MORE RECENT ASTRONOMY PHOTOS

Sorry for not posting sooner. I've been very busy, and still am. Just so nobody thinks I'm dead, here's a few recent photos from the "Astronomy Picture of the Day" site. 

Above, that's Dingo Gap on Mars as seen by the Curiosity Rover.

How big is our galaxy? VERY. Our galaxy contains an area equal to that occupied by all six of the galaxies shown. 

Here's (above) the center of a nearby galaxy. The stars are so densely packed, so close together, that a person standing on a planet there would see nothing but extremely bright light in all directions, all day long. I can't even imagine how intense the ambient radiation would be.

If intense radiation was confined to a small area in the very center of galaxies I wouldn't bother worrying about it, but I think it's more widespread than that, and may seriously hamper our ability to explore the galaxy and find intelligent life.



Above, the Earth at night as seen by the International Space Station.

Here's (above) the surface of Enceladus, a moon of Saturn.

Here's something you don't see every day. I'm talking about that white dot near the middle of the picture. It's an ultra-compact dwarf galaxy. It's tiny but it concentrates half its 200 million suns in a radius of only eighty light years. On the average the stars there are 25X closer than in our own neighborhood of the Milky Way.

A super massive black hole at its center leads astronomers to guess that it's the remnant of a larger galaxy that was torn apart by proximity with something else.

This (above) is the Earth seen from from a distant probe. From this angle the Moon seems close enought to Earth to scrape it. This is exactly the way Wally Wood used to draw planets and their moons, way before there was any photo reference for it.

ASTRONOMY PICTURES YOU MAY NOT HAVE SEEN

That's Asteroid Itokawa (above) which passed near Earth in 2005. It's remarkable because there's no craters on it. Nobody knows why but the best guess is that it's a loose ball of rubble that easily breaks apart and reforms every time it's hit by something large. Japan landed a robot on the surface and actually got a sample of it.

Above, a star-forming region in Orion, 1500 light years away. The straight line is jet of high energy electrons and protons which is thought to be a normal occurrence when a star ignites. This probably happened when our Sun was born.

Here's (above) a picture of the jelly doughnut shaped rock that mysteriously appeared near Nasa's Rover on Mars. The rock has a high manganese content which contradicts geologists' predictions for the area.



Here's a parachute jump from outer space. The video tells the story.

BTW: Thanks to "Astronomy Picture of the Day" for the photos. You can link to it from the right sidebar.