The Andromeda Galaxy in ultraviolet light from the SWIFT satellite..

[Fumesucker]

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/10/05/a-swift-view-of%20andromeda/#respond

NASA’s Swift satellite is a modern success story: designed to peer at the Universe in ultraviolet, X-rays, and gamma rays, it is on constant lookout for gamma-ray bursts, explosions so vast they are second only to the Big Bang itself.

Swift scans the skies, constantly observing, always on its toes for that fleeting blast of high-energy light. But it also does other science as well; an orbiting camera like that has many uses. For three months in 2008, astronomers used Swift to target the nearest major spiral galaxy like our own: M31, the Andromeda Galaxy. And what they got was this gorgeous picture:



This image is incredible, both scientifically and logistically. It is the combination of 330 images, totaling 24 hours of solid observations, and amounted to a hefty 85 gigabytes of data. It covers three UV wavelengths: 192.8, 224.6, and 260 nanometers, which are just outside the range the human eye can see.

The image is huge; the full Moon would just fit over the apparent size of the central bulge of the galaxy. Over 20,000 individual sources of ultraviolet light can be found. Some science can be seen just with just a glance: for example, the light coming from the spiral arms is clumpy, and from the bulge it’s smooth. The arms are where you find patches of giant gas clouds forming newly born stars; the most massive of these blast out UV light and fierce winds which make the clouds themselves glow in UV.

[AngryAmish]

1. Beautiful. So beautiful it mocks us.

Time to bomb the andromeda galaxy.

[trotsky]

4. *snort*

:thumbsup:

[Delphinus]

2. Simply beautiful!

Thank you.

[The Straight Story]

3. Kind of like ghosts, can't see it with my naked eye so does not exist

:rofl: Happy Halloween!

Beautiful pic though, would make a nice background.

[Fumesucker]

6. The Andromeda Galaxy is indeed visible with the naked eye..

You need a dark sky site well away from light pollution but it's quite possible to see M31 with the naked eye, I've done it myself a number of times.

No, it doesn't look like a long exposure photograph but you can see the central bulge of the galaxy and even trace out the spiral arms to some extent.

[alfredo]

25. APOD is the place to go for beautiful atro images

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
Check out their archives. If you click on the images you will get a larger version.

[Confusious]

49. I got the Pleiades!

My favorite group of stars! I use to look at pictures of them when I was young and wished I could go there. ( Even though I probably wouldn't find anything, they are young blue )

[alfredo]

53. I saw they through an 11" Cassegrain several years ago. It was like

diamonds on black velvet.

[havocmom]

29. All magic is science, just not explained yet

;)

Someday, someday the scientists will have the tools to see what the mystics view.

[Fumesucker]

32. Clarke's third law..

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

[denem]

5. Wow. Moontan. Starburn from a 'massive blast' of UV as big as the full moon.

Make it so.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

7. here is the APOD link to it

if you mouse over the image at this link you go to visible light...

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap090917.html

sP

[Fumesucker]

13. Thanks for that...

[ProdigalJunkMail]

15. I dig APOD...it is one of my first stops on the web everyday

they always have cool stuff! FUN!

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

8. It's disgusting that these voyeur scientists would exploit Andromeda.

Is there nothing sacred that these thugs won't objectify?

[Fumesucker]

9. I guess you would prefer that we gaze upon the Orion Nebula, eh?

;)

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

10. We shouldn't be studying what we don't understand.

We don't know what might happen.

[Fumesucker]

12. True dat...

[eppur_se_muova]

51. It we're not careful, we just might learn something.

Think of the potential consequences.

[PVnRT]

36. Mysogynist! Authoritarian!

[The Straight Story]

11. Just wait - pepsi will start targeting scientists with ads using these pics

:rofl:

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

14. It's an attempt to threaten Iran with our technology.

[SidDithers]

16. Recc'd...

but I really don't think we should be observing other galaxies, until world hunger, HIV/AIDS, hemorrhoids and tofurkey are eliminated from Earth.

Sid

[Fumesucker]

17. You sound a touch conflicted..

What with reccing the post and all.. :)

[SidDithers]

18. Well, my ass is particularly painful today...

:hi:

Sid

[beam me up scottie]

19. STOP PICKING ON TOFURKEY!!11!

No, I'm serious, it makes a fabulous sandwich.

[Fumesucker]

20. There's just no telling where a DU thread will wander off to..

From UV satellites to Tofurkey sandwiches.. :crazy:

[beam me up scottie]

23. I've Been On DU Too Long To Watch People Make Fun Of Tofurkey.

And don't even get me started on the senseless slaughter of baby vegetables. :cry:

[SidDithers]

21. I sit appropriately chastized...

I'll never mock the tofurkey again. If it's good enough for bmus and Chris Crocker, it's good enough for me :)



Sid

[Leftist Agitator]

24. That looks disgusting.

:puke:

[beam me up scottie]

27. Okay, so it's not pretty, but neither is watching my mom hack up the gizzards to put in our stuffing

The ick factor plays a major role in dietary preference.

[Lochloosa]

45. Ummmm....giblet gravy....

:loveya:

[beam me up scottie]

47. She liked blood sausage too.

I'll say this for Mom, she fed us very well and never lied about what was in stuff.

[beam me up scottie]

28. I accept your apology and would appreciate your support for my most recent pet cause:

Making Walmart sell vegetarian food.

Just TRY and find a Boca Burger in Lardville USA.

[Warren DeMontague]

56. I eat it all the time, and I'm not vegan.

I like it with a little bit of salad dressing. Yum.

Sometimes I even mix it with actual turkey, so as to be sure to piss off ALL sides in the food wars.

[beam me up scottie]

63. Yesterday I bought some Morningstar Farms Italian Sausage and let bf & friends check it out.

Doc thought I was giving him a sample and started chowing on one, it was frozen solid but he said it smelled wonderful.

Some veggie products are better than others and even though he's an omnivore, said boyfriend is a good guinea pig.

Life's too short to not try new things, you know?

[Warren DeMontague]

64. The morningstar breakfast links and sausage patties are da bomb, as the kids say.

With a little hot sauce? Mmmmm.

And I won't touch actual sausage.

[beam me up scottie]

65. I was skeptical of the Italian sausage but damn, it's good!

Perfect blend of spicy and hot, the kind that makes your lips tingle. Plus you know what's in the stuff, and more importantly what's NOT in the stuff.

[Warren DeMontague]

66. I'm gonna have to try it.

Thanks. :thumbsup:

[pleah]

22. K&R

[SIMPLYB1980]

26. Yeah a new wallpaper!

:toast:

[Fumesucker]

30. Glad to be of service..

:hi:

[Bigmack]

31. How old is the light in this image?...

The light from this image has taken a long time to get here. Any of you science types know how long?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

about 2.5 million years old.

The light coming in from the far side being thousand of years older than the near side.

[Fumesucker]

34. About two and a half million years..

Which means that if you go out on a summer evening you can see light with your own unaided eyes that left well before Homo Sapiens Sapiens evolved.

Astronomers call it "fossil light" or "lookback time".

http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/cosmos/L/Lookback+Time

[Prism]

33. Andromeda must be stopped

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andromeda%E2%80%93Milky_Way_collision">She's coming right for us.

[Fumesucker]

37. Well, yeah... but..

It won't be all that much longer after that before Sol becomes a red giant, and then we'll *really* have problems. :)

[Prism]

40. By then, the sun will run on solar power

Nuclear sources of fuel will be a thing of the past, mark my words.

[Fumesucker]

43. We won't have to worry about power..

The big problem will be to keep the Earth from vaporizing since it may well be within the photosphere.

Of course, in five billion years we could have used all the deuterium in the Earth's oceans for fusion power too..

[Manifestor_of_Light]

50. A day without Nuclear Fusion is a Day without Sunshine.

Somewhere on the web you can get a t shirt with that on it.

Since my honey has two degrees in physics, he needs that one.

[glitch]

48. We're so screwn. nt

[ElboRuum]

54. Andromeda assumes the right of eminent domain...

We're better off just moving.

[Soylent Brice]

35. simply amazing.

K&R

[PVnRT]

38. Why must we waste money on NASA?

Gosh, this must have cost, like, a couple thousand bucks to get the picture. We could have solved every problem in the world with that money!

[Fumesucker]

41. We could have already won in Afghanistan and Iraq if we weren't wasting money on space toys..

Cured AIDS and cancer, ended world hunger and put two cars in every garage..

[PVnRT]

44. Don't forget our magical ponies

[Warren DeMontague]

57. Think of the starving children that could have been fed with that photograph.

I mean, if starving children could eat photographs, that is.

[beam me up scottie]

39. k&r

I use APOD on my desktop, it never gets old.

[NeedleCast]

42. Yeah, Sure, Andromeda is pretty NOW

In several billion years, when it consumes our own galaxy, people wont think the same way.

=)

[ElboRuum]

70. Actually...

Current mass estimates put the Milky Way as slightly larger than Andromeda... so technically the Milky Way will consume Andromeda. So we win!!!... well... call it a pyrrhic victory.

[ddeclue]

46. WAIT!!! LET ME PUT ON SOME SUNBLOCK FIRST!

:rofl:

Just kidding.. cool pix.

[dickthegrouch]

52. Can anyone explain why it's so flat?

Shouldn't an explosion in a vacuum cause something reasonably spherical?
Why do all these pictures show something so relatively disproportionate?

[ElboRuum]

55. Umm...

Andromeda is a galaxy... not an explosion.

[dickthegrouch]

60. and what created that galaxy?

It consists of an unimaginably large number of massive objects which are expanding away from each other. Gravitational attraction says they should be moving towards each other. Somewhere in there an explosion had to push them far apart enough for them to be able to continue to recede from the center.

I don't appreciate the way you try to put me down. And you didn't begin to answer the question. Even if it's a galaxy, why are the vast majority of them non-spherical?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

61. Um, they're not expanding away from each other.

All the stars are in orbit around the center.

It's flat because when it formed it was contracting, and spinning, and such things flatten due to conservation of angular momentum. Like the solar system.

Nobody was putting you down. Your poorly worded question was answered correctly. Galaxies are not explosions.

[Warren DeMontague]

62. Short answer: Conservation of angular momentum.

disc rotates, flattens along the axis of rotation. Same with the solar system, which is why all the planets (except Pluto, which isn't a planet anymore, anyway) lie on essentially the same plane. Or why Saturn's rings are the shape they are.

And the massive objects are expanding away from each other b/c the universe is expanding, but within a galaxy like M31 gravity dominates. And like I said, the rotation causes the disc shape.

[ElboRuum]

67. Actually...

Firstly, while the Big Bang may have created all matter in the universe, it wasn't an explosion... at least not in the strictest sense. Galaxies formed from the coalescence of that matter, bound by gravitational attraction, not from some nascent mini-bang.

Secondly, if you need an explanation of why a galaxy does not collapse in on itself, you might as well ask yourself why our solar system does not collapse in on itself. If a body is moving in a straight line and is acted upon by a gravitational force, it's path becomes curved around that force. In our solar system, this combination of forces keep the planets in orbit. So even though every body in the solar system exerts a gravitational force on every other, the momentum of their movement balances out these forces creating stable orbits. So rather than everything just bashing into everything else and finally just succumbing to the gravity well of the sun, things move around... in a disk.

Thirdly, I didn't try to put you down. I simply pointed out that what you were looking at was not an explosion. If you found a put down in that, then you find put down in being corrected. I did not realize this would bother you. But if you must have an answer:

Because your assumptions about the formation of galaxies are false, the question about why aren't there more spherical ones is moot. They don't form by explosion, ergo they have no reason to BE spherical as might be dictated by the physics if they did form by explosion. In fact, galaxies come in a range of shapes. Elliptical/spherical, spiral, barred spiral, irregular, galaxies in the process of colliding with each other. Each type is well represented. It just happens that M31 (Andromeda) is one of the most photographed and studied probably because it's just around the way from us, and it makes for a pretty picture to boot. It just happens to be a spiral galaxy.

[kentuck]

58. It looks like it's giving birth..

Beautiful!

[Vidar]

59. Lovely picture.

[Subdivisions]

68. I hope there's no place like Earth there. The Universe can do better. n/t

[TransitJohn]

69. Bomb it.

:hide: