... 2008 October 9 . Massive Stars in NGC 6357 . ... Explanation: Massive stars lie within NGC 6357 , an expansive emission nebula complex some 8,000 light-years away in the tail of the constellation Scorpius . In fact, positioned just below center in this close-up view of NGC 6357, star cluster Pismis 24 includes some of the most massive stars known in the galaxy , stars with over 100 times the mass of the Sun. ... About APOD | ... NASA Official: Phillip Newman Specific rights apply . ...

... Credit Copyright: NASA 's Goddard Space Flight Center , CI Lab Explanation: What happens when a star gets too close to a black hole? ... Although angularly unresolved, variations in high energy light indicate that some of the star became shredded and reformed into a disk swirling around the dark abyss. ... Publications with keywords: black hole - accretion disk . Publications with words: black hole - accretion disk . ... Two Black Holes Merge . When Black Holes Collide . ...

... October 18, 1999 . NGC 3603: An Active Star Cluster . ... Explanation: NGC 3603 is home to a massive star cluster, thick dust pillars, and a star about to explode . The central open cluster contains about 2000 bright stars, each of which is much brighter and more massive than our Sun . ... These stars are less massive than our Sun, demonstrating that great numbers of low-mass stars also form in active starburst regions . ... About APOD > . ...

Supernova 2009js in NGC 918 . This page is devoted to information on Supernova 2009js in NGC 918 . Basic information on this SN, including the last reported brightness, on this Supernova can be found on the main page . Information on the original web pages for many of these images can be found on the updates and links web pages. Discovered independently by Lick Observatory Supernova Search (USA) and Koichi Itagaki (Japan). ... 2009/10/11.44 . 17.2 . ... Joseph Brimacombe . ...

M1 image More About M1 Nice Color Picture . ... M16 image More About M16 HST image . ... M31 image More About M31 Nice Color Picture . ... M42 image ; M43 image More About M42/43 Nice Color CCD Picture . M51 image More About M51 Color Image of M51 M51 Supernova . M57 image More About M57 Nice Color CCD Picture Very Deep M57 Image . ... M81 image More About M81 M81 Supernova Ultraviolet Image of M81 More about Ultraviolet Imaging . M82 image More About M82 M82 False Color M82 True Color . ...

The H II complex N 44 in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) provides an excellent site to perform a detailed study of star formation in a mild starburst, as it hosts three regions of star formation at different evolutionary stages, and it is not as complicated and confusing as the 30 Doradus giant H II region. We have obtained Spitzer Space Telescope observations and complementary ground-based 4 m uBVIJK observations of N 44 to identify candidate massive young stellar objects (YSOs). ...

... Bad Astronomy . ... Bitesize Astronomy . ... Last week's Snack talked about how black holes can affect the environment around them in such a way as to be very bright . ... It's a common misconception that black holes always have matter swirling into them. ... As this matter gets closer and closer to the black hole it piles up and a large, fairly flat disk forms. This is called the accretion disk , because matter from this disk accretes (that is, falls in) on the black hole. ... 2008 Phil Plait. ...

... Tonight's Sky . ... Sky this Month . ... Star Atlas . ... stars . ... The Sky This Week: April 1 - 10 . ... Observing springtime deep-sky objects with a large telescope . ... Why do some stars appear to flash a variety of different colors when you look at them through a telescope? ... So, Earthт??s atmosphere will bend some colors from especially bright stars more so than others, which makes the source look like itт??s flashing colors. Get instant access to subscriber content on Astronomy.com! ...

Next: Ejectors in Massive Binary Previous: Artificial Galaxy: Full Matrix . The first version of the Scenario Machine was aimed especially at the simulation of massive binary star evolution. ... First, there is a large class of intermediate mass binaries (say, consisting initially of 8 + 5 solar masses) that can also produce NS and thus lead to the formation of a bright X-ray source. ... Next: Ejectors in Massive Binary Previous: Artificial Galaxy: Full Matrix Mike E. Prokhorov . ...

The small solids. Asteroids or the small planetes . ... The comets. ... Ceneca the Young.Procuring about the nature.63 y. The comet is a celestial body of a great size, but a rare one... transparent. Sometimes there seen a core and the medium forms a kind of a tail, beard or dishevelled looks. ... The core is an ice body - conglomeration of frosted gas and dust. ... The comet state is variable: ones have the con tails, others the dust tails, and the third have both. ... Meteors and meteorites. ...

... There are several explanations for these X--ray quiet PMS stars. To examine the explanations, it is proper to divide the PMS stars into three groups: those bluer than R - I = 0.7, those redder than the X--ray sources (R - I > 1.25) and those with colors similar to the X--ray sources. ... A total of 26 of the non--X--ray detected PMS candidates had spectra taken. ... Between V=14 and V=16, I find 25 stars which are X--ray sources and estimate 19 non--X--ray PMS stars. ...

Orbital intersection . ... Structure of Taurid stream . ... Meteoroid swarm and Taurid fireballs . ... The following four diagrams schematically show four different Taurid orbits and the orbits of Earth and Jupiter. ... The Taurid stream contains particles (small, solid grains) at different stages of their precession cycles. ... The study of when a meteor stream can produce a meteor shower is the study of when precession brings orbits to intersection with Earth, or e.g. with Mars . ...

... The massive star forming complex G333 . ... Color-composite image of the massive star forming complex G333 , observed as part of a large project with the 22-m Mopra radio telescope near Coonabarabran, NSW. The colors depict the following temperature and density sensitive molecular line tracers: HCN tracing warm gas (around 20 to 40 K) , HCO + tracing warm gas with outflow/infall , and N 2 H + tracing really cold gas (less than 20 K) . ... today * ATNF | ... ATCA | ...

... Special Reports Giant space cloud may be powered by black holes 17:57 23 April 2007 NewScientist.com news service David Shiga An enormous cloud of roiling plasma in space may be drawing its energy from black holes, new observations suggest. Such clouds might be sources for the mysterious particles that occasionally crash into Earth's atmosphere at ultra - high speed. ... But higher energy particles in the cloud may be able to escape, he says. ...

Amalthea . Jupiter V . Amalthea [am-al-THEE-uh] is one of Jupiter's smaller moons. ... It was also the first moon of Jupiter to be discovered since Galileo's discovery of the four Galilean Moons in 1610. Amalthea is extremely irregular, having dimensions of about 270x165x150 kilometers in diameter. ... Discovered by . ... Topographic Map of Amalthea . ... As with all maps, it is the cartographer's interpretation; not all features are necessarily certain given the limited data available. ...

... V838 Mon is a member of a new class of eruptive variables which appear as a peculiar novae having late K-M type spectra in their outburst. Before its outburst, it was a wide binary system of B3V type stars. ... The B3V companion was seen in the outburst in the UV spectrum taken with HST (Rauch et al., ... In the latest spectra, the light of B3V companion was predominating in the short-wave photometric bands. ... CCD blue frames of V838 Mon before the eclipse (left) and in the eclipse (right). ...

Astronotes Armagh Planetarium's Stellar Blog! ... Solar System . ... Planets . ... This bizarrely shrunken planetary system was found by NASAтАЩs Kepler mission, hence the parent star has been named Kepler-11. ... Planetary scientist and Kepler science team member Jack Lissauer said ?These six planets are mixtures of rock and gases, possibly including water.тАЭ €аNone of these strange new worlds are likely to be home to any form of life; their surface conditions are simply too extreme. ...

... Observing . ... Solar Observing . ... April 3 (SUN) - Solar Observing, Central Park , Manhattan . ... APRIL'S SKY . ... Lecture Series at the American Museum of Natural History The Amateur Astronomers Association is proud to present an astronomy lecture series from October through May each year for our members and the .. ... The€аAmateur Astronomers Association of New York€аwas organized in 1927 to promote the study of Astronomy, emphasizing its cultural and inspirational value. ...

... Sunday , October 6, 2013 Standard quasar-like AGN Standard AGN have: · · · · · Luminous accretion disk (with X-ray corona) Bright line emission (ionised by disk) Dusty obscuring torus (emits in IR/sub-mm) Orientation-dependent observed properties Sometimes, extended radio jets Sunday , October 6, 2013 Another class of AGN Other AGN , exemplified by weak radio ... Sunday, October 6, 2013 Summary · · · · · · Not all AGN follow the "standard" accretion disk picture. ...

... Two new LBV stars have been discovered in the Andromeda Galaxy. ... In Figure 1 the spectral energy distributions for six stars are shown: upper row - the newly discovered LBV stars, middle row - two well-known LBV stars Var A-1 and AE And, the lower row - two new B[e]-supergiant stars in Andromeda. ... Infrared spectra of the stars in the Andromeda Galaxy: two classical LBVs Var A-1 and AE And, two new LBVs J004526.62 and J004051.59, and two new B[e]-supergiants J004417.10 and J004444.52. ...