A Look at Space: Part 1: The Weirdest and The Mysterious

A Cosmic Waterfall : Herbig-Haro 34 (Post # 718509: pushkin : picture # 2)
Description: antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov...
"Some features of HH-34 are understood -- some are not. At the core of Herbig-Haro 34 lies a seemingly typical young star. This star, though, somehow ejects energetic "bullets" of high-energy particles, appearing as red streaks toward the lower right of the this image... HH-34 lies about 1500 light-years away in the Orion Nebula star-forming region. The cause of the large arc of gas on the upper left known as the waterfall remains unexplained."

Molecular Cloud : Bernard 68 (Post # 718509: pushkin : picture # 1)
Description: antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov...
"Where did all the stars go? What used to be considered a hole in the sky is now known to astronomers as a dark molecular cloud. Here, a high concentration of dust and molecular gas absorb practically all the visible light emitted from background stars. The eerily dark surroundings help make the interiors of molecular clouds some of the coldest and most isolated places in the universe."

Really cool pic, is it second to Jupiter's moon? I wonder if the heat average was 50 to 65 degrees if it would have life on it. The atmosphere looks like what earths looks like.

I also wonder if there was way to ignite jupiter, to the point it would heat up that part of our solar system. Would it affect our climate, Would it make other planets and moons good places to live.

Yes, Titan (diameter: 5150 km) is second to Jupiter's Ganymede (diameter: 5262 km).
Actually, the scientists say that Titan was much warmer in the past than it is today. So may be there was water flowing on the moon and might have given rise to microscopic life. However, now its all frozen there, but they say that there is a possibility that life could have survived underneath the surface.

When our Sun will enter the red-giant phase, titan will become a warmer and possibly a habitable place in future.

Read more about Titan and its history here:
Exobiological Implications of a Possible Ammonia-Water Ocean Inside Titan: A. D. Fortes : Link : www.es.ucl.ac.uk...

[edit on 8/10/2004 by jp1111]

Our sister galaxy at 2.6 million LY away is also very mysterious.

Picture of Andromeda: antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov...

The Double Nucleus of M31 : Zooming into the center. What's so different about M31's center? Find out here...
external image
Source: antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov...
Description: antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov...
"...M31's nucleus showed a double structure. The nuclear hot-spots are quite close together when considering Galactic distances: M31 is about 150,000 light years across while the above shows only the central 30 light-years. Subsequent ground-based observations have led to speculation that indeed two nuclei exist, are moving with respect to each other, that one nucleus is slowly tidally disrupting the other, and that one nucleus may be the remains of smaller galaxy "eaten" by M31."

More pictures of Andromeda:
Jelte's Andromeda Picture of the Week Archive
Link: www.astro.rug.nl...

Mysterious X-ray sources were also found in Andromeda:
www.space.com...
"In its first look at the Andromeda Galaxy, known as M31, XMM revealed an unusually bright X-ray nova outburst and a luminous white dwarf in a binary system with the shortest X-ray pulsation period seen to date...The objects were found when XMM-Newton observed the central region of M31 in June and December 2000 during a mission test that pointed up more than 100 discrete X-ray sources, some of them binaries and some of them previously unknown."

[edit on 10-8-2004 by pushkin]

Most mysterious is the fact that there actually is a fabric of space and time. However, as Einstein, et al. pointed out, time can be thought of as a fourth coordinate in a cartesian system. So basically, this fourth dimension is a continuation of the familiar three-dimensional coordinates. Of course, most people are familiar with this concept, even as much as they realize that mass increases with velocity. Essentially, the latter effect is caused by to interactions of mass-energy with space-time. And even gravity is analytically-explicable in terms of a sixth or perhaps a seventh spatial axis. Moreover, eleven dimensions of "space" are mathematically-predicted. But on the smallest of scales (literally), observations are indicative of actual quanta of space-time! As infinitesimal as possible, "quantum leaps" occur on the Planck scale, on the order of 10^-34 cm.

If one is curious, a good place to browse is Space-Time Info.

Otherwise, many mysteries persist, as well as revelatory findings and even the most brief synopsis of theoreticians' work is extensive. For example, witness a page that begins with an explanation of the fine structure constant, which recent theory indicates may be changing.

So far, we have:

1. Black holes in general (Animation from pushkin)
2. Dark matter
3. Brown Dwarfs
4. Hypernovae
4. The "Face" on Mars
5. An Asteroid with a Moon
6. Misconceptions of disasters during a planetary alignment (From corvus_corax)
7. Wild 2, A unique comet (From kangaxx)
8. Janus and Epimetheus, two moons of Saturn sharing the same orbit (From E_T)
9. Micro/Macro Cosmos theories (links from kangaxx)
10. Pulsars/Neutron stars (from pushkin)
11. Titan
12. Weird Nebulae (from pushkin)
13. Double Nucleus of Andromeda
14. The Structure of Space-time (articles from Aeon10101110)
15. (Supermassive Black hole at) The Center of a Galaxy (article from intrepid)



[edit on 8/11/2004 by jp1111]

What a Great Post! Some very interesting pictures. Hubble sure was money's well spent wasnt it?

I'm glad you like this thread. Most of the pictures are from Hubble and for sure the money is well-spent! As I said in other thread, all these telescopes including our favorite Hubble are our "powerful eyes" enabling us to see the invisible.

Here is an interesting read on the "Center of Our Galaxy." It purports that:
Stars near the center of our galaxy are packed close together.
The center of our galaxy harbors highly energetic phenomena.
A supermassive black hole sits at the center of our galaxy.

It give a very good idea as to what is going on at the heart of our galaxy. It paints a good picture of this perpetual daylight and I found it interesting that the black hole would only need to consume a star once every 5000 years to maintain itself. It can be found at:
www-astronomy.mps.ohio-state.edu...

I found that interesting too. I thought a black hole would be "eating up" a lot more than just one star. I didn't know about the mini-spiral either.

In 1987, the brightest supernova of history was recorded and confirmed by Hubble Space Telescope in the Large Magellanic Cloud, our neighbor. The mirror-imaged rings of this exploding star still remain a mystery.

Here is the picture: SN 1987A

external image
Source & Description: antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov...

"The origins of these rings still remains a mystery. Speculation into the cause of the rings includes beamed jets emanating from a dense star left over from the supernova, and a superposition of two stellar winds ionized by the supernova explosion."

More about SN 1987A: hubblesite.org...
hubblesite.org...

[edit on 16-8-2004 by jp1111]

Agreed. And it's good to know that we now have a "go" for repairs from Sean O'Keefe.

Yes, I read about that. That's great news. I hope the repair mission goes well and we'll have hubble educating us about the universe for at least until 2016.

I think it ti expensive to send Canadian robot today or few year later ( $1 billion) So I think we will wait for space shuttle.

I think they will go with the robots:
"Meanwhile, a space shuttle mission to Hubble has not been completely ruled out. While NASA pursues the robotic option it prefers, the space agency is taking no action that would preclude such a mission."
Link: www.astronomy.com...
www.technewsworld.com...

Only one Quation:
What they would do with robot whet it will be done with his work?

I think Canada's next robot will work in orbit all his life: fly from satlite to satlite by repairing them.


[edit on 12-8-2004 by pushkin]

Don't they bring it back to earth? I don't know!

M87 is an elliptical galaxy. A jet was found to be emanating out of the center a long time ago, the cause of it is still debated.
Picture of M87: antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov...

Galaxy M87 : An Elliptical Galaxy: An Unusual Jet
external image
Source & Description: antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov...
"The most popular hypothesis holds that the jet is created by energetic gas swirling around a massive black hole at the galaxy's center. The result is a 5000 light-year long blowtorch where electrons are ejected outward at near light-speed, emitting eerily blue light during a magnetic spiral. M87 is a giant elliptical galaxy residing only 50 million light-years away in the Virgo Cluster of Galaxies. The faint dots of light surrounding M87's center are large ancient globular clusters of stars."

More detailed image of the jet:

external image
Source: antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov...

Most stars exist in binary systems (a star system with two stars). Our Sun is unfortunate that it does not have a partner. Scientists say that may be Jupiter could have been its companion star, but it failed to become a star.

SN1993J - name of the exploding star.
Zooming in M81 below we come across the survivor of a supernova explosion of its companion star.
external image
Source: antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov...
Date: Febuary 12, 2004.

"Astronomers have found a bright blue companion star to an exploded supernova, a stellar survivor to one of the most violent eruptions in the universe. The star’s existence confirms theories that supernovas can live with cosmic companions, yet still be friendly enough not to destroy their neighbors in the process. A massive object 100,000 times brighter than the Sun, the newfound star sits on ground zero of a known supernova and not only survived the explosion, but influenced the event and its stellar aftermath, researchers said."
Source: www.space.com...
Article date: January 8, 2004.



[edit on 16-8-2004 by jp1111]