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Post by jandl100 on Feb 24, 2020 18:52:15 GMT
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Post by MartinT on Feb 24, 2020 19:27:00 GMT
What a thing to witness that would be.
It would make our most powerful hydrogen bomb look like a bubble popping.
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Post by jandl100 on Feb 24, 2020 19:44:22 GMT
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Post by MartinT on Feb 24, 2020 19:46:04 GMT
Our Moon is unusually large in proportion to its planet, though.
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Post by jandl100 on Feb 26, 2020 8:50:21 GMT
Aha, some data!  |
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Post by jandl100 on Mar 2, 2020 8:57:46 GMT
 The Dolphin Nebula - so named for obvious reasons! It's 5,200 light years away, but it's 60 light year diameter size is so large that if were bright enough it would appear larger than the full moon in our sky. The massive star that created the bubble, a Wolf-Rayet star, is the bright one near the center of the nebula. Wolf-Rayet stars have over 20 times the mass of the Sun and are thought to be in a brief, pre-supernova phase of massive star evolution. Fast winds from this Wolf-Rayet star create the bubble-shaped nebula as they sweep up slower moving material from an earlier phase of evolution. The windblown nebula has an age of about 70,000 years. Relatively faint emission captured in the featured expansive image is dominated by the glow of ionized oxygen atoms mapped to a blue hue. - Astronomy picture / March 02, 2020 |
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Post by MartinT on Mar 2, 2020 9:49:36 GMT
it's 60 light year diameter size is so large that if were bright enough it would appear larger than the full moon in our sky. That's just... too hard to imagine for something so far away. Enormous doesn't do it justice. |
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Post by jandl100 on Mar 2, 2020 10:55:14 GMT
It is astonishing that a single star is powerful enough to create a structure 60 light years across. Those Wolf-Rayet stars are quite amazing. Hundreds of thousands times more powerful than our Sun. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf%E2%80%93Rayet_star |
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Post by Firebottle on Mar 5, 2020 8:08:59 GMT
Remarkable that the shape is so similar to the head in your avatar Jerry.
First thing I noticed.
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Post by jandl100 on Mar 5, 2020 8:16:49 GMT
Remarkable that the shape is so similar to the head in your avatar Jerry. First thing I noticed. Gosh - so it is! I hereby rename it the Duckling Nebula. |
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Post by jandl100 on Mar 7, 2020 6:46:33 GMT
the view from the New Horizons probe as it approached its closest to Pluto  |
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Post by MartinT on Mar 7, 2020 11:37:55 GMT
Gosh, that's got to be the best shot we've seen of Pluto so far.
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Post by TheMooN on Mar 7, 2020 12:05:52 GMT
Even a smallish chunk would be rather nice link |
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Post by jandl100 on Mar 9, 2020 18:14:20 GMT
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Post by MartinT on Mar 9, 2020 20:34:18 GMT
Bang (!) goes your chance to witness a supernova, Jerry.
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Post by jandl100 on Mar 9, 2020 21:07:14 GMT
Well, next best thing - maybe the Sun will unexpectedly go nova. That would be spectacular.
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Post by MartinT on Mar 9, 2020 21:38:49 GMT
For precisely 8 minutes!
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Post by jandl100 on Mar 10, 2020 6:52:14 GMT
Well, you might get 12 hours or so, if you are in night time -- and you'd have some excitement to look forward to as the Earth spun you round into the glare of the furnace!
I recall a short SF story along those lines - a guy realised what the intense brightness of the moon in the night time sky meant. So he went down the local pub and bought everyone several rounds of drinks - they had no idea why he was being so generous!
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Post by MartinT on Mar 10, 2020 8:03:40 GMT
I recall a short SF story along those lines - a guy realised what the intense brightness of the moon in the night time sky meant. So he went down the local pub and bought everyone several rounds of drinks - they had no idea why he was being so generous! Wasn't there a Twilight Zone or Outer Limits episode on the same subject? Moon gets very bright and only one person clocks what is going on? |
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Post by jandl100 on Mar 10, 2020 13:04:40 GMT
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