Astronomy pictures

[RobotMirror]

What a busy week! First scientists discover a new ring around Saturn:



Then, an amateur astronomer takes a picture of both the space shuttle and the international space station against the sun... yes, THE SUN:





And this just in - some new high resolution color images from the "Face on Mars"... not a face really, more like a dirt pile:


This is what the 1976 photo showed.



Astronomy is amazing.

[clara]

Re: Astronomy pictures

yes it is amazing. I'm fasinated with black holes. Just the fact that there is nothing IN them or around them? or I don't know...just fascinate me!

[RobotMirror]

Re: Astronomy pictures

Yes! Black holes are fascinating... although it's not true to say that there is nothing in them or around them. In a black hole is a gravitational object so strong and so massive that it distorts space and time, and outside of a black hole is all types of activity ... including the release of gas jets, x-rays, and energy signals:



Note that the jet coming from this galaxy is emitted from a black hole, as shown above:



If you could see a black hole 10 times more massive than our sun from fairly close up, it would look like this:

[clara]

Re: Astronomy pictures

WOWOWOWOWOW!

See yeah...just incredible. SO this has been my age old question. If one were to step into a black hole...would one just implode? Isn't it like a vacuum? Do they suck everything around them into them? And what is the meaning of it "distorting time and space". Like a time machine? See fascinating.

Hey you ever see that movie Event Horizon...reminds me of this conversation.

[Gunny]

Re: Astronomy pictures

Very kool pictue

[RobotMirror]

Re: Astronomy pictures

Well, the event horizon is a real term, used for the imaginary "point of no return". If you were to fall into a black hole, you would not, before you fall in, be able to see anything within the event horizon, since nothing can escape beyond that point. However, once you get there it won't seem like a particularly unusual place, except that you would see strange optical distortions of the sky around me from all the bending of light that goes on.

But as soon as I fall through, you're doomed. You have to hit the singularity eventually, and before you get there two things would happen:

Time, as you know it, would slow down to make it feel as though you are falling almost forever; and

You would be stretched until I look like a piece of spaghetti. However, you won't care. You'll be dead.

[clara]

Re: Astronomy pictures

Well, the event horizon is a real term, used for the imaginary "point of no return".

Yeah, I knew Event Horizon is a real term..actually I found that out when I saw the movie. They mentioned it in the movie.

But as soon as I fall through, you're doomed. You have to hit the singularity eventually, and before you get there two things would happen:

Time, as you know it, would slow down to make it feel as though you are falling almost forever; and

You would be stretched until you look like a piece of spaghetti. However, you won't care. You'll be dead.

See now for some strange and exotic reason THAT ^^^^scares the crap outta me! just the thought! falling forever....but just a black hole could cause that..mind boggling.

Bottom line: don't fall into a black hole.

[RobotMirror]

Re: Astronomy pictures

Yes. Just say no, and remember:

Friends don't let friends fall into black holes.

[clara]

Re: Astronomy pictures

Yes. Just say no, and remember:

Friends don't let friends fall into black holes.

:lmao: yes...good advice. I wonder if any research equipement or satellites ever been sucked into black holes in the past?

[Arnie]

Re: Astronomy pictures

:lmao: yes...good advice. I wonder if any research equipement or satellites ever been sucked into black holes in the past?

I don't think they have gotten anything nearly close enough to find out. Voyager 1 just got 9. Billion Miles away from the sun in August, and is only on the edge of our solar system. Nasa thinks it could cross into interstellar space in the next 10 years: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/vo...-20060815.html

Voyager is the spacecraft that was launched about 30 years ago with the "golden record" about life on earth. Basically a message in a bottle tossed into a really big ocean. It''ll take close to 40,000 years before Voyager 1 or 2 make it close to any other planetary system. Here's hoping for some space pirates to pick it up and come find us.

According to space.com the closest blackhole lies just 1,600 light-years from Earth on the way to the center of the Milky Way in the direction of the constellation Sagittarius.(A light-year is 5.88 trillion miles.)

Very interesting stuff out there.

[Mickey'sGirl]

Re: Astronomy pictures

Thanks Frogberto for starting this thread on my favorite subject. This a site I frequent. http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod

They always have the best pics!!!