This Is Wonderful.

…can you hear me?

Mug-Ception!

Blood Moon Eclipse after the Sun sets today

If your skies are clear after the Sun sets today, September 27th, be sure to head outside to see the total lunar eclipse. This will mark the end of a “tetrad” of four total lunar eclipses spaced a half year apart that began back in early 2014. It’s the last one visible anywhere until 2018.

The full moon will pass through Earth’s shadow and sunlight scattered by Earth’s atmosphere will cast red colors on it!

Unlike the lunar eclipse last April 4th which is the gif from, this one will carry the Moon through the umbra — the dark core of Earth’s shadow — for 1 hour and 12 minutes. If the sky isn’t clear then there are different webcasts to see. Find them here and the timeline here

Tilt shift universes by St. Tesla

I never thought I’d have competition for the most startorial Emily on the planet, but Emily Lakdawalla, Senior Editor and Planetary Evangelist at the Planetary Society (and the third most followed astronomer on twitter) is bringing it! After winding up with the Fibonacci spiral dress by @shenovafashion, she is dazzling in the super star dress from Belle Neptune, as posted by the Planetary Society on Instagram.

I haven’t identified the source image yet, but I suspect it is a globular cluster, perhaps one with a lot of unusually blue stars like Messier 53.

Watch this space to see Emily’s closest approach (and who she joins forces with) tomorrow!

–Emily

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)

The Planck Spacecraft had a series of various objectives including; hi-res imaging of the CMB, cataloging galaxy clusters, observe gravitational lensing, bright extra-galactic radio and infrared (dusty galaxy) sources. http://astronomyisawesome.com/universe/the-age-of-the-universe/