Light from the Crab Nebula (shown here in a Hubble Space Telescope photo) limits the possibilities for fluid spacetime. (Credit:NASA/ESA/ASU/J. Hester)
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This is an illustration of the physical, spatial and temporal picture for the outflows emanating from the vicinity of the super massive black hole in the galaxy NGC 5548. The behavior of the emission source in five epochs is shown along the time axis. The obscurer is situated at roughly 0.03 light years (0.01 parsecs) from the emission source and is only seen in 2011 and 2013 (it is much stronger in 2013). Outflow component 1 shows the most dramatic changes in its absorption troughs. Different observed ionic species are represented as colored zones within the absorbers. Credit: Ann Feild/Space Telescope Science Institute
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Gravity field near earth at 1,2 and A the curvature of the Earth is negligible at this scale, and the gravity force lines can be approximated as being parallel and pointing straight down to the center of the Earth. (Credit: SA 3.0)
Field lines drawn for a point mass using 24 field lines. The gravitational field can be represented using field lines. These run in the direction that a mass would be accelerated in initially. The object will not necessarily fall along the field lines, but the acceleration will always be in the direction of the field lines. The closer the field lines are together, the denser the gravitational field.(credit: SA 3.0)
This illustration of Venus Express shows it amid charged particles of solar wind in the upper layers of the Venusian atmosphere. (Credit: ESA, AOES Medialab)
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An artist’s rendition of the proposed WFIRST-AFTA mission, which will study dark energy, extrasolar planets and objects in the near-infrared. (Credit: NASA)
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An artist’s view of how quasars and BOAs work together to measure the expansion of the universe. Light from distant quasars is absorbed by gas, which is imprinted with a pattern of BOAs from the early universe. Zosia Rostomian, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Andreu Font-Ribera, BOSS Lyman-alpha team, Berkeley Lab
via discovery.com
The Kuiper belt is a region beyond Neptune that is full of comets, asteroids and other debris. It circles the solar system and has always been a little bit of a mystery as it is so far away and hard to explore.(Credit: Chris Dann)
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Herschel image of the Helix Nebula using the SPIRE instrument at wavelengths around 250 micrometres, superimposed on Hubble image of the nebula. The spectrum corresponds to the outer region of the Helix Nebula outlined on the SPIRE image. It identifies the OH+ molecular ion, which is needed for the formation of water. ESA’s Herschel space observatory is the first to detect this molecule in planetary nebulas – the product of dying Sun-like stars. Credit: Hubble image: NASA/ESA/C.R. O’Dell (Vanderbilt University), M. Meixner & P. McCullough (STScI); Herschel image: ESA/Herschel/SPIRE/MESS Consortium/M. Etxaluze et al.
2-D-EV spectral data tells researchers how photoexcitation of a molecular system affects the coupling of electronic and vibrational degrees of freedom that is essential to understanding how all molecules, molecular systems and nanomaterials function. Credit: Fleming group
Manipulating minute areas of gain and loss within individual lasers (shown as peaks and valleys in the image), researchers were able to create paradoxical interactions between two nearby lasers. Credit: Vienna University of Technology
This is an artist’s concept of the metric expansion of space, where space (including hypothetical non-observable portions of the universe) is represented at each time by the circular sections. Note on the left the dramatic expansion (not to scale) occurring in the inflationary epoch, and at the center the expansion acceleration
This is a computer simulation of gas (in yellow) falling into a black hole (too small to be seen). Twin jets are also shown with magnetic field lines. Credit: Alexander Tchekhovskoy, Berkeley Lab
Titan, Saturn’s largest moon appears before the planet as it undergoes seasonal changes in this natural color view from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft in this handout released by NASA August 29, 2012. (Credit: Reuters/NASA)
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Hubble Space Telescope picture of galaxy NGC 3081. Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA; acknowledgement: R. Buta (Credit: University of Alabama)
via universetoday
Summary of the spacetime issues discussed in this article. One can use photons and astronomical objects as test particles to measure spacetime over 22 orders of magnitude in scale, ranging from the cosmic horizon (probing the global topology of and curvature of space – top) to distant supernovae (giving evidence of dark energy) down to galaxies (giving evidence for dark matter), galactic nuclei and binary stellar systems (giving evidence for black holes) (Credit: Max Tegmark)
via dailygalaxy
The Herschel Space Observatory has uncovered a weird ring of dusty material while obtaining one of the sharpest scans to date of a huge cloud of gas and dust, called NGC 7538. (Credit: ESA/NASA/JPL-Caltech/Whitman College)
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Observations of galaxy GRB 020819B of molecular gas (left) and dust (middle) done by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). At right is a visible-light image from the Frederick C. Gillett Gemini North Telescope. The cross indicates the site of a gamma-ray burst in the region. Credit: Bunyo Hatsukade(NAOJ), ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)
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Three images, showing dwarf planet 2012 VP113 in red, then green, then blue, were combined to reveal its path across the night sky (Image: Scott S. Sheppard, Carnegie Institution for Science)
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NASA scientists used Earth-based radar to produce these sharp views of the HQ124 asteroid on June 8, 2014. Courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech/Arecibo Observatory/USRA/NSF
via nationalgeographic