خداحافظی آتلانتیس بر فراز پارکز

تلسکوپ رادیویی 64 متری پارکز بخاطر مشارکت در پرواز‌‌‌های انسانی به فضا شهرت خاصی دارد. این تلسکوپ عظیم رادیویی در زمان پروژه آپولو 11 یعنی اولین پرواز انسان به ماه، تصاویر تلویزیونی این رویداد تاریخی را از ماه دریافت و به ساکنین زمین مخابره نمود. در پیش زمینه این تصویر شامگاهی، این دیش قابل هدایت با عظمت خاصی خودنمایی می‌کند. بر فراز این دستگاه عظیم بشری، در آسمان پر ستاره شهر نیوساوت ولز آسترالیا، صورت‌های فلکی آشنای نیم‌کره جنوبی؛ بادبان، کشتیدم و شجاع به همراه نمایی تکرار نشدنی دیده می‌شوند. برفراز دیش، یعنی از راست به چپ در جهت محدوده کانون تلسکوپ، در آسمانی که هنوز از نور خورشید روشن است، شاتل فضایی آتلانتیس را می‌بینید که برای آخرین بار درخشان و چشمک زنان زیر نور آفتاب از ایستگاه فضایی بین المللی جدا شده است. خود ایستگاه فضایی بین المللی هم در گوشه راست پائین تصویر با ایجاد ردی درخشان در مداری پائین‌تر و با فاصله دو دقیقه به دنبال شاتل آتلانتیس در حرکت است. بامداد امروز 21 جولای (ساعت 5 و 56 دقیقه به وقت شرق آمریکا) شاتل آتلانتیس برای آخرین بار در مرکز فضایی کندی ناسا فرود آمد.

Seeing Red

This image by the Hubble Space Telescope shows a dramatic view of the spiral galaxy M51, dubbed the Whirlpool Galaxy. Seen in near-infrared light, most of the starlight has been removed, revealing the Whirlpool's skeletal dust structure. This new image is the sharpest view of the dense dust in M51. The narrow lanes of dust revealed by Hubble reflect the galaxy's moniker, the Whirlpool Galaxy, as if they were swirling toward the galaxy's core.

Going Supernova

While searching the skies for black holes using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, astronomers discovered a giant supernova that was smothered in its own dust. In this artist's rendering, an outer shell of gas and dust -- which erupted from the star hundreds of years ago -- obscures the supernova within. This event in a distant galaxy hints at one possible future for the brightest star system in our own Milky Way.

Space Oddity

In this image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, an unusual, ghostly green blob of gas appears to float near a neighboring spiral galaxy.

The bizarre object, dubbed Hanny's Voorwerp (Hanny's Object in Dutch), is the only visible part of a 300,000-light-year-long streamer of gas stretching around the galaxy, called IC 2947. The greenish Voorwerp is visible because a beam of light from the galaxy's core illuminated it. This beam came from a quasar--a bright, energetic object powered by a black hole. The quasar may have turned off about 200,000 years ago.

This Hubble view uncovers a pocket of star clusters, the yellowish-orange area at the tip of Hanny's Voorwerp. The star clusters are confined to an area that is a few thousand light- years wide. The youngest stars are a couple of million years old. The Voorwerp is the size of our Milky Way galaxy, and its bright green color is from glowing oxygen.

An interaction between IC 2947 and another galaxy about a billion years ago may have created Hanny's Voorwerp and fueled the quasar. The Hubble image shows that IC 2947 has been disturbed, with complex dust patches, warped spiral arms, and regions of star formation around its core. These features suggest the aftermath of a galaxy merger. The bright spots in the central part of the galaxy are star-forming regions. The small, pinkish object to the lower right of IC 2397 is an edge-on spiral galaxy in the background.

شش ضلعی زمستانی

اگر بتوانید جبار را پیدا کنید، احتمالن شش ضلعی زمستانی را نیز خواهید یافت. شش گوشه (یا شش ضلعی) زمستان، از تعدادی از درخشان ترین ستارگان آسمان تشکیل شده. این ستارگان با هم، یک شش ضلعی بزرگ در آسمان زمستانِ نیم کره ی شمالی می سازند که به راحتی دیده می شود و آنقدر روشن هستند که معمولن حتی در آسمان روشنِ شب در شهرهای بزرگ نیز قابل تشخیصند؛ البته در این تصویر، آن ها را در آسمان تاریکِ Stagecoach، کلرادوی آمریکا می بینید.

شش ستاره ی سازنده ی شش ضلعی زمستانی عبارتند از: الدبران (یکی از چهار ستاره ی سلطنتی ایرانیان)، عیوق، کاستور (و پولوکس)، شعرای شامی، رجل جبار و سیروس (شباهنگ). در این تصویر، نوار کهکشان راه شیری از مرکز شش ضلعی زمستانی گذشته است. خوشه ی باز ستاره ای "پروین" نیز درست بالای تصویر به چشم می خورد.

Sparkle

This Hubble Space Telescope image of galaxy NGC 1275 reveals the fine, thread-like filamentary structures in the gas surrounding the galaxy. The red filaments are composed of cool gas being suspended by a magnetic field, and are surrounded by the 100-million-degree Fahrenheit hot gas in the center of the Perseus galaxy cluster.

The filaments are dramatic markers of the feedback process through which energy is transferred from the central massive black hole to the surrounding gas. The filaments originate when cool gas is transported from the center of the galaxy by radio bubbles that rise in the hot interstellar gas. At a distance of 230 million light-years, NGC 1275 is one of the closest giant elliptical galaxies and lies at the center of the Perseus cluster of galaxies.

The galaxy was photographed in July and August 2006 with Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys.

تصویر چهره ای از ماه که تا به حال دیده نشده است

این نقشه درخشان با استفاده از هزار و هفتصد تصویر از منطقه ای یکسان از قطب جنوب ماه و توسط دوربین مدارگرد اکتشافی ماه طی دوره ای 6 ماهه به ثبت رسیده است.

از آنجایی که محور دورانی ماه از شیب 1.54 درجه ای برخوردار است برخی از نواحی نزدیک به قطب در آن در تاریکی دائمی قرار گرفته اند در حالی که مناطق دیگر آن در بیشتر اوقات سال در معرض درخشش نور خورشید قرار دارند.

هر یک از تصاویری که مدارگرد اکتشافی ماه در این دوره 6 ماهه به ثبت رسانده است بر روی نقشه ای از این منطقه قرار گرفته و به تصویری با کد دودوئی تبدیل شده است: در صورتی که زمینه درخشان باشد آن پیکسل از نقشه بر روی یک و در صورت تاریک بودن بر روی صفر تنظیم شده است. محققان سپس تمامی این تصاویر را بر روی هم جمع کرده و به محاسبه درصد مدت زمانی پرداختند که هر یک از این پیکسلها در این دوره 6 ماهه در حال درخشیدن بوده اند. در نقشه نهایی که از این محاسبات دقیق به دست آمده است، بخشهایی که هرگز نوری دریافت نکرده و یا بازتاب نخواهند داد به رنگ سیاه دیده می شوند و در مقابل بخشهایی که همیشه درخشان هستند با رنگ سفید مشخص شده اند. همچنین بخشهایی از ماه که گاه در نور و گاه در سایه قرار دارند نیز در طیفهای مختلفی از رنگ خاکستری به چشم می خورند.

بر اساس گزارش نیوساینتیست، حفره "شکلتون" با وسعتی برابر 19 کیلومتر و عمقی برابر 4 کیلومتر را می توان در مرکز این نقشه به خوبی مشاهده کرد. مدارگرد اکتشافی ماه به صورت روزانه و سالانه نقشه های مشابهی از دو قطب ماه به ثبت می رساند تا اطلاعات انسان را برای ماموریتهای آتی به کره ماه تکمیل کند.

Ultraviolet

This mosaic of M31 merges 330 individual images taken by the Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope aboard NASA's Swift spacecraft. It is the highest-resolution image of the galaxy ever recorded in the ultraviolet. Also known as the Andromeda Galaxy, M31 is more than 220,000 light-years across and lies 2.5 million light-years away. On a clear, dark night, the galaxy is faintly visible as a misty patch to the naked eye.

The irregular shape of the image results when the more than 300 images were assembled to make the final image.

Deep Inside the Milky Way

This artist's impression shows how the Arches star cluster appears from deep inside the hub of our Milky Way Galaxy. Hidden from our direct view, the massive cluster lies 25,000 light-years away and is the densest known gathering of young stars in our galaxy. The illustration is based on infrared observations from Hubble and with ground-based telescopes, which pierced our galaxy's dusty core and snapped images of the luminous cluster of about 2,000 stars.

Reflecting Merope

In the well known Pleiades star cluster, starlight is slowly destroying this wandering cloud of gas and dust. The star Merope lies just off the upper left edge of this picture from the Hubble Space Telescope. In the past 100,000 years, part of the cloud has by chance moved so close to this star--only 3,500 times the Earth-Sun distance--that the starlight itself is having a very dramatic effect. Pressure of the star's light significantly repels the dust in the reflection nebula, and smaller dust particles are repelled more strongly. As a result, parts of the dust cloud have become stratified, pointing toward Merope. The closest particles are the most massive and the least affected by the radiation pressure. A longer-term result will be the general destruction of the dust by the energetic starlight.

Where Stars Are Born

Found among the Small Magellanic Cloud's clusters and nebulae NGC 346 is a star-forming region about 200 light-years across, pictured above by the Hubble Space Telescope. A satellite galaxy of the Milky Way, the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) is a wonder of the southern sky, a mere 210,000 light-years distant in the constellation of the Toucan. Exploring NGC 346, astronomers have identified a population of embryonic stars strung along the dark, intersecting dust lanes visible here on the right. Still collapsing within their natal clouds, the stellar infants' light is reddened by the intervening dust. A small, irregular galaxy, the SMC represents a type of galaxy more common in the early Universe. But these small galaxies are thought to be a building blocks for the larger galaxies present today. Within the SMC, stellar nurseries like NGC 346 also are thought to be similar to those found in the early universe.

This image, like many Hubble images, has a curious stair-step shape. These images come from a scientific instrument called the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2, or WFPC2 -- which was removed from the telescope in mid-2009. It is WFPC2’s unique design that underlies the oddly-shaped images in Hubble’s portfolio.

ترجمه این پست در وبلاگ حسام الدین مشاهده کنید.

Hubble's Lagoon

Like brush strokes on a canvas, ridges of color seem to flow across the Lagoon Nebula, a canvas nearly 3 light-years wide. The colors map emission from ionized gas in the nebula were recorded by the Hubble Space Telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys. Also known as M8, the nebula is a star-forming region in the constellation Sagittarius. Hubble's remarkably sharp, close-up view reveals undulating shapes sculpted by the energetic light and winds from the region's new born stars. Of course, the Lagoon Nebula is a popular target for earthbound skygazers, too.

Image Credit: NASA

A Galactic Spectacle

The Antennae galaxies, located about 62 million light years from Earth, are shown in this composite image from NASA's Great Observatories--the Chandra X-ray Observatory (blue), the Hubble Space Telescope (gold and brown), and the Spitzer Space Telescope (red). The Antennae galaxies take their name from the long antenna-like "arms," seen in wide-angle views of the system. These features were produced by tidal forces generated in the collision.

The collision, which began more than 100 million years ago and is still occurring, has triggered the formation of millions of stars in clouds of dusts and gas in the galaxies. The most massive of these young stars have already sped through their evolution in a few million years and exploded as supernovas.

A Chameleon Sky

The sands of time are running out for the central star of this the Hourglass Nebula. With its nuclear fuel exhausted, this brief, spectacular, closing phase of a sun-like star's life occurs as its outer layers are ejected and its core becomes a cooling, fading white dwarf. In 1995, astronomers used the Hubble Space Telescope to make a series of images of planetary nebulae, including the one above. Here, delicate rings of colorful glowing gas (nitrogen-red, hydrogen-green, and oxygen-blue) outline the tenuous walls of the 'hourglass.' The unprecedented sharpness of Hubble's images revealed surprising details of the nebula ejection process and may resolve the outstanding mystery of the variety of complex shapes and symmetries of planetary nebulae.

Bright Lights

Two extremely bright stars illuminate a greenish mist in this image from the Spitzer Space Telescope's "GLIMPSE360" survey. This mist is comprised of hydrogen and carbon compounds called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), which also are found here on Earth in sooty vehicle exhaust and on charred grills. In space, PAHs form in the dark clouds that give rise to stars. These molecules provide astronomers a way to visualize the peripheries of gas clouds and study their structures in great detail. They are not actually green; but are color coded in these images to allow scientists see their glow in infrared.

This image is a combination of data from Spitzer and the Two-Micron All-Sky Survey (2MASS). The Spitzer data was taken after Spitzer's liquid coolant ran dry in May 2009, marking the beginning of its "warm" mission.

Of Dust and Creation

 

This infrared image taken by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, shows a star-forming cloud teeming with gas, dust and massive newborn stars. WISE, which is surveying the whole sky in infrared light, is particularly sensitive to the warm dust that permeates star-forming clouds like this one. In this way, WISE complements visible-light observations.

The mission also complements Hubble and other telescopes by showing the 'big picture," providing context for more detailed observations. The cluster contains some of the most massive stars known. Winds and radiation from the stars are evaporating and dispersing the cloud material from which they formed, warming the cold dust and gas surrounding the central nebula. This greenish "halo" of warm cloud material is seen best by WISE due to its large field of view and improved sensitivity over past all-sky infrared surveys.

در جهان روشنایی هایی وجود دارد که در عمیق ترین ظلمات نهانند.