Zooniverse!

4/18- Galaxy Zoo Mergers: Merger Wars (1 hour)
4/19- Galaxy Zoo: Hubble (1 hour)

More Zooniverse

4-12: Galaxy Zoo Mergers: Merger Wars (1 hour)
4-14: Galaxy Zoo Mergers: Merger Wars (1 hour)
4-15: Galaxy Zoo: Hubble (1 hour)

Zooniverse Activity

3/31- Classified galaxies in Galaxy Zoo: Hubble (1 hour)
4/05- Identified supernovae in Galaxy Zoo: The Hunt for Supernovae (1 hour)
4/07- Galaxy Zoo: Hubble (1 hour)

APOD 4.1

MWC 922: The Red Square Nebula

This is a strange nebula, because no one can understand why it is shaped like a square.  This picture is a combination of infrared images.  The nebula contains a hot star system, MWC 922, located in the constellation Serpens, about 5,000 light-years from Earth.  The shape suggests minimal distortion and turbulence in this area.  The three rings are similar to what was seen in supernova SN1987A, but many questions still remain.  The angle at which we view the nebula influences its shape, and it is thought to resemble the ring nebula when viewed from a different angle, but this is just one theory.

APOD 3.5

Star Colors in Orion

This image was composed by combining 35 images of the stars in Orion.  The red supergiant star in the upper left is Betelgeuse.  It is a reddish color, because its surface temperature is much lower than the surrounding blue stars.  The image was purposefully shown with blurred star trails in order to get more saturated colors and make it easier to see what color the stars are.  The Horsehead Nebula is the reason for the pinkish tint under Orion's Belt, which is in the center of the image.  In the lower right is the bright star Rigel.  Our sun's temperature is not quite as cool as Betelgeuse, but not nearly as hot as Rigel; that is why it appears to be yellow.

APOD 3.2

The Rippled Red Ribbons of SNR 0509

The red "ripples" seen in the Large Magellanic Cloud are thought to be remnants of a large supernova 160,000 light years away.  The red ring is about 23 light years across, but it is rapidly expanding at aproximately 5,000 km/s, or 11,000 mph.  The star that caused this was most likely a white dwarf star.  This picture was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, and the red parts of the image represent hydrogen gas.  This event should have been seen on Earth 400 years ago, but there are no records of this ever happening.  Astronomers are still theorizing what caused the ripples and why people on Earth did not see the supernova.

APOD 3.1

Globular Star Cluster 47 Tuc

This star cluster is in the southern sky, and it spans about 120 light years.  It is approximately 13,000 light years away from Earth.  It is the largest cluster visible from Earth and the second brightest, but due to its low declination, it was cataloged as a star until 1751.  47 Tucanae is moving toward Earth at about 19 km/s.   The cluster is located in the Halo of the Milky Way Galaxy, which means that most of its time is spent outside of the disk of the galaxy in a more elliptical orbit.  Since it is so bright, it can be seen with the naked eye, near the  Small Magellanic Cloud.  It also houses x-ray binary star systems, as I previously referred to in another entry.