Crescent Moon Occultation Image Credit & Copyright: Fefo Bouvier
Explanation: On February 22, a young Moon shared the western sky at sunset with bright planets Venus and Jupiter along the ecliptic plane. The beautiful celestial conjunction was visible around planet Earth. But from some locations Jupiter hid for a while, occulted by the crescent lunar disk. The Solar System’s ruling gas giant was captured here just before it disappeared behind the the Moon’s dark edge, seen over the RÃo de la Plata at Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay. In the serene river and skyscape Venus is not so shy, shining brightly closer to the horizon through the fading twilight. Next week Venus and Jupiter will appear even closer in your evening sky.
∞ Source: apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230225.html
Eruption of Tvashtar volcano on Jupiter's moon Io (March 1, 2007)
Nebula is mostly hydrogen gas, and a small amount of metals (elements above helium) which tend to be covered as "Dust", but it's the dust that best reflect the light of the stars, and as the largest and most energetic of them are blue, you get these areas of blue haze. Hydrogen more often glows red when bombarded by UV light, the two colours together quite magical.
The area has a number of NGC objects 6726,6727,6729 but born of the same huge molecular cloud.
Our Milky Way has many such areas full of star birth, and as blue giants are not long lived, supernova and star death too.
NGC 1365, Heart of the Universe
November 12, 1980: Voyager 1 made its closest approach to Saturn, flying within 124,000 kilometers (77,000 miles) of the ringed planet.
[...] while compartmentalization and replication are important, they are aspects of what life is and does, but they do not address the why of life. The why of life is metabolism. By completing the circuit of life, biology harnesses energy from its environment. Technically speaking, this means that biology actually helps the universe cool faster; it increases the entropy of the universe. This is why the universe needs life.
Alien Oceans by Kevin Peter Hand
NGC 1893 and the Tadpoles of IC 410 Image Credit & Copyright: Sander de Jong
Explanation: This cosmic view shows off an otherwise faint emission nebula IC 410, captured under clear Netherlands skies with telescope and narrowband filters. Above and right of center you can spot two remarkable inhabitants of the interstellar pond of gas and dust, known as the tadpoles of IC 410. Partly obscured by foreground dust, the nebula itself surrounds NGC 1893, a young galactic cluster of stars. Formed in the interstellar cloud a mere 4 million years ago, the intensely hot, bright cluster stars energize the glowing gas. Globules composed of denser cooler gas and dust, the tadpoles are around 10 light-years long and are likely sites of ongoing star formation. Sculpted by stellar winds and radiation their heads are outlined by bright ridges of ionized gas while their tails trail away from the cluster’s central young stars. IC 410 and embedded NGC 1893 lie some 10,000 light-years away, toward the nebula-rich constellation Auriga.
∞ Source: apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap240202.html
One of the most interesting areas of the night sky, Scorpius holds a myriad of nebula and beautifully contrasting coloured stars.
Moving towards the tail, you'll find Nu Scorpii a binary star system 7 stars.
If that alone isn't enough to get your mind wondering how all these stars are orbiting each other, the star system itself is the eye of a horses head ! Albeit a nebulous head.
IC 4592 is a reflective nebula, with the blue light reflected from fine dust, that blue light is coming from the Nu Scorpii system above.
Pull out and you'll see the whole region contains many star forming areas with reflective features.
Bubble Nebula and the Star Cluster
★•Astronomy, Physics, and Aerospace•★ Original and Reblogged Content curated by a NASA Solar System Ambassador
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