Serenablakeoffice - Serena Blake

The Large Magellanic Cloud

The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is nearly 200,000 light years from earth. The picture above shows how it consists of vast clouds of dust and gas most likely from old stars going supernova. It is a stellar nursery for stars, similar to a nebula.

Close to this is the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) and it is largely believed that their irregular shape is due to a collision that occurred between them thousands of years ago.

A prominent feature of the LMC is the Tarantula nebula (which the James Webb telescope recently took a high res photo of).

Sadly, those in the Northern Hemisphere never get the chance to see the LMC - it is only visible in the Southern Hemisphere!

monday morning 🥀

🎧 listen to my new ambient mix

Books & Nooks It rained yesterday, which never happens at this time of the year in California. Made me feel all cozy~

And of course it’s raining on the inside… where the books are…

Leaving London for a week–– I always miss the city, looking forward to being back already (and who can blame me, just look at this light in the library)

In the twenty years before Albert Einstein died, he very rarely accepted invitations to speak at universities. In 1946, however, he accepted an invitation to Lincoln University in Pennsylvania which was the first school in America to grant college degrees to African American students. 

During his speech, he spoke about his disgust at racism in America. He said that racism is “a disease of white people” adding that he does “not intent to be quiet about it.” And quiet he was not; throughout his life, he open spoke about racial injustice as well as antisemitism. 

Spread your cosmic wings 🦋

The Butterfly Nebula, created by a dying star, was captured by the Hubble Space Telescope in this spectacular image. Observations were taken over a more complete spectrum of light, helping researchers better understand the “wings'' of gas bursting out from its center. The nebula’s dying central star has become exceptionally hot, shining ultraviolet light brightly over the butterfly’s wings and causing the gas to glow.

Learn more about Hubble’s celebration of Nebula November and see new nebula images, here.

You can also keep up with Hubble on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Flickr!

Image credits: NASA, ESA, and J. Kastner (RIT)

NGC 6946 - Fireworks Galaxy

Face on spiral galaxies are not only amongst some of the most stunning objects in the night sky, but they reveal so much about galaxies, including our very own.

This galaxy is 25.2 million light years from us, in the constellation of Cepheus & Cygnus. It's 87,000 light years in diameter (100k for the Milky Way), so not too dissimilar.

Like most spiral galaxies it has a inner core of older more yellow/red stars giving a more creamy appearance, while the outer arms are dominated by vast nebula (pink) and large blue stars that come along with active star formation, for a few million years at least.

Unlike the Milky Way, it is classified as a star burst galaxy due to the huge amount of star formation, and why it's alter-ego "Fireworks Galaxy" is fairly apt, it has experienced 10 known supernova since records began.