Material Motions in Shell of Red Carbon Star U Antliae | ALMA Radio Telescopes

Material Motions in Shell of Red Carbon Star U Antliae | ALMA Radio Telescopes

This image was created from Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) radio telescope data on the unusual red carbon star U Antliae and its surrounding shell of material. The colors show the motion of the glowing material in the shell along the line of sight to the Earth. Blue material lies between us and the central star, and is moving towards us. Red material around the edge is moving away from the star, but not towards the Earth.

For clarity this view does not include the material on the far side of the star that is receding from us in a symmetrical manner.

Around 2,700 years ago, U Antliae went through a short period of rapid mass loss. During this period of only a few hundred years, the material making up the shell seen in the new ALMA data was ejected at high speed. Examination of this shell in further detail also shows some evidence of thin, wispy clouds known as filamentary substructures.

Distance: ~900 light years from Earth in the constellation Antlia

U Antliae is an extremely red C-type carbon star. Carbon stars are cool, luminous red giants with atmospheres containing more carbon than oxygen, giving them a striking red appearance and a key role in enriching the galaxy with carbon. These stars are further reddened by strong mass loss and dust that forms around the star. U Antliae is calculated to have an effective surface temperature of 2,800 K, although the light that reaches us has an appearance more like that from a black body with a temperature of 2,300 K surrounded by dust at a temperature of 72 K. It emits most of its radiation in the infrared and although it is only about 500 times brighter than the sun at visual wavelengths, its bolometric luminosity is 8,000 times higher than the Sun's. Bolometric luminosity is the total electromagnetic power a star radiates across all wavelengths, expressed in watts. It is a crucial measure of a star's true luminosity, as it accounts for all wavelengths, including gamma rays, x-rays, ultraviolet, visible, infrared, and radio waves.

Learn more about the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA):
https://www.almaobservatory.org/en/about-alma/

Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), F. Kerschbaum
Release Date: Sept. 20, 2017

#NASA #Astronomy #Science #Space #Stars #UAntliae #VariableStars #CarbonStars #FilamentarySubstructures #AntliaConstellation #MilkyWayGalaxy #Universe #ALMA #RadioAstronomy #NSF #UnitedStates #AUI #NRAO #NAOJ #国立天文台 #Japan #日本 #ESO #Europe #Chile #STEM #Education

Dark clouds and a starry night sky over ESO's La Silla Observatory in Chile

Dark clouds and a starry night sky over ESO's La Silla Observatory in Chile

The center of the Milky Way emerges between two telescopes at the European Southern Observatory’s La Silla Observatory in Chile’s Atacama Desert with splatters of light embedded in dark clouds.

Two gleaming nebulae can be seen between the telescopes: the Trifid Nebula (left) and the Lagoon Nebula (right). They can be found in the constellation Sagittarius, and their red color comes from hydrogen atoms ionized by young stars in these clouds. The Trifid Nebula also shows a blue tint caused by dust reflecting the light of some of these stars. However, most of the dust in this image appears as dark clouds. When not lit up by nearby stars, interstellar dust clouds block the light behind them, thus appearing black against the starry background.

The telescope to the left is the European Southern Observatory’s New Technology Telescope (NTT). It was a pioneer in active optics, a technology that maintains the telescope mirror’s shape during observations despite deformations due to weight or temperature. To the right we see the European Southern Observatory (ESO) 3.6-meter telescope, home to the exoplanet hunting instruments High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS) and Near Infra-Red Planet Searcher (NIRPS), and a very important telescope for the astronomer that took this picture, José Rodrigues. 

“It is very special as I grew up with a poster of the 3.6 m in my room, dreaming of using it to find exoplanets”––a dream he has now realized as an exoplanet researcher.

Image Description: The image shows two white telescopes on two hills on the bottom left and right of the frame. In the background, the night sky features a lot of stars, and, in the center of it, a dark cloud, in tones of black and brown, that goes from top to bottom. In the bottom of this cloud, spots shining in red and pink, and blue, appear. Another telescope can be seen further away in the picture.

Credit: J. Rodrigues/ESO
Release Date: Sept. 28, 2026

#NASA #Astronomy #Space #Science #Galaxies #MilkyWayGalaxy #Nebulae #LagoonNebula  #Messier8 #TrifidNebula #Messier20 #SagittariusConstellation #Cosmos #Universe #NewTechnologyTelescope #NTT #LaSillaObservatory #Chile #Europe #STEM #Education 

Aurora over Iceland

Aurora over Iceland

Photographer Marko Korosec: "Spectacular northern lights display over Hofn and Vestrahorn, Iceland this evening as strong solar wind arrived."

Also known as the northern lights (aurora borealis) or southern lights (aurora australis), auroras are colorful, dynamic, and often visually delicate displays of an intricate dance of particles and magnetism between the Sun and Earth called space weather. When energetic particles from space collide with atoms and molecules in the atmosphere, they can cause the colorful glow that we call auroras.

Learn more about auroras: 
https://science.nasa.gov/sun/auroras/

Iceland is a Nordic island country between the Arctic Ocean and the North Atlantic Ocean, located on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between Europe and North America.

Image Credit: Marko Korosec

Image Details: iPhone 18 Pro
Location: Hofn, Iceland
Date: Oct. 31, 2026 

#NASA #Astronomy #Space #Science #Sun #SolarSystem #SolarWind #Planet #Earth #Magnetosphere #GeomagneticStorms #Aurora #AuroraBorealis #NorthernLights #Astrophotography #MarkoKorosec #Astrophotographers #Hofn #Iceland #Ísland #STEM #Education

Apparent Colors of The Moon from Earth's Atmosphere

Apparent Colors of The Moon from Earth's Atmosphere

What color is the Moon? It depends on the night—and the time. Outside the Earth's atmosphere, the dark Moon, shines by reflected sunlight. It appears as a magnificently brown-tinged gray. This image highlights a collection of apparent colors of the full Moon on Earth, documented by an astrophotographer over ten years from locations across Italy. 

A red- or yellow-colored Moon usually indicates a Moon seen near the horizon. There, blue light has been scattered away by a long path through the Earth's atmosphere at times laden with fine dust. A blue-colored Moon is more rare and can indicate an atmosphere carrying larger dust particles. What created the purple Moon is unclear—it may be a combination of several effects. The last image captures the total lunar eclipse of July 2018—where the Moon, in Earth's shadow, appeared a faint red—due to light refracted through air around the Earth.

Have you ever seen an unusually colorful Moon?

Credit & Copyright: Marcella Giulia Pace
Marcella's website: https://greenflash.photo/about-me/
Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff, Jerry Bonnell, Cecilia Chirenti, Keighley Rockcliffe
A service of the Astrophysics Science Division (ASD) at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA Science Activation & Michigan Technological University (MTU)
Release Date: Nov. 1, 2026

#NASA #Space #Astronomy #Science #Stars #Sun #Planets #Earth #Atmosphere #Moon #SolarSystem #Astrophotography #CitizenScience #MarcellaGiuliaPace #Astrophotographers #Italy #Italia #NASAGoddard #MTU #UnitedStates #STEM #Education #APoD

Shenzhou-23 Advances Science Experiments & Maintenance | China Space Station

Shenzhou-23 Advances Science Experiments & Maintenance | China Space Station

China's Shenzhou-23 crew has been living and working in orbit for over five months, carrying out scientific experiments, maintaining the Tiangong Space Station and managing their health in coordination with ground control to ensure the steady operation of their space home.

Multiple projects advanced as planned last week. Using optical 3D spatial measurement equipment, the astronauts—Zhu Yangzhu, Zhang Zhiyuan and Lai Ka-ying—alternately touched their noses and a blue handrail with their right index fingers to collect data on tactile and proprioceptive perception of mechanical forces in microgravity.

They also completed behavioral tests for visual motion processing experiments. Wearing electroencephalogram (EEG) recording devices and virtual reality (VR) headsets, they conducted tests including weak-stimulus brain-computer interface, microgravity intuitive physics, and spatial cooperative coding and regulation experiments; ground researchers will conduct follow-up studies based on downlink data.

Last week, the crew completed the collection, centrifugation and storage of blood samples for in-orbit medical examinations and related experiments.

Following the experiment schedule, the crew replaced gas cylinders in the combustion science experiment cabinet, cleaned samples from the containerless experiment cabinet's chamber, maintained electrodes in the axial mechanism, and replaced the window cover lens.

The crew completed platform inspections and replaced components of the water treatment subsystem in the core module, continuing to ensure the stable operation of the station's regenerative life support system.

The three astronauts underwent 12-lead ECG examinations and ambulatory ECG and blood pressure monitoring, and received diagnosis and treatment using a traditional Chinese medicine diagnostic instrument to continuously monitor their condition in orbit.

They also exercised as scheduled to counteract the physiological effects of microgravity and maintain good physical and mental health.

The three astronauts were sent into space aboard the Shenzhou-23 spacecraft on May 24, with one of them scheduled to spend a full year in orbit.

Shenzhou-23 Crew
Zhu Yangzhu 朱杨柱, Commander & Flight Engineer (second spaceflight)
Zhang Zhiyuan 张志远, Pilot (first spaceflight)

Lai Ka-ying/Li Jiaying 黎家盈, Payload Specialist (first spaceflight) [Hong Kong SAR]

Video Credit: CCTV
Duration: 1 minute, 36 seconds
Release Date: Nov. 1, 2026

#NASA #Space #Science #China #中国 #Shenzhou23Mission #神舟二十三号 #Shenzhou23 #Taikonauts #Astronauts #ZhuYangzhu #ZhangZhiyuan #LiJiaying #LaiKaying #ChinaSpaceStation #中国空间站 #TiangongSpaceStation #MicrogravityExperiments #SpaceLaboratory #CMSA #中国载人航天工程办公室 #HumanSpaceflight #STEM #Education #HD #Video