sure

38 ♥ / 3 June, 2012

1972 ♥ / 2 June, 2012

692 ♥ / 1 June, 2012

1388 ♥ / 31 May, 2012

9031 ♥ / 30 May, 2012

2498 ♥ / 29 May, 2012

298 ♥ / 28 May, 2012

9214 ♥ / 27 May, 2012

unknownskywalker:

Annular eclipse from Yokohama, Japan by Shuji Kajiyama / AP

136 ♥ / 26 May, 2012

unknownskywalker:

Celestial Tapestry is Born of Uncertain Parentage
This new Gemini Legacy Image shows the elaborate planetary nebula Sharpless 2-71. For most of its recorded history, astronomers assumed that it formed from the death throes of an obvious bright star (a known binary system) near its center. Arguments against that claim, however, have turned this case into a classic mystery of uncertain parentage.
The nebula presents a multi-polar structure and several pairs of bipolar lobes at different orientations. These lobes most certainly formed at different times and likely involved a binary progenitor – in particular with mass-transfer and multiple episodes of mass ejection along an axis where the orientation changes with time.
The Gemini Legacy Image shows the long-assumed central star shining as the brightest object very close to the center of the nebula’s beautiful gas shell. But new observations have shown that the nature of a dimmer, bluer star – just to the right, and a bit lower than the obvious central star – might provide a better fit for the nebula’s “birth parent.”
The uncertainty arises from the fact that the brighter central star doesn’t appear to radiate enough ultraviolet light to cause the surrounding gas to glow, whereas the dimmer, bluer star likely does. On the other hand, the brighter star’s binary nature would help explain the nebula’s asymmetrical structure. Astronomers do not yet know if the dimmer, bluer star also has a companion.

30 ♥ / 25 May, 2012

michaelrecycles:

(via imgTumble)

194 ♥ / 24 May, 2012

364 ♥ / 23 May, 2012

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