#nebula

#nebula

This Nebula Looks Like GodzillaWith bright spots that look like "piercing eyes and an elongated snout," this nebula found in the constellation Sagittarius certainly bears a resemblance to Godzilla.Robert Hurt, the Caltech astronomer who processed the image captured by NASA's now-retired Spitzer Space Telescope, was the first one to spot its resemblance to the "king of the monsters." Hurt wasn't really looking for monsters, but when he saw the bright spots in the photograph, that's when he noticed the resemblance of the picture to the Japanese fictional monster.Amazingly terrifying!(Image Credit: NASA/ JPL-Caltech via DailyMail)#Godzilla #Astronomy #Caltech #NASA #Nebula

Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2021Winners of the Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2021 competition have just been announced. The annual astronomy photography competition, now in its 13th year, is hosted by the Royal Observatory Greenwich and drew more than 4,500 entries, including many featuring images of distant galaxies that require the use of powerful telescopes.The overall winner of the Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2021 was Shuchang Dong who took this deceptively simple photo of a solar eclipse titled "The Golden Ring" shown above. Dong took the photo in the Ali region of Tibet on June 21, 2020."This place has year-round sunny weather, but in front of the annular eclipse, I saw dark clouds all over the sky," Dong said, "We were waiting with anxious minds but we were lucky. Within a minute of the annular eclipse, the sunshine penetrated through the clouds and afterwards the Sun was sucked into the thick clouds.""This image demonstrates both the beauty and simplicity of an eclipse, but also the science behind this astronomical event," noted competition judge Emily Drabek-Maunder, "Our sun can still be seen as a ring circling the Moon as it passes in front of the Sun, and mountains on the lunar surface can be seen hiding some of this light on the lower righthand portion of the image. This is a stunning achievement!"View more of the fantastic photos of the Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition below.#astronomy #photography #AstronomyPhotographeroftheYear #ShuchangDong #sun #solareclipse

Dolphin Head NebulaWe're loving this image of the Dolphin Head Nebula (Sharpless 308) in the constellation Canis Major. It was taken by Yovin Yahathugoda and was shortlisted in the 2021 Astronomy Photographer of the Year by the Royal Observatory.From Science Focus:This is an image of the Dolphin Head Nebula, also designated as Sharpless 308, located at the centre of the constellation Canis Major. The star at the centre of this image is dying. The star’s gravity became too weak to hold onto its outer layers, and so they were blown away by stellar winds generated by nuclear reactions deep within. The star’s surface material is blown out into space, creating this nebula, a giant cloud of gas and dust. Eventually, the star will go supernova and die. The photographer struggled to capture this nebula for over a month due to poor conditions and was thrilled to get just 1.5 hours of total exposure time spread over 3 nights. The raw data was acquired using the Telescope Live remote telescope in Chile.Image: Yovin Yahathugoda#astronomy #nebula #dolphin #space #CanisMajor