Hidden Secrets of the Carina Nebula     This is a stunning image of the Carina nebula. It is located somewhere between 6,500 and 10,000 light years from Earth or right in our Milky Way. This image was taken in infrared by the European Southern Observatory. It holds two of the most massive and luminous stars in our galaxy called Eta Carinae and HD 93129A. Eta Carinae is about 100-150 times the mass of our sun and is 4 million times more luminous than it as well. Carina Nebula is a great example of how massive stars are born as well as the aftermath of being ripped apart leaving waves of gas everywhere. It’s a highly active region and is thought to be around for the last 3 million years. If you were to travel across the Carina Nebula it would take you about 260 light years. Some of the hidden secrets of the Carina Nebula lie with the Eta Carinae as it will eventually...

The Most Important Image in Astronomy: Hubble Deep Field Image     If you ever thought about what is one of the most exciting and important images in astronomy then check out Hubble’s ultra deep field image. You are looking at a region of space of 1mm by 1mm and that is 13 billion light years away! The universe is about 13.77 billion years old so that should give you some perspective in how far back we are looking. As you can see in the image there are a plethora of galaxies. Actually there are something like 10,000+ galaxies in the ultra deep field. Hubble started collecting data for the ultra deep field image in September of 2003 and completed in January of 2004. It took 400 orbits and 1 million seconds of exposure time! The furthest galaxy ever discovered is a galaxy that was born 380 million years after the Big Bang. Here is an image of all the oldest galaxies found...

When Galaxies Collide: Antennae Galaxy     The Antennae galaxy is located 45 million light years away from Earth in the constellation Corvus. The image above shows a zoomed out shot of the galaxies interacting with each other. The story goes that about 1.2 billion years ago there were two galaxies known as NGC 4038 and NGC 4039. The two galaxies that have collided with each other and it get’s its name Antennae from the two streaks of gas and stars resulted from the galactic collision. The nuclei of the two galaxies has merged together to create one giant galaxy. Interestingly astronomers say that it’s not the stars that collide together but the gas and molecular clouds that collide and have ferocious formations of stars. The view above spans over 500,000 light years.  

The Tadpole Galaxy     The Tadpole galaxy is a disrupted barred galaxy located 400 million light years from Earth in the northern constellation Draco. Tadpole galaxies tail of stars is one of the most striking features. It stretches across 280,000 light years whereas our Milky Way is about 100,000 to 120,000 light years across. The main body or galaxy itself is about 300,000 light years behind the tail. The Tadpole galaxy will likely lose its tail as it gets older. Now as you can see that the galaxy is disrupted and there is a theory of how that may have happened. The story goes that a smaller galaxy collided with the Tadpole galaxy from left to right in this view. It was then slung around behind the Tadpole galaxy by their gravitational attraction. During this event the interaction drew out the spiral galaxies stars and the intruder itself can be seen 300,000 light years...

Frog Photobombs LADEE’s Launch     On Friday September 6 the NASA mission LADEE or  Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer was launched into space to study the moon and get a more detailed look at the Moon’s atmosphere. Well LADEE wasn’t the only thing in the spotlight. A frog was caught in the middle of the launch (unfortunately) and is now immortalized in this photo. However why was the frog there in the first place? Was it by accident or did he just hop along to find what the fuss was all about? Well as it turns out the launchpad at the Wallops/Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport actually has a high-volume water deluge system which is basically a pool that activates during the launch to protect the launch pad from damage. For more information check out Universe Today’s post.

You’ve Never Seen Beautiful Mars Landscapes Like this Before! Here are the Best Mars Landscapes   Mars is an incredibly interesting planet and with the help of science fiction as well as space exploration efforts from NASA, ESA, and others we gain some remarkable information. To some Mars has a reputation for being a red desert with nothing exciting to look at. I am here to tell you otherwise. Hopefully by the end of this post you will gain a little excitement about the odd and beautiful landscapes of Mars. Let’s jump right into it!   The south pole of Mars. A permanent ice cap that has frozen water and carbon dioxide that is 3 km thick.   This is a picture of Mars landscape that looks like swiss cheese! Well this actually frozen carbon dioxide that can be found on the southern pole of the Mars ice caps.   Dark sand streaks on Mars. One of the mysteries...