fyeahastropics:
THAT STAR IS NOT DEAD.
Im sure you’ve seen the post or heard the quote “when you wish upon a star, technically that star is a million light years away and it’s already dead, just like your dreams”
This is false. That star is not dead, it is not millions of light years away! the Milky Way galaxy is 100,000 light years across, so the oldest light reaching us from a star in our galaxy would be less than 100,000 years old (because we aren’t on the very edge). Stars live for millions and billions of years! Sure that supernova we viewed from another galaxy is from a star that had been dead for ages, but the stars you see at night are much closer and very much still burning brightly!
The light you are seeing of a star is old, but the star itself is not dead and neither are your dreams!
-this has been a slightly uplifting rant by janestreetdog (who is peeved by this misconception)
About your previous post, space-paintings sound awesome
You’re awesome
I feel ya
1.) Swaddled Babies
2.) Flying Duck Orchid
3.) Hooker’s Lips Orchid
4.) Ballerina Orchid
5.) Monkey Orchid
6.) Naked Man Orchid
7.) Laughing Bumblebee Orchid
8.) White Egret Orchid
35 Creative Designs That Turn Ordinary Eggs into Eggs-traordinary Art
funny tumblr [via imgur]
Seduce me with science puns
This is the coolest outer space animation ever. It shows the Crab Supernova explosion, happened in 1054, and its evolution into the remnant it is now - called the Crab Nebula. Basically a thousand years speeded up into less than a minute.
Modern understanding that the Crab Nebula was created by a supernova, an explosion of a massive supergiant star, dates to 1921 when Carl Otto Lampland announced he had seen changes in its structure. This eventually led to the conclusion that the creation of the Crab Nebula corresponds to the bright SN 1054 supernova recorded by Chinese astronomers in AD 1054. There is also a 13th-century Japanese reference to an appearance of a new or “guest” star in Meigetsuki. It was then so bright it was visible during the daytime for 23 days.
animation credit: ESA/Hubble (M. Kornmesser & L. L. Christensen)
You just scrolled over a high-res segment of the Andromeda galaxy. How does NASA get its photos to look so spectacular? The same way as everyone else.