULES
There is no limit on submissions, so reblog away! Currently, The Happy Bard Candle Co. cannot ship internationally, so anybody can participate but only those in the U.S. can win. Contest ends Saturday, Sept. 30 at midnight.
We look forward to seeing what everyone comes up with! Plus I might throw in an extra prize for whoever makes me laugh the hardest. Good luck!
Mythology Asks
Anubis: How do you feel about death?
Atum: What are your greatest imperfections?
Bastet: Do you have any cats?
Hathor: What brings you joy?
Horus: What is one thing you've had to fight for in your life?
Osiris: Do you believe in the underworld?
Ra: Do you have any major responsibilities or importance?
Thoth: Do you like to read/write?
Arawn: What is the most terrifying thing you've ever done?
Bran: How is your health?
Brighid: Tell us about your relationship with your father.
Cernunnos: What is your favorite animal?
Danu: What is your relationship with your mother?
Morrigan: What do you think happens when we die?
Olwen: What is your favorite flower?
Rhiannon: Have you ever been betrayed?
Bragi: What kind of music do you listen to?
Freya: Have you ever been in love?
Freyr: Do you have any children?
Hœnir: Are you a silent or talkative person?
Iounn: How old are you?
Loki: What is the best trick you've ever pulled on someone?
Odin: What is your family like?
Thor: Would you consider yourself pretty powerful?
Tree: What have you done with your life? What are you going to do with it?
Aphrodite: What do you think of yourself?
Ares: Are you an easy person to anger?
Athena: Would you consider yourself an artist?
Apollo: Do you play any instruments?
Dionysus: Do you drink?
Hades: Do you have a bad reputation?
Hekate: Have you ever tried to communicate with the dead?
Hermes: Have you ever stolen anything?
Poseidon: Are you a moody person?
Zeus: Are you a confident person?
Jupiter: Would people say that you are intimidating or fairly approachable?
Pluto: Where do you think we go when we die?
Apollo & Dianna: Do you prefer to be up during the day or at night?
Mars: Have you ever gotten into a fight?
Minerva: Do you generally give good advice?
Proserpine: Have you ever felt trapped?
Plutus: Do you have a job?
Venus: Have you ever had your heart broken?
Vesta: Do you like being home or do you try to get out whenever you can?
Morpheus: Do you daydream often? Of what?
Cherry blossom and hefeweizen - Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick
Candle + Book Giveaway
Hey everyone! The Literary Snob is teaming up with The Happy Bard Candle Co. to do a double giveaway this September. We’re all on the same trivia team in the real world (Sean Bean Lives!) and I absolutely love Happy Bard’s literary inspired candles. They’re about to release their next line of literary candles and one of the new scents will be a fan submission! So we’re holding a contest and double giveaway to find the fairest combo in the land.
Reblog this post with your submission for a literary candle scent. You can send in as many submissions as your heart desires and tag anyone who dreams of being a candle virtuoso. The Happy Bard Candle Co. will pick their favorite submission at the end of the contest, create the candle, and send it to you! Plus I will send the winner one of the newly released Vintage Minis of your choice.
GIVEAWAY RULES
Reblog this post with a book & fragrance combo suggestion
Follow The Happy Bard Candle Co. on either Instagram or Facebook
Follow The Literary Snob on Tumblr
Have fun and be creative!
RULES
There is no limit on submissions, so reblog away! Currently, The Happy Bard Candle Co. cannot ship internationally, so anybody can participate but only those in the U.S. can win. Contest ends Saturday, Sept. 30 at midnight.
We look forward to seeing what everyone comes up with! Plus I might throw in an extra prize for whoever makes me laugh the hardest. Good luck!
WEEKLY COMIC PICKS FOR 6.4.2014
This week we review Nailbiter #2, Rise of the Magi #1, Big Trouble In Little China #1, Black Widow #7, and Original Sin #3.
We took some advice from one of our viewers and tried to make this episode as spoiler-free as possible which also makes for shorter, more digestible episodes. Check it out below and let us know what you think.
If you like these videos, please show your support by giving them a Thumbs-Up, leaving a comment, and/or subscribing to our channel. It would really mean a lot, plus it’s nice to have some form of interaction with you guys so we know that other people besides us are into this kind of stuff.
We hope you like this episode. Until next week, let us know what you’re reading in the comments!
(via BoringEnormous)
“Nothing is more fairly distributed than common sense: no one thinks he needs more of it than he already has.”
— Rene Descartes, Discourse on the Method
...what we stay alive for.
Edify yourself 👽
Weird Animal Facts (see 15 more)
It’s so beautiful. It’s so beautiful it makes me want to cry. It’s the fulfillment of dozens, hundreds, thousands of people’s efforts, but it’s also the fulfillment of an idea suddenly becoming real.
Peter Saulson of Syracuse University, who has spent more than three decades working on the detection of gravitational waves.
Astronomers Strike Gravitational Gold In Colliding Neutron Stars
(via npr)
Au in some stars many, many, many AUs away.
the x files’ nonexistent writers room: one of the biggest holes we’ve dug ourselves into with the william storyline is the existence of his adoptive parents, the van de kamps. mulder and scully can’t just whisk their son away from the only family he’s ever known, right? that wouldn’t be moral or ethical, how do we fix this
james wong:
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