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Title: Astronomy Picture of the Day
Source:
NASA
URL Source: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap050312.html
Published: Mar 12, 2005
Author: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (U
Post Date: 2005-03-12 08:34:25 by 2Trievers
Keywords: Astronomy, Picture
Views: 184
Comments: 8
Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2005 March 12 Michael Owen, John Blondin (North Carolina State Univ.) Explanation: Don't be fooled by the familiar pattern. The graceful spiral structure seen in this computer visualization does not portray winding spiral arms in a distant . Instead, the graphic shows spiral shock waves in a three dimensional simulation of an accretion disk -- material swirling onto a compact central object that could represent a white dwarf star, neutron star, or black hole. Such accretion disks power bright x-ray sources within our own galaxy. They form in binary star systems which consist of a donor star (not shown above), supplying the accreting material, and a compact object whose strong gravity ultimately draws the material towards its surface. For known x-ray binary systems the size of the accretion disk itself might fall somewhere between the diameter of the Sun (about 1,400,000 kilometers) and the diameter of the Moon's orbit (800,000 kilometers). One interesting result of the virtual reality astrophysics illustrated here is that the simulated disk develops instabilities which tend to smear out the pronounced spiral shocks. Astronomy Picture of the Day
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#2. To: 2Trievers (#0)
I was waiting for California Red yesterday am:(
I must admit I haven't been too consistent in APOD posting ... but here it is: California Red
No you haven't (but you are forgiven). In fact, I almost posted one in your stead, but the one I found that day looked too much like a mammography. Here's one that goes along with the outlawed Easter Eggs (or is it just the Bunny?), and your eggs in a basket cartoon. Resembling a rippling pool illuminated by underwater lights, the Egg Nebula offers astronomers a special look at the normally invisible dust shells swaddling an aging star. These dust layers, extending over one-tenth of a light-year from the star, have an onionskin structure that forms concentric rings around the star. A thicker dust belt, running almost vertically through the image, blocks off light from the central star. Twin beams of light radiate from the hidden star and illuminate the pitch-black dust, like a shining flashlight in a smoky room. The artificial "Easter-Egg" colors in this image are used to dissect how the light reflects off the smoke-sized dust particles and then heads toward Earth. ....
#7. To: 2Trievers (#6)
The "Spirograph" Nebula
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#4. To: justlurking (#2)
#6. To: 2Trievers (#4)
I must admit I haven't been too consistent in APOD posting
Replies to Comment # 6.
The one I didn't post.
End Trace Mode for Comment # 6.