1. "Hubble's Greatest Hits!"
Posted by Kat on May-21st-03 at 8:17 AM

HOURGLASS PLANETARY NEBULA - MyCn18 - "Composed from 3 separate images:  light of ionized nitrogen (red), hydrogen (green), and doubly - ionized oxygen (blue)"

"STELLAR "EGGS" EMERGE FROM MOLECULAR CLOUD (Star-Birth Clouds in M16)

This eerie, dark structure, resembling an imaginary sea serpent's head, is a column of cool molecular hydrogen gas (two atoms of hydrogen in each molecule) and dust that is an incubator for new stars. The stars are embedded inside finger-like protrusions extending from the top of the nebula. Each 'fingertip' is somewhat larger than our own solar system."

Thanks, Kat.  Really cool pics.  Though the first one kind of gives me the creeps, in the very center of the hourglass structure is this thing that looks like a big, blueish-greenish eye!

Its incredible that even in space the whole death and rebirth cycle goes on even as it does here. 

I like the IDEA of *Space* because it's really a way of looking at the PAST.
The pic's of these phenonmenon can be easily thought of as happening the same time as when Lizzie was alive, as well as unto now, and us.

THE REST OF THE PICTURE...first spied in the 18th century!



"Gaseous Pillars in The Eagle Nebula M16
PILLARS OF CREATION IN A STAR-FORMING REGION (Gas Pillars in M16 - Eagle Nebula)

Undersea corral? Enchanted castles? Space serpents? These eerie, dark pillar-like structures are actually columns of cool interstellar hydrogen gas and dust that are also incubators for new stars. The pillars protrude from the interior wall of a dark molecular cloud like stalagmites from the floor of a cavern. They are part of the 'Eagle Nebula' (also called M16 -- the 16th object in Charles Messier's 18th century catalog of "fuzzy" objects that aren't comets), a nearby star-forming region 7,000 light-years away in the constellation Serpens.

The pillars are in some ways akin to buttes in the desert, where basalt and other dense rock have protected a region from erosion, while the surrounding landscape has been worn away over millennia. In this celestial case, it is especially dense clouds of molecular hydrogen gas (two atoms of hydrogen in each molecule) and dust that have survived longer than their surroundings in the face of a flood of ultraviolet light from hot, massive newborn stars (off the top edge of the picture). This process is called 'photoevaporation'. This ultraviolet light is also responsible for illuminating the convoluted surfaces of the columns and the ghostly streamers of gas boiling away from their surfaces, producing the dramatic visual effects that highlight the three-dimensional nature of the clouds. The tallest pillar (left) is about a light-year long from base to tip.

As the pillars themselves are slowly eroded away by the ultraviolet light, small globules of even denser gas buried within the pillars are uncovered. These globules have been dubbed 'EGGs.' EGGs is an acronym for 'Evaporating Gaseous Globules,' but it is also a word that describes what these objects are. Forming inside at least some of the EGGs are embryonic stars -- stars that abruptly stop growing when the EGGs are uncovered and they are separated from the larger reservoir of gas from which they were drawing mass. Eventually, the stars themselves emerge from the EGGs as the EGGs themselves succumb to photoevaporation.

The picture was taken on April 1, 1995 with the Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2. The color image is constructed from three separate images taken in the light of emission from different types of atoms. Red shows emission from singly-ionized sulfur atoms. Green shows emission from hydrogen. Blue shows light emitted by doubly- ionized oxygen atoms.

Credit: Jeff Hester and Paul Scowen (Arizona State University), and NASA "

(Message last edited May-22nd-03  2:37 AM.)

"Supernova Remnant the Cygnus Loop
HUBBLE'S CLOSE-UP VIEW OF A SHOCKWAVE FROM A STELLAR EXPLOSION

This image shows a small portion of a nebula called the 'Cygnus Loop.' Covering a region on the sky six times the diameter of the full Moon, the Cygnus Loop is actually the expanding blastwave from a stellar cataclysm - a supernova explosion - which occurred about 15,000 years ago."

"Before and After Comparison of the M100 Nucleus
PICTURE PERFECT: HUBBLE'S NEW IMPROVED OPTICS PROBE THE CORE OF A DISTANT GALAXY This comparison image of the core of the galaxy M100 shows the dramatic improvement in Hubble Space Telescope's view of the universe. The new image was taken with the second generation Wide Field and Planetary Camera (WFPC-2) which was installed during the STS-61 Hubble Servicing Mission. The picture beautifully demonstrates that the corrective optics incorporated within the WFPC-2 compensate fully for optical aberration in Hubble's primary mirror. The new camera will allow Hubble to probe the universe with unprecedented clarity and sensitivity, and to fulfill many of the most important scientific objectives for which the telescope was originally built. [ Right ] The core of the grand design spiral galaxy M100, as imaged by Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 in its high resolution channel."....."The galaxy M100 (100th object in the Messier Catalog of non-stellar objects) is one of the brightest members of the Virgo Cluster of galaxies."

I think that is the *EYE* of Howard Hickman.

"Closeup of a Protoplanetary Disk
EDGE-ON PROTOPLANETARY DISK IN THE ORION NEBULA

Resembling an interstellar Frisbee, this is a disk of dust seen edge-on around a newborn star in the Orion nebula, located 1,500 light-years away. Because the disk is edge-on, the star is largely hidden inside, in this striking Hubble Space Telescope picture. The disk may be an embryonic planetary system in the making. Our solar system probably formed out of just such a disk 4.5 billion years ago. At 17 times the diameter of our own solar system, this disk is the largest of several recently discovered in the Orion nebula.

The left image is a three-color composite, taken in blue, green, and red emission lines from glowing gas in the nebula. The right image was taken through a different filter, which blocks any bright spectral emission lines from the nebula, and hence the disk itself is less distinctly silhouetted against the background. However, clearly visible in this image are nebulosities above and below the plane of the disk; these betray the presence of the otherwise invisible central star, which cannot be seen directly due to dust in the edge-on disk.

The images were taken between January 1994 and March 1995, and a study of their characteristics has been submitted for publication to the Astronomical Journal.

Credit: Mark McCaughrean (Max-Planck-Institute for Astronomy), C. Robert O'Dell (Rice University), and NASA."


(Message last edited May-25th-03  6:48 AM.)

Amazing pics and amazing stuff!  Thanks, Kat.  Would you ever go into space if you were given the chance? 

I wanted Stef to see the official age of our solar system.
When she first started teaching Humanities her textbook was Wrong, can you believe it?
I had to provide 2 sources to prove my point (only fair) and she took the question off the test, because everybody got it wrong.
(Very Fair!)! 
Yea!  Stef is certainly reasonable.

I think there are 3 kinds of people in the world.
Those who would go on a flying saucer to other galaxies if invited.
Those who would not.
And Those who would go IF they could come back again.

I didn't used to include this last catagory, but it really put our brother on the spot!

I wouldn't go.
I already have a vivid imagination.

Which category are you?

(Message last edited May-26th-03  2:33 AM.)

Now I have to admit...though I never inhaled...the pics of 1, 2, 5, 6 & 7 closely resemble some of the things that we "saw" in the late 60's early 70's while in college working on that "Recreational Drug Consumption" project....whoaaaaaaaaaaaa....that was different.

BC