THE CRAB NEBULA SEEN IN DIFFERENT WAVELENGTHS

Different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum show very different aspects of the same object.

Top left: Radio
Top right: Visible Light
Centre left: Ultraviolet
Centre right: X-Ray
Bottom left: Gamma-Ray

EVERYTHING SUN Let's look at a variety of activities visible on the Sun's surface:

SOLAR PROMINENCE:
It's a arc of gas, that erupts from the Sun's surface; a prominence can be hundreds of thousands of miles high. Strong magnetic fields hold the prominences in their place for months.

CORONAL MASS EJECTION (CME): 
It's a plasma burst that can release 100 billion kg of plasma disrupting Earth satellites.

SOLAR FLARE: 
It's a magnetic storm on the Sun; flares release large amounts of high-energy particles ejected thousands of miles from the surface of the star with a temperature that can reach 24 million F.

SOLAR WIND: 
It's a continuous stream of ions. It takes about 4.5 years for the solar wind to reach Earth. However, solar wind affects our entire Solar system. One of its beautiful effects visible on Earth is the aurora.

Solar Prominence

CME

Solar Flare

Solar Wind

THE HUBBLE IS 25!

HAPPY 25THANNIVERSARY, HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE!LET'S CELEBRATE WITH SOME MIND-BLOWING IMAGES CAPTURED BY HUBBLE. Which is your favourite?

Amazing Hubble pix:

ANDROMEDA DISCOVERED

Our galactic neighbour, Andromeda is a barred spiral galaxy, that might one day collide with us in about 4 billion years (it's ok, the dying Sun will most likely envelope us by then). Andromeda is 220 thousand light years wide emblazoned with one trillion stars. Enjoy looking around among the stars in this beautiful galaxy:

Andromeda video

BEAUTIFUL DESERT SUNSET

In the Mojave desert on Earth, orange and fuchsia in the indigo sky against a giant red orb. Wait a minute! It's not what you're seeing?The yellow setting sun is a tiny dot in the distant blue sky.Yes, because this photo snapped by Spirit shows the Sun "setting" on Mars.

MARS EXPLORED

MER-Mars Exploration Rover Mission, 2003-ongoing: Rovers SPIRIT and OPPORTUNITY.

MSL-Mars Science Laboratory Mission, 2012-ongoing: Rover CURIOSITY.

The aptly named Curiosity's main mission goal is to determine if Mars could ever have supported life. Curiosity's observations have successfully confirmed this hypothesis. Now that it's a fact that Mars once was a lush green world, Curiosity is discovering what could have led to its transformation to the red desert we all know today.

Curiosity's investigations are trackable via this website:

Mars Explored:

LYRID METEOR SHOWER TONIGHT AND TOMORROW NIGHT (APRIL 22&23)! Good luck catching the light show!

CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO:METEOR SHOWER

CERES AND THE MYSTERIOUS BRIGHT SPOTS-REPORTS FROM THE DAWN SPACECRAFT

What is it?

Ceres is a dwarf planet (a C-type asteroid) comprising one-third of the mass of the asteroid belt lying between Mars and Jupiter.

"Ceres' bright spot can now be seen to have a companion of lesser brightness, but apparently in the same basin. This may be pointing to a volcano-like origin of the spots, but we will have to wait for better resolution before we can make such geologic interpretations," said Chris Russell, principal investigator for the Dawn mission, based at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Using its ion propulsion system, Dawn will enter orbit around Ceres on March 6. As scientists receive better and better views of the dwarf planet over the next 16 months, they hope to gain a deeper understanding of its origin and evolution by studying its surface. The intriguing bright spots and other interesting features of this captivating world will come into sharper focus."-NASA April 19 Report on the Dawn Mission

Check out the bright spot here:CERES

HOW DO WE KNOW WHAT STARS ARE MADE OF?

Nuclear fusion is the process how all the elements in Universe, other than hydrogen are formed. Each chemical element has a distinctive colour when they burn, it's this property that tells us what stars are made of. 

The Sun is made up of hydrogen, helium, oxygen, carbon, neon and iron.
The Sun's atmosphere is made up of charged particles, and interestingly, the corona, the plasma that surrounds the Sun is hotter than the surface, about a million degrees Celsius.

Through most of the Sun's life, energy is produced by nuclear fusion in the core; this process converts hydrogen into helium.

The result of the Sun's thermonuclear fusion is light. The quantum of light, the photon is everywhere; 380 quadrillion photons land on your fingernail every second!
Watch the beautiful Solar prominences captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory!

Sun video by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory

The AIDA mission led by (ESA), the European Space Agency, aims to deflect a binary asteroid heading towards Earth in 2022. You would think Bruce Willis will be too old by then for such shenanigans in space! :-)

Click: AIDA Mission

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The Hubble

Here's the beauty of the Hubble Extreme Deep Field:

Released on September 25, 2012, the XDF image compiled 10 years of previous images and shows galaxies from 13.2 billion years ago. The exposure time was two million seconds, or approximately 23 days.The Hubble eXtreme Deep Field, or XDF, adds another 5,500 galaxies to those discovered in the Hubble Ultra-Deep Field (HUDF) from September 24, 2003. The original Hubble Deep Filed (HDF) was taken in December 18, 1995. (Dates mark first day of multi-day exposure).

The Awesomeness of the James Webb Space Telescope

OCTOBER 2018, THE LAUNCH OF THE JAMES WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE-Let's see some comparative facts about the ISS, the Hubble and James Webb!

The James Webb is 1.5 million km out BEYOND the Moon! Now, that's a space telescope. To compare, the Hubble is a mere 570 km from the surface of the Earth.

The ginormous size of the optics and the ability to see in infrared (so as to be able to capture light from the birth of the universe) make the prospect of James Webb's launch extremely exciting!

JAMES WEBB FUN FACTS

GRAVITATIONAL LENSING-THE BENDING OF SPACE AND TIME...AND IT'S NOT EVEN FRANK HERBERT'S DUNE :-)

CLICK HERE!

                                                            Horseshoe Einstein Ring

INTERNATIONAL DAY OF HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT

Click here to read article

THE KUIPER BELT AND THE OORT CLOUD

What lies beyond our inner and outer Solar system? The Horizons spacecraft is on the way to discover the Kuiper Belt where Pluto and thousands of similar plutoid objects inhabit the vacuum of space, and beyond that the Oort Cloud.

Kuiper Belt&Oort Cloud Info

LIFE AS WE KNOW IT

Life

WHICH ONE IS YOUR FAVOURITE WATER WORLD? HERE'S MINE:

Water Worlds in Our Solar System

THE NATURE OF MATTER

SUBATOMIC PARTICLES

GRAVITATIONAL SLINGSHOT

The gravitational slingshot is a swing by or gravity assist that can save time and fuel as well as speed up or slow down the spacecraft and alter its trajectory. The assist is provided by the motion of the gravitating body as it pulls on the spacecraft.
A gravity assist around a planet changes a spacecraft's velocity relative to the Sun by entering and leaving the gravitational field of a planet. To increase speed, the spacecraft flies with the movement of the planet; to decrease ...speed, the spacecraft flies against the movement of the planet.

A fun example can be found on the NASA website, link below: Gravity Assist