APOD 4.5

April 29th, 2011                                                  The Antennae

This APOD was very fitting, as this phenomenon known as the Antennae takes place 60 million light-years away in the constellation Corvus, or the Crow, which just so happened to be our constellation of the week this week. The picture is resulting from the collision of two large galaxies many years ago, however the mains stars inside of each of these galaxies, known as NGC 4038 and NGC 4039 did not collide in the event.  Their molecular gas and dust mixes in the center of the collision area forming a prime location for star formation in the center of the cosmic wreckage. In this picture, many of the new forming star clusters can be seen, as well as the outstretched "arms" of the antennae that are formed by gravitational tidal forces, thus giving the phenomenon its respective name.

Zooniverse Progress 04/25/11

April 25th, 2011

So far on Zooniverse over the last week I continued working mainly with the Moon Zoo.  Between Boulder Wars and examining different Moon Images, I have spent a majority of my allotted Zooniverse time, however I also did spend a bit of time on other studies.  I also helped to identify some stars on the Planet Hunter as well as tried some of the Galaxy Wars in the Galaxy Zoo program.

APOD 4.4

April 25th, 2011                                Monsters of IC 1396

IC 1396, or better known as the Elephants Trunk Nebula, is said to take the appearance of a human look object.  The glowing gas and dust cloud of the star provide the foreboding arms since it is located in a star formation area.  However, while the appearance of a monster's face may scare onlookers, the only true threat is the star inside of the Nebula that is too far from Earth to even pose a threat.  The bright young star inside produces energetic light that eats away at the dust of the dark cometary globule present in the upper right hand corner of the photograph, as can be seen by the glowing line working its way toward the core.  Jets and winds of particles emitted from the star are pushing away the nearby ambient gas and dust and providing for this pathway.  Located 3,000 light-years away, the IC 1396 Nebula looks extremely faint and spans a great distance across the sky.  It is believed that over 100 young stars have been noted to be developing inside of the great Nebula.

APOD 4.3

April 16th, 2011                                               The Tadpoles of IC 410

This photograph is a false coloring of the otherwise very faint and hardly noticeable IC 410 Emission Nebula.  In the upper left corner are the two tadpole inhabitants of the Nebula made up of cosmic dust and gas.  The false coloring was taken by using both broad and narrow band filters, the narrow tracing atoms in the nebula and providing the vivid coloring depending on the element of the atom.  The Nebula itself surrounds NGC 1893 which is a very young galactic cluster of stars.  This cluster energizes the glowing gas that surrounds it providing for the features of the tadpoles due to wind and radiation from the cluster stars.  The tadpoles are about 10 light-years long and are composed of very dense and cool gas. It is prospected that these may be the locations of ongoing star formation. The Nebula itself lies 12,000 light-years away in the constellation Auriga.

Zooniverse 4/08/11

This week for our Zooniverse projects I began by really just experimenting on quite a few projects to see which I would find most interesting and important to put my time into researching.  I really enjoyed both Galaxy and Boulder Wars for Moon Zoo and Galaxy Zoo but Planet Hunters was also quite intriguing looking at different star patterns.

APOD 4.2

April 3rd, 2011.                                      Giant Galaxy NGC 6872

This galaxy is known as NGC 6872 and is a giant spiral galaxy.  From the end of the arms all the way across, it is thought to have a wingspan of over 400,000 Light-Years. Located 200,000 Light-Years away, this galaxy is more than 4x the size of our local Milky Way.    It is located to the south in the constellation Pavo, the Peacock.  Its spiral shape is believed to be a result of gravitational interaction with nearby galaxy IC 4970, stretching the galaxy until it eventually will form a merger according to predictions.  This photograph was taken by the Gemini South Telescope in Chile and is a cosmic color portrait.  This APOD was of particular interest to me because it really helped expand upon a topic that was being discussed in class, the sheer magnitude of space and all that is out there.  A galaxy 4x as large as our Milky Way, which is already incomprehensible to me just amazes me and really spurs my imagination as to all that could possibly exist.