The Cellar  

Go Back   The Cellar > Images > Image of the Day

Image of the Day Images that will blow your mind - every day. [Blog] [RSS] [XML]

Reply
 
Thread Tools Rating: Thread Rating: 6 votes, 5.00 average. Display Modes
Old 08-29-2006, 12:40 PM   #1
Undertoad
Radical Centrist
 
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Cottage of Prussia
Posts: 31,423
August 29, 2006: Cassiopeia A supernova by Hubble



It's been a while since we had a space shot. I imagine this will be tomorrow's Astro Pic of the Day; today, WaPo highlighted it and so I went and found a big version at Hubble's website. The image is actually a stitch of 18 different images, and I cropped it for our purposes.

Cassiopeia-A is the "youngest known remnant from a supernova explosion in the Milky Way." It's in the Cassiopeia constellation.

300 years ago, it was a massive star, sitting around 10,000 light years from us; then, one day, it just exploded. Nobody knows why; supernovae are pretty mysterious. Perhaps it found an empty ice cube tray in the freezer.

Cassie A. would have been much larger and more dense than our own sun, and the resulting explosion would have been so unimaginably massive as to be beyond our comprehension. All we see now is the result: a huge, expanding cloud of interstellar dust. If you're interstellarly allergic, you might want to avoid that section of the galaxy.

They actually don't know why nobody noticed the explosion 300 years ago. People were looking, by then, and writing down what they saw.

And 25 years ago, telescopy was less advanced and someone theorized that the center might contain a black hole. Now they say it doesn't. I dunno what it would look like here... shrug, big black hole I guess.

Wikipedia entry
Undertoad is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-29-2006, 12:41 PM   #2
wolf
lobber of scimitars
 
Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Phila Burbs
Posts: 20,774
Well, that will be one hell of a screen background ...
__________________
wolf eht htiw og

"Conspiracies are the norm, not the exception." --G. Edward Griffin The Creature from Jekyll Island

High Priestess of the Church of the Whale Penis
wolf is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-29-2006, 12:45 PM   #3
Undertoad
Radical Centrist
 
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Cottage of Prussia
Posts: 31,423
Hang on, I'll build a few wallpapers in the right formats.
Undertoad is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-29-2006, 12:47 PM   #4
Emrikol
Compatriot-at-Arms
 
Join Date: Jan 2002
Posts: 107
I can see the devil's face!!

*runs around in circles*
Emrikol is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-29-2006, 12:52 PM   #5
glatt
 
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Arlington, VA
Posts: 27,717
"empty ice cube tray" "interstellarly allergic"

You have fun writing these up, don't you?
glatt is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-29-2006, 01:08 PM   #6
Undertoad
Radical Centrist
 
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Cottage of Prussia
Posts: 31,423
Wallpapers, right-click and save in your desired format:

Cas A 1024x768 jpg

Cas A 1280x960 jpg

Cas A 1280x1024 jpg

Cas A 1600x1200 jpg

glatt, I do laugh at all my own jokes.
Undertoad is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-29-2006, 01:56 PM   #7
Happy Monkey
I think this line's mostly filler.
 
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: DC
Posts: 13,575
It's an evil space hedgehog!
__________________
_________________
|...............| We live in the nick of times.
| Len 17, Wid 3 |
|_______________| [pics]
Happy Monkey is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-29-2006, 02:42 PM   #8
lulu
with karate i'll kick your ass
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: NYC
Posts: 53
Looks like rainbow coloured water splashed amongst the stars.
__________________
Hiya!
lulu is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-29-2006, 02:46 PM   #9
Shawnee123
Why, you're a regular Alfred E Einstein, ain't ya?
 
Join Date: Jun 2006
Posts: 21,206
It looks like beautiful vomit.

No, seriously, it is awe-inspiring.
__________________
A word to the wise ain't necessary - it's the stupid ones who need the advice.
--Bill Cosby
Shawnee123 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-29-2006, 03:33 PM   #10
9th Engineer
Bioengineer and aspiring lawer
 
Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: Pittsburgh
Posts: 872
I'm sure other people noticed this but I'll point it out just to be on record. If it's ~10,000 lightyears from us then the supernova occured 10,300 years ago, we only got the update recently. Kinda ties back into the quantum mechanics stipulation that no information may be transmitted faster than the speed of light (including gravity waves, so even if we could have measured these more than 300 years ago they wouldn't change till the light reached us).
__________________
The most valuable renewable resource is stupidity.
9th Engineer is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-29-2006, 04:11 PM   #11
capnhowdy
Blatantly Homosapien
 
Join Date: Mar 2004
Posts: 6,200
I'm typeless.
__________________
Please type slowly. I can't read very fast............... and no holy water, please.
capnhowdy is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-29-2006, 04:57 PM   #12
mcnugget91
Provocateur
 
Join Date: Mar 2006
Posts: 9
Thanks for the wallpaper undertoad! It is awesome!
It looks like the head and arms of a monster with huge teeth and claws!!
__________________
mcnugget91 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-29-2006, 05:25 PM   #13
ferret88
(This space left intentionally UN-blank.)
 
Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: Albuquerque
Posts: 604

i think someone just sneezed on the lens
ferret88 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-29-2006, 05:40 PM   #14
Griff
still says videotape
 
Join Date: Feb 2001
Posts: 26,813
Quote:
Originally Posted by Undertoad
Perhaps it found an empty ice cube tray in the freezer.
I'm thinking it was the crayon check off note. Either way great pic even if it doesn't seem food related at all.
__________________
If you would only recognize that life is hard, things would be so much easier for you.
- Louis D. Brandeis
Griff is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-29-2006, 05:57 PM   #15
Wombat
(marsupial with backward-facing pouch)
 
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Canberra
Posts: 251
Maybe nobody noticed it 300 years ago because it was a very cloudy week.

Although, presumably a star that big and that close would have been in a constellation chart and someone must have noticed at some point that it was gone.
__________________
If you don't do it properly, you'll get to the pub sooner.
Wombat is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply


Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
 
Thread Tools
Display Modes Rate This Thread
Rate This Thread:

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump

All times are GMT -5. The time now is 01:48 AM.


Powered by: vBulletin Version 3.8.1
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.