chrestomatheia:

NGC 896 in Cassiopeia.

(via bouncingdodecahedrons)

ikenbot:

Panoramic image of the Milky Way above La Palma island (Spain)

© Manel Soria

(via )

fyeahcarlsagan:

foreverinwonderland:

The Antennae Inferno

Two galaxies, NGC4038 and NGC4039 come together to unity in this stunning Hubble capture. In the collision, new stars are formed creating striking clusters that sparkle through the storm of the spirals.

I think I’m going to have daily cosmos porn.

Cosmos porn every day.

(via )

thenewenlightenmentage:

Astronomers Get Rare Peek at Early Stage of Star Formation

ScienceDaily (Mar. 14, 2012) — Using radio and infrared telescopes, astronomers have obtained a first tantalizing look at a crucial early stage in star formation. The new observations promise to help scientists understand the early stages of a sequence of events through which a giant cloud of gas and dust collapses into dense cores that, in turn, form new stars.

The scientists studied a giant cloud about 770 light-years from Earth in the constellation Perseus. They used the European Space Agency’s Herschel Space Observatory and the National Science Foundation’s Green Bank Telescope (GBT) to make detailed observations of a clump, containing nearly 100 times the mass of the Sun, within that cloud.

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(via bouncingdodecahedrons)

cwnl:

M33

Distance: 3,000,000 (Million) Light-years away from Earth

The Triangulum Galaxy is a spiral galaxy in the constellation Triangulum. It is catalogued as Messier 33 or NGC 598, and is sometimes informally referred to as the Pinwheel Galaxy, a nickname it shares with Messier 101. The Triangulum Galaxy is the third-largest member of the Local Group of galaxies, which includes the Milky Way Galaxy, the Andromeda Galaxy and about 30 other smaller galaxies. It is one of the most distant permanent objects that can be viewed with the naked eye.

Copyright: Wolfgang Promper

(Source: ikenbot, via )

thenewenlightenmentage:

Celestial Stunner: Venus to Cross Face of Sun This Year

On your 2012 calendar, be sure to put a big red circle around June 5.  On that day, a celestial occurrence that will not be seen by human eyes until well into the 22nd century — the year 2117 to be exact — will take place.

The planet Venus will cross the face of the sun.

Through the balance of this winter season and well into the spring of 2012, Venus will gradually climb higher in the sky and grow progressively brighter, eventually becoming an “evening lantern” for those commuting home from work and school.

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(via bouncingdodecahedrons)

thenewenlightenmentage:

Sisters in a Circle: Pleiades Cluster Shines Bright in Skywatcher Photo

This image of a stunning star cluster seems to resemble old friends sitting in a circle. The celestial object, officially known as M45, is an open star cluster often called the Pleiades.

The Pleiades star cluster is a group of 800 stars, formed about 100 million years ago and located 410 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Taurus. A light-year is the distance light travels in one year, or about 6 trillion miles (10 trillion kilometers).

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(via sageoflogic)

bacon-beer-and-boobs:

thescienceofrealities:

2012 January 15 

Infrared Portrait of the Large Magellanic Cloud 

Credit: ESA / NASA / JPL-Caltech / STScI 

“Cosmic dust clouds ripple across this infrared portrait of our Milky Way’s satellite galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud. In fact, the remarkable composite image from the Herschel Space Observatory and the Spitzer Space Telescope show that dust clouds fill this neighboring dwarf galaxy, much like dust along the plane of the Milky Way itself. The dust temperatures tend to trace star forming activity. Spitzer data in blue hues indicate warm dust heated by young stars. Herschel’s instruments contributed the image data shown in red and green, revealing dust emission from cooler and intermediate regions where star formation is just beginning or has stopped. Dominated by dust emission, the Large Magellanic Cloud’s infrared appearance is different from views in optical images. But this galaxy’s well-known Tarantula Nebula still stands out, easily seen here as the brightest region to the left of center. A mere 160,000 light-years distant, the Large Cloud of Magellan is about 30,000 light-years across. “

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ ap120115.html

Source: 

Milky way scientists

I wish I could fuck space. This is beautiful and sexy.

I also am sexually attracted to space.

(Source: thescienceofreality, via baconbeernboobs)

cwnl:

Omega M17

Smoky Nebula’s Bright Pink Heart Shines in New Photo

The spectacular pink and red core of a lively nebula takes center stage in a new photo that exposes the stellar nursery’s eye-catching clouds of gas, dust and newborn stars.

The European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), at the Paranal Observatory in Chile, captured the new image of the Omega Nebula. The portrait is one of the sharpest ever taken of this object from a ground-based observatory, according to ESO officials.

This stellar breeding ground lies approximately 6,500 light-years away from Earth, in the direction of the constellation of Sagittarius (The Archer). The Omega nebula is a popular target of study for astronomers because it is one of the youngest and most active stellar nurseries for massive stars inside the Milky Way galaxy.

(via theowlintheolivetree-deactivate)