Hubble Captures the Violent Birth of a Star 102
The Bad Astronomer writes "In what is one of the most staggeringly beautiful Hubble pictures ever taken, a newly-born massive star is blasting four separate jets of material into its surrounding cocoon, carving out cavities in the material over two light years long. But only three of the jets appear to have matter still inside them, and the central star is off-center. This may be a gorgeous picture, but the science behind it is equally as compelling."
Was the government notified? (Score:5, Funny)
Were the Vogons notified of this latest development? Were all the forms properly filled in, signed, stamped and approved?
How many government forms does it take for a new star to be allowed to be born? There are all sorts of special interests that may not like this new star from appearing, it's new energy competition, there could be new life forms created, that would compete with the existing interests and it's obviously bad. [thelmagazine.com]
Re:Was the government notified? (Score:2)
Yes, but recycling as firelighters is awaiting fire safety board approval, so for now an exemption certificate has been authorized, signed and posted on Alpha Centuri.
Re:Was the government notified? (Score:1)
Fine, but did they just have to claim imminent domain and destroy an existing free-space floating life forms in that quadrant?
Re:Was the government notified? (Score:2)
No because the star was manufactured from said life-forms. It's thus filed under "recycling existing material" which only requires forms RX-2291 and KILL-101.
alternately (Score:-1, Offtopic)
whereas if your lord and savior ron paul were president, then the births of stars would be determined by whatever the invisible (and benevolent!) hand of the free market allows.
Re:alternately (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh, fuck off, you goddamned political hack. We were having a fun time making nerdy jokes about something as both grandiose and beautiful as the forming of a fucking star , and you have to bring your bullshit politics into it.
Seriously, do people like you ever relax? Ever joke around without dragging The Other Team into it? Do you realize you're the problem with the world, America in particular?
No, I don't really want to argue this with you. Nobody does. Nobody cares about you. So just sit your ass down, shut the fuck up, and enjoy the star being formed already.
Re:alternately (Score:-1, Flamebait)
wow, are you the same AC who went bananas in my journal entry for no reason recently? do you not realize that my reply here was to someone who is so engrossed with his hero/savior/messiah that not only is every one of his posts is a tribute to him? you try to sound as if the post i replied to was somehow not political, let me give you a clue AC - just because a post was moderated "funny" does not mean the post itself was not intended as a political statement.
and on top of that, the very notion of telling someone they're "the problem with the world" shows that you are yourself an arrogant hack.
Re:alternately (Score:1)
But there's lots of problems worse than you.
Re:alternately (Score:0)
Re:alternately (Score:2)
I think the only logical conclusion is that you ALL need to take chill pills and go look at the pretty space pictures.
I think a more logical conclusion is that there are a lot of libertarians with mod points reading this thread. Look at who's getting modded "insightful" while others get modded "flamebait". Not that I'm keen on either of them.
Re:alternately (Score:2)
ronpaulisanidiot
No, michellebachmannisanidiot, ricksantorumisanidiot, rickperryisanidiot, hermancainisanidiot, mittromneyisanidiot, newtgingrichisaretardedinfantileidiot and barackobamaisawallstreetcockmongler. Ron Paul seems OK.
Re:alternately (Score:0)
Oh, fuck off, you goddamned political hack. We were having a fun time making nerdy jokes about something as both grandiose and beautiful as the forming of a fucking star , and you have to bring your bullshit politics into it.
Seriously, do people like you ever relax? Ever joke around without dragging The Other Team into it? Do you realize you're the problem with the world, America in particular?
No, I don't really want to argue this with you. Nobody does. Nobody cares about you. So just sit your ass down, shut the fuck up, and enjoy the star being formed already.
roman_mir and ronpaulisanidiot are both political hacks. Fuck them, and double-fuck you for not noticing and piling onto just one of them.
roman_mir's post was not a nerdy joke about a star. It was an obvious attempt to advance a political opinion. ronpaulisanidiot, being on the other side of the issue, took the bait. We don't need either of them. Andy you even less.
Re:alternately (Score:0)
Please reference:
Vogon [wikipedia.org]
Also [wikipedia.org]
Lastly [urbandictionary.com]
Is that a blue ass (Score:0)
Re:Is that a blue ass (Score:2)
OOOOOLD (Score:5, Funny)
The Bad Astronomer writes
Bad is quite the understatement here, considering that this story is over 2000 years old.
Re:OOOOOLD (Score:1)
Re:OOOOOLD (Score:2)
The Bad Astronomer writes
Bad is quite the understatement here, considering that this story is over 2000 years old.
Yeah and I suppose it's duped about a quadrillion times in those parallel universes.
Re:OOOOOLD (Score:2)
what, all 10^10^10^7 of them?
Re:OOOOOLD (Score:2)
You've missed some parentheses. It's 10^(10^(10^7))
Re:OOOOOLD (Score:3)
no i didn't. I missed super-super-superscript because I don't know how to do it.
Re:OOOOOLD (Score:3)
The Bad Astronomer writes
Bad is quite the understatement here, considering that this story is over 2000 years old.
<Strong Bad Astronomer>My star asplode!</Strong Bad Astronomer>
Re:OOOOOLD (Score:0)
Yeah! How dare anybody try and market themselves? Fuck him! Microsoft spending billions around the world to lock people into the products? That's just smart marketing! But screw this guy! He's not rich, he didn't work hard enough!
Re:OOOOOLD (Score:3)
At least he's whoring it out for science.
Re:OOOOOLD (Score:1)
Phil Plait goes out of his way to drum up as much business for his blog as he can.
So?
Lemme guess; you got a problem with the moon landings or something?
wake me up when the capture (Score:-1)
Stellar formation? (Score:4, Interesting)
This may be a naive question (and will almost certainly be derided as such). I remember from Astronomy 101, many years ago, the prevailing idea about stellar formation. But I don't remember anyone ever explaining studies that verify the hypothesis is valid. What I'm saying is that it's pretty obvious this is a star surrounded by a cloud of material (gas or dust, I can't remember), but how do we know the star is forming rather than, say, dying? Or are we just supposed to take it on faith because we read it in a book?
A related question-- this is an awesomely cool picture, but does it or does it not tell us much about how stars form?
Re:Stellar formation? (Score:4, Funny)
but how do we know the star is forming rather than, say, dying?
You can tell because of the pixels.
Re:Stellar formation? (Score:5, Informative)
We know from stellar nurseries we've seen elsewhere that the current model is largely correct. We know from spectrometry that the gas cloud is abundant in light elements and poor in elements that form in later-generation stars, and know also from spectrometry that the star itself is also very rich in light elements. Spectrometry, the the level of light given off, plus the estimated distance also tells us where in the sequence the star is, because the sequence is now very well known. We can further verify a few details -- the solar winds push gas away from the sun, but there are no solar winds before there's a sun to emit them. By measuring output and the degree of push, you can determine how long the gas cloud has been blasted at by the star. If this matches expectation, all's well. If the gas cloud shows evidence of more displacement than can be accounted for, there'd be problems. So far, all looks good.
So although the exact details of stellar formation do shift from time to time, major changes aren't likely. Minor ones, on the other hand, are commonplace. For example, some stellar nurseries close to the galactic centre are being hammered by solar winds from supermassive stars in the region. Current models cannot account entirely for how the stars were able to condense at all under such conditions. (You wouldn't expect fog patches to form in gale force 9 winds for the same reason. If you see fog in such conditions, then there's some extremely freaky condition to explain it - a total lack of air currents or turbulence is possible if you've exactly the right environment, and therefore something similar must exist in these freak star formations. It's an addition to, though, rather than a replacement of existing models.)
Re:Stellar formation? (Score:0)
Short answer: The colour of a star tells us about its composition. The less hydrogen there is, the older the star.
Long answer: LMWTFY. [wikipedia.org]
Goatse has scarred me (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Goatse has scarred me (Score:2)
Re:Goatse has scarred me (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Goatse has scarred me (Score:1)
This^
Re:Goatse has scarred me (Score:0)
"This" what?
You know, jerkalope, responding with only "This" to a post is the epitome of douchbag behavior. What does it say about you? Well, it says that you think you're a very serious and insightful and SUPERIOR person. "See how smart I am. I can instantly recognize the truth when another person says it, and yet I am so concise and Steve-Jobs-like that I only have to say one single word to shower all you mutants with my genius critical acceptance."
"This." Wow, that pisses me off.
Re:Goatse has scarred me (Score:0)
This^^
Re:Goatse has scarred me (Score:2)
I saw a crystal skull personally, and like SirGarlton said it's basically just chance. Sort of like when you see a face in a cliff.
Re:Goatse has scarred me (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Goatse has scarred me (Score:2)
The Mitchell-Hedges skull is long known to be a hoax. They didn't have diamond polishing paste or titanium-tipped machining heads back when the hucksters claim it was made...
Re:Goatse has scarred me (Score:3)
I saw an angel, and now I wonder if I'm one of those crazies who sees Jesus in toast.
Don't get too worried until toast Jesus starts talking to you.
Re:Goatse has scarred me (Score:0)
I saw an angel, and now I wonder if I'm one of those crazies who sees Jesus in toast.
And just below the forming star, I see a mighty bonner...
Re:Goatse has scarred me (Score:3)
Re:Goatse has scarred me (Score:0)
Didn't they say the star was born two thousands years ago? Surely, that can't be coincidence! :)
Re:Goatse has scarred me (Score:2)
That's not Jesus, it's RMS.
Well, actually, it's a rorschach test. What you see in the clouds, stars, or ink blots says a lot about your personality and thinking, and may even show mental illness.
Re:Goatse has scarred me (Score:1)
Re:Goatse has scarred me (Score:0)
How on Earth did this get moderated insightful? We need better meta moderators...
Re:Goatse has scarred me (Score:0)
I read this before I saw that; now I can't unsee it.
photoshop color contrast enhancement ? (Score:-1)
Nah, NASA wouldn't do anything that sleazy.....
http://io9.com/5659951/nasa-caught-photoshopping-an-image-of-saturns-moons-what-were-they-trying-to-hide
http://news.discovery.com/space/nasa-conspiracy-image-processing.html
Re:photoshop color contrast enhancement ? (Score:3)
Nah, NASA wouldn't do anything that sleazy.....
http://io9.com/5659951/nasa-caught-photoshopping-an-image-of-saturns-moons-what-were-they-trying-to-hide [io9.com]
http://news.discovery.com/space/nasa-conspiracy-image-processing.html [discovery.com]
This is why you can find good deals on great astronomy equipment - also some cheap astronomy equipment, too...
People see these "color enhanced" or "artist's impression" pictures and go buy a telescope, eye-pieces, etc. Then go out on a clear night and besides Juper and Saturn, which are pretty cool to look at, are unimpressed with all the little brown-smudgies in the sky, which are most of what Hubble & Co. make such beautiful images out of.
Re:photoshop color contrast enhancement ? (Score:2)
I did exactly that. I love what I can see, but now I just want a bigger scope. [Insert beavis & butthead chuckle here]
Re:photoshop color contrast enhancement ? (Score:2)
You forgot the moon. :)
I did exactly that. I love what I can see, but now I just want a bigger scope. [Insert beavis & butthead chuckle here]
It's called "Aperature Fever"
Behaviour typified by acquiring the largest telescope you can manage to fit in your car. Extreme affliction may lead to buying a bigger vehicle (and/or modification of existing vehicle) to accomodate very large scople, primary mirrors, counter weights, etc.
Re:photoshop color contrast enhancement ? (Score:0)
I was hoping to go from a 130mm reflector to a 12" dob. I just can't find primaries in my price range and I don't want to get something that's only a little better. Some day...
Re:photoshop color contrast enhancement ? (Score:2)
um... so grind your own mirror? Plans for homebuilt machines, blank glasses, and 1200 grit diamond polishing paste are relatively easy to come by. All you need is a garage you can fairly effectively seal and six months to do the actual grinding.
Been there, built my own 16" Herschel camera.
Re:photoshop color contrast enhancement ? (Score:2)
Aperture Science (Score:0)
We do what we must because we can,
For the good of all of us,
Except the ones who are dead.
Re:photoshop color contrast enhancement ? (Score:2)
I have a telescope that, outside the moon, I can't really see much due light pollution, but can't stop to get amazed every time I see moon craters. Maybe the pictures are doctored but even so, I love to see beatiful pictures like these published. If I were american, I would feel enormously proud for stuff like this instead of the last bombing campaign of USAF or CIA.
My hat off to the Hubble team.
Best Regards
Re:photoshop color contrast enhancement ? (Score:2)
Nah, NASA wouldn't do anything that sleazy.....
Of course they would. They translate the x-ray or non-visible spectrum into a visible color scale, and play with it until it looks nice, then use photoshop and artistic license to come up with something to sell to the public.
They even admit it. The description on the video download page says:
This movie presents a visualization of the star-forming region known as S106. This unique three-dimensional view illustrates and emphasizes that many of the objects contained within astronomical images are not at the same distance, but, in fact, spread across light-years of space. The Hubble image is augmented with additional field-of-view from the Subaru Infrared Telescope. The stars and the lobes of glowing gas from the Hubble/Subaru two-dimensional image have been separated and sculpted using both scientific knowledge and artistic license to create the depth in the movie. Of note, the relative distances between stars and the nebula have been greatly compressed. The format of this movie is a standard "2D" presentation and does not require a 3D screen or 3D glasses.
They don't really look like that, do they? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:They don't really look like that, do they? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:They don't really look like that, do they? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:They don't really look like that, do they? (Score:5, Informative)
There is a great video on the Hubble site [hubblesite.org] that you can view that goes into exactly what goes into a hubble picture and explains the whole concept of colors and the like in it.
Re:They don't really look like that, do they? (Score:0)
Aligning images manually? LOL. I guess those boys at NASA have heard of Pixinsight. :)
What gov completes in 10 h, you and me can do in 4 h
Re:They don't really look like that, do they? (Score:2)
Different frequency are given different colors. SO when you look at it you can see what is going on.
Also, there are taken in three different colors, and then blended. Since it's from a moving object, yes, you will need to be sure the picture are all aligned properly.
It's no like there are shopping in Ice T.
Re:They don't really look like that, do they? (Score:0)
What, would you rather they leave the image in the original infrared?
Re:They don't really look like that, do they? (Score:2)
Re:They don't really look like that, do they? (Score:3)
It's pictures that stunning that can tell us a hell of a lot about an object. An amazing amount of detail is in the colours, however assigned. The same can be said for radio images, where colours are assigned to relative frequencies in the image field - giving images like this [nrao.edu] shot of Messier 51 in hydrogen. Might just look like a blue blob to some but it tells a lot about the distribution of hydrogen we would otherwise miss - and assume it's uniformly spread relative to the density of stars in the cloud, which it clearly isn't. There are cool areas of hydrogen in there that don't correspond to any normal-light visible feature (ie it isn't trapped inside stars!).
Re:They don't really look like that, do they? (Score:2)
Re:They don't really look like that, do they? (Score:2)
This is definitely true. And one of the reasons is that you don't see UltraViolet very well, or InfraRed, either. False color images are the only way to show the information.
Re:They don't really look like that, do they? (Score:2)
Been there, the photo doesnt do it justice. (Score:3)
Yes, I hate it when I am flying through the galactic core, and I notice a super nova that I have a poster of, and I am like, OMFG, they totally shopped that photo.
I am pretty sure nobody is going to be looking at this object with 'their own eyes' for a very long time, if ever.
Re:Been there, the photo doesnt do it justice. (Score:2)
Re:They don't really look like that, do they? (Score:2)
Re:They don't really look like that, do they? (Score:2)
Re:They don't really look like that, do they? (Score:2)
Re:They don't really look like that, do they? (Score:0)
On that same line of thinking, I'd love to be able to see our Earth in the full range of the electromagnetic spectrum.
With broadcast transmission frequencies tuned out maybe.
Re:They don't really look like that, do they? (Score:2)
I'd love to be able to see broadcast transmissions; perhaps with fancy glasses. Imagine seeing mobile phone towers, find a missing phone, see interference given by car engines, see locations of Wifi units, etc.
Of course, I'd want to be able to turn it off. Think of a virtual-assisted reality.
Re:They don't really look like that, do they? (Score:1)
Re:They don't really look like that, do they? (Score:0)
Ever looked at the Orion nebula through a decent telescope? Sure, not crazy colorful, but no less stunning.
Re:They don't really look like that, do they? (Score:0)
It's more the extended exposure that gives it the look. You can see the Andromeda Galaxy during some parts of the year. It's our closest galaxy and looks like a grey smudge on a dark night. It won't get any brighter as you get closer as the light just gets spread out. Even the Orion Nebula would just be a mild grey smudge to the naked eye. Remember, we're IN the Milky Way galaxy and can't see any colors in it other than the individual stars.
It's a dim, grey world to the world of natural vision.
Giant Vagina (Score:0)
looks like it
Re:Giant Vagina (Score:1)
It looks like both a vagina AND tits combined. Build Ship Now!
yuck (Score:2)
What's with the shitty lens flare?
Re:yuck (Score:2)
It's not lens flare (at least not in the classic sense)- it's diffraction around the internal supports for the secondary mirror.
Re:yuck (Score:5, Informative)
that's not lens flare, that is a common artefact in Cassegrain cameras because the secondary mirror is usually held in place by wires, which introduce diffraction patterns in the image. I'm still disappointed that they didn't use a glass plate* to hold the secondary but there again that would kill a lot of bandwidth for detection, so I can understand the decision to use wire.
*I have some camera lenses which are basically small Schmidt reflectors; they have secondaries held in place by corrective lens optics which reduce common mirror artefacts such as astigmatism, blooming, etc. I would use these as portable scopes but I don't have a full-frame DSLR body to hand... any donations greatly appreciated ;) and if anyone has an Olympus OM digital back with at least 16MP true resolution they'd like to just, like, give away, I'll have your babies!
Flare (Score:2)
Re:Flare (Score:2)
It is very beautiful... (Score:1)
Re:It is very beautiful... (Score:2)
Yes. That bright star left and below centre is the new one. I guess it looks odd because of the angle we're seeing it at, combined with obscuring dust clouds.
That is one pissed off looking Angel (Score:2)
I love how one can pick out an image that isn't there, but an Angel is what I saw... just not a happy one....
Re:That is one pissed off looking Angel (Score:2)
The videos are amazing (Score:4, Informative)
Especially the 3D video:
ahref=http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2011/38/video/rel=url2html-24467 [slashdot.org]http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2011/38/video/>
Re:The videos are amazing (Score:0)
Fixed link:
http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2011/38/video/rel=url2html-24467 [hubblesite.org]
It's God's ass taking a dump! (Score:0)
The universe is his toilet.
I don't do well with Freudian ink blots.
I don't care about the science. (Score:2)
Prettiest background jpeg ever.
Is it Jesus? (Score:0)
If this star is being born 2000 years ago, could it be Christ?
"My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. 4 You know the way to the place where I am going.”
How long does the birth last? (Score:2)
Now obviously this happened 2000 years ago, but does anyone know how long it will last/has been going on for?
In more general terms, I'd like to know whether they scan new parts of the sky periodically for changes, or whether they just concentrate on different parts of the sky and see what they see. For instance, if you could go back 2000 years (taking Hubble with you), would the image look similar? How static are these images?
My first guess would be millions of years, so when astronomers look in the sky and find something cool, it's not by fluke of timing, more by fluke of angle and elevation.
A star is born (Score:2)
So who is to say that these stars are not alive in the real sense, and that like a buttefly, at this great size, ends up being a cocoon like beast that emerges a different entity in the end....I am sure when another alien life form looks at us as bags of almost pure water, they might wonder how we are alive as they could not accept us to be alive upon their definition, but likewise, we look at these stars and planets in orbit and think they are just things, yet they could actually be primitively intelligent living beings...of which we have no real way of knowing, unless getting up close and personal to see maybe a (heart) center was actually making that earth/star live/stay alive.....
Kind of looks like an Angel (Score:0)
At a quick glance, I mean if you think about it Angels.. in the sky.. of course the fact that any older civilization would have the technology to view something like this and associate it to Angels, Gods or whatever celestial bodies are popular at time seem extremely far fetched but that was my first thought when looking at it.
Well... (Score:0)
It looks like boobs to me.
FSM (Score:1)