This Image From The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope Reveals A Spiral Galaxy Named Messier 95 (also Known

Carina nebula [ 564 x 888]

Crew Safe After Soyuz Launch Abort

NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin are in good condition following an aborted launch of their Soyuz spacecraft.

The Soyuz MS-10 spacecraft launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to the International Space Station at 4:40 a.m. EDT Thursday, October 11 (2:40 p.m. in Baikonur) carrying American astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin. Shortly after launch, there was an anomaly with the booster and the launch ascent was aborted, resulting in a ballistic landing of the spacecraft. Search and rescue teams were deployed to the landing site. Hague and Ovchinin are out of the capsule and are reported to be in good condition.

Note: This video is edited for length, but includes the launch, the initial report of the issue, and the confirmation that the crew landed safely.

Chandra/Hubble/Spitzer X-Ray/Visible/Infrared Image of M82.

Credit: NASA, ESA, CXC and JPL-Caltech

These Are The 6 Different Ways To Make A Supernova

“Yet, if you cross a certain mass threshold, you overcome that quantum barrier, and that triggers a runaway fusion reaction, destroying the white dwarfs and leading to a different class of supernova: a thermal runaway supernova.

So, we’ve got core collapse supernovae and thermal runaway supernovae. Does that mean that there are only two classes?

Hardly. There’s more than one way to make both a thermal runaway and a core collapse supernova, and each mechanism or method has properties that are wholly unique to it. Here are the six ways to make a supernova, starting with the least-massive trigger and going up from there.”

So, you’ve got a star, and you want to trigger a supernova with it? Great! Every star that ever gets made in the Universe has the possibility of going supernova. If your star is born with more than about 8 solar masses, it’s practically an inevitability that a supernova will ensue, and that it will be a core-collapse supernova at that. But there are four independent ways to make that happen, and only one of them is the conventional way you probably think about it. If your star has less than 8 solar masses, though, it ends its life in a white dwarf, but that’s not necessarily the end. White dwarfs can gain enough mass, through two different known mechanisms, to someday go supernova as well.

There are six different ways to make a supernova, and each one is spectacular. Which one is your favorite?

The Aurora and the Sunrise : Auroras are one of the many Earthly phenomena the crew of the International Space Station observe from their perch high above the planet. (via NASA)

Melotte 15, Inside the Heart

A fleeting moment in time

The faint, ephemeral glow emanating from the planetary nebula ESO 577-24 persists for only a short time – around 10,000 years, a blink of an eye in astronomical terms. ESO’s Very Large Telescope captured this shell of glowing ionized gas – the last breath of the dying star whose simmering remains are visible at the heart of this image. As the gaseous shell of this planetary nebula expands and grows dimmer, it will slowly disappear from sight.

This stunning planetary nebula was imaged by one of the VLT’s most versatile instruments, FORS2. The instrument captured the bright, central star, Abell 36, as well as the surrounding planetary nebula. The red and blue portions of this image correspond to optical emission at red and blue wavelengths, respectively.

An object much closer to home is also visible in this image – an asteroid wandering across the field of view has left a faint track below and to the left of the central star. And in the far distance behind the nebula a glittering host of background galaxies can be seen. Credit: ESO    

Read more ~ phys.org

'Space Butterfly' Is Home to Hundreds of Baby Stars

What looks like a red butterfly in space is in reality a nursery for hundreds of baby stars, revealed in this infrared image from our Spitzer Space Telescope. Officially named Westerhout 40 (W40), the butterfly is a nebula — a giant cloud of gas and dust in space where new stars may form. The butterfly’s two “wings” are giant bubbles of hot, interstellar gas blowing from the hottest, most massive stars in this region.

Besides being beautiful, W40 exemplifies how the formation of stars results in the destruction of the very clouds that helped create them. Inside giant clouds of gas and dust in space, the force of gravity pulls material together into dense clumps. Sometimes these clumps reach a critical density that allows stars to form at their cores. Radiation and winds coming from the most massive stars in those clouds — combined with the material spewed into space when those stars eventually explode — sometimes form bubbles like those in W40. But these processes also disperse the gas and dust, breaking up dense clumps and reducing or halting new star formation.

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Never think you’re nothing. Never cry at night over not being pretty enough. Never tell yourself you’ll never be good enough. Because to someone, you’re everything. To someone, you’re gorgeous. To someone, you are the world.

Follow this tumblr for more quotes to motivate you (via thelovewhisperer)

Bow Tie Moon and Star Trails : On January 31, a leisurely lunar eclipse was enjoyed from all over the night side of planet Earth, the first of three consecutive total eclipses of the Moon. This dramatic time-lapse image followed the celestial performance for over three hours in a combined series of exposures from Hebei Province in Northern China. Fixed to a tripod, the camera records the Full Moon sliding through a clear night sky. Too bright just before and after the eclipse, the Moon’s bow tie-shaped trail grows narrow and red during the darker total eclipse phase that lasted an hour and 16 minutes. In the distant background are the colorful trails of stars in concentric arcs above and below the celestial equator. via NASA