WR 25 & Tr16-244 In Carina Nebula © Hubble

NATIVE CARBON DIOXIDE FOUND ON JUPITER’S MOON EUROPA

The dancer in Dorado

800 megapixel

Clearest photo of a galaxy you will ever see!

The first simulated image of a black hole was calculated with an IBM 7040 computer using 1960 punch cards and hand-plotted by French astrophysicist Jean-Pierre Luminet in 1978.

Did Betelgeuse Swallow a Binary Partner ?

The star hit the news back in late 2019 when it suddenly dimmed in an event known as the great dimming, and since there's been a lot of papers and theories to what really happened.

At the time, there was talk of supernova from a minority, while most astronomers reserved judgement on this, which turned out to be the right call, although even they had to admit bafflement at why this star suddenly become so dim.

Since, then the prevailing and mostly accepted theory is that the star ejected a huge amount of material which included carbon and thus concealed parts of the star, causing the dimming.

A new paper from Department of Physics and Astronomy at Louisiana State University has looked at another idea, that at some point in the recent past the star had consumed a binary partner.

While the study can only make suggestions at this point, some of the observed facts about Betelgeuse certainly fit the bill. The star spins very quickly for an old supersized red giant, even faster than our own sun, and the team believe a past consumption may have transferred energy to the star, accounting for this spin rate.

The next thing was that the super giant star didn't just dim, it rebounded and actually brightened considerably too. These events of material coming to the surface and briefly causing a brightening effect are predicted through models of this occurrence.

The star is not likely to go supernova anytime soon, but I would put bets on the likelihood of the star surprising us once again in the coming decades.

Inneston, South Australia, Australia | blntpencil

The red planet. Presidential design awards 2000.

Internet Archive

shit man this got me emotional

Mars, as seen by ESA's Mars Express satellite

Happy Moon Landing Day 🌕🐇

The original Voyager 1 "Blue Movie" which records its approach during a period of over 60 Jupiter days (January 6 - February 3, 1979)