An image from Virtual Planetarium of an exploded star located 26,000 light-years from Earth! BTW, rest assured that, should your star explode, we offer a money back guarantee!
One of the ways Name A Star Live makes the symbolic gesture of naming a star real is by offering our customers Virtual Planetarium™ astronomy and space software. We include this software in our in our Deluxe, Framed and Ultimate Gift Sets, as well as one of our Instant Gift Sets. The software includes a library of stunning astronomy imagery; information about the sky, the solar system and the latest space events; and space weather reports about sun spots, auroras and more.
With an Internet connection hundreds of images can be updated with live satellite data at the click of a button. The software was developed by Rice University and the Houston Museum of Natural Science.
Here are some beautiful space photos and videos that have been posted on the Internet recently. Enjoy!
The Cigar Galaxy (M82). The circle indicates the approximate location of a supernova that was discovered in January 2014. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
There will be a beautiful Full Moon out the night of Valentine’s Day this year. So take your Valentine outside that moonlit night and wish upon your star!
The stars are bright, and the night is still, and the river is singing by, And many a face is upward turned to gaze at the moon’s bright eye. North and south, from the forest deeps to the heart of the silver plain, There’s many an eye will see no sleep till the east grows bright again; There’s many a hand will toil to-night by shining land and sea. O moonlight, bear my message of love to the heart that beats for me. From “In the Moonlight” by David McKee Wright
While you’re looking at the Moon, look for the brightest ‘star’ you’ll see in the eastern sky after sunset. That’s the planet Jupiter, which is in the Name A Star Live constellation Gemini this month. Continue reading “February’s Stars and Planets”
The “Twin Quasar” in Ursa Major is really one quasar, but the gravitational effects of a large galaxy bend the light of the quasar, making it appear to us as two objects!
In this new Hubble Space Telescope image two objects are clearly visible, shining brightly. When they were first discovered in 1979, they were thought to be separate objects — however, astronomers soon realized that these twins are a little too identical! They are close together, lie at the same distance from us, and have surprisingly similar properties. The reason they are so similar is not some bizarre coincidence; they are in fact the same object.
M83, the Southern Pinwheel Galaxy Image Credit: Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
The vibrant magentas and blues in this Hubble Space Telescope image of the barred spiral galaxy M83 reveal that the galaxy is ablaze with star formation. The galactic panorama unveils a tapestry of the drama of stellar birth and death. The galaxy, also known as the Southern Pinwheel, lies 15 million light-years away in the constellation Hydra.
The Cosmic Ray Telescope for the Effects of Radiation, or CRaTER, on NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has six detectors to monitor the energetic charged particles from galactic cosmic rays and solar events. Image Credit: NASA/GSFC
This long-exposure Hubble Space Telescope image of massive galaxy cluster Abell 2744 (foreground) is the deepest ever made of any cluster of galaxies. It shows some of the faintest and youngest galaxies ever detected in space.
ESO 373-8, a spiral galaxy that is part of the NGC 2997 group of galaxies in the southern hemisphere constellation Antlia (the “air pump”).
This new Hubble Space Telescope image shows spiral galaxy ESO 373-8, which is located some 25 million light-years away. Together with at least seven of its galactic neighbors, this galaxy is a member of the NGC 2997 group. We see it side-on as a thin, glittering streak across the sky, with all its contents neatly aligned in the same plane. Continue reading “Hubble Eyes Galaxy as Flat as a Pancake”
Here are some beautiful space photos and videos that have been posted on the Internet recently. Enjoy!
Here’s a beautiful, new video from NASA: “The World Outside My Window – Time Lapse of Earth from the International Space Station”
The Christmas Tree Cluster Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/P.S. Teixeira (Center for Astrophysics)
Newborn stars, hidden behind thick dust, are revealed in this image of a section of the Christmas Tree Cluster from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope. The newly revealed infant stars appear as pink and red specks toward the center and appear to have formed in regularly spaced intervals along linear structures in a configuration that resembles the spokes of a wheel or the pattern of a snowflake. Hence, astronomers have nicknamed this the “Snowflake Cluster.”
Star-forming clouds like this one are dynamic and evolving structures. Since the stars trace the straight line pattern of spokes of a wheel, scientists believe that these are newborn stars, or “protostars.” At a mere 100,000 years old, these infant structures have yet to “crawl” away from their location of birth. Over time, the natural drifting motions of each star will break this order, and the snowflake design will be no more.
While most of the visible-light stars that give the Christmas Tree Cluster its name and triangular shape do not shine brightly in Spitzer’s infrared eyes, all of the stars forming from this dusty cloud are considered part of the cluster.
Like a dusty cosmic finger pointing up to the newborn clusters, Spitzer also illuminates the optically dark and dense Cone Nebula, the tip of which can be seen towards the bottom left corner of the image.
Name A Star Live makes you part of real space missions by launching your star name into space. As the holiday season is upon us, we thought we’d share some of the ways Christmas is celebrated in outer space. We even provide a futuristic, and amusing, look at Christmas through the vision of Star Trek!
The six Expedition 30 crew members assemble in the U.S. Lab (Destiny) aboard the International Space Station for a brief celebration of the Christmas holiday on Dec. 25, 2011. Image Credit: NASA
The Christmas Eve Broadcast of Apollo 8 from the Moon
Earth as viewed by the crew of Apollo 8, December 1968. Click the image above to hear a recording of the astronauts delivering their Christmas Eve message to the world.
Perhaps the most famous celebration of Christmas in the final frontier occurred on the evening of December 24, 1968 when Apollo 8 Commander Frank Borman, Command Module Pilot Jim Lovell and Lunar Module Pilot William Anders became the first humans to orbit the Moon … and the first astronauts to spend Christmas in space.
To mark the occasion, they sent Christmas greetings and live images back to their home planet and read from the Book of Genesis. Borman closed the message with the words “good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas, and God bless all of you — all of you on the good Earth.”
Apollo 8 launched from Earth on Dec. 21 and entered lunar orbit on Christmas Eve. The Apollo 8 crewmembers ended their history-making journey when they splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on Dec. 27. Eight more Apollo missions would visit the Moon, with six of them landing on its surface.
A Christmas tree made of cans on Skylab 4, 1973
Christmas in Earth Orbit
The Skylab 4 crew was the next set of astronauts to spend Christmas in space, in 1973. To give Skylab a touch of the holiday season, Commander Gerald Carr, Pilot William Pogue and Scientist Edward Gibson made a Christmas tree with food cans. (See photo at left.)
It would be 22 years before another American would spend Christmas outside Earth’s atmosphere. Astronaut John Blaha celebrated the holiday in orbit aboard the Russian Mir space station in 1996.
The first Space Shuttle mission to fly during Christmas was STS-103, on the Space Shuttle Discovery. The mission, which lasted from Dec. 19 to Dec. 27, 1999, gave NASA and the world a Christmas present that is still giving to the scientific community. After three consecutive days of spacewalks to make repairs and upgrades, they returned the Hubble Space Telescope to service on Christmas Day. Hubble had been in hibernation since the loss of its fourth gyroscope, designed to enable the telescope to point precisely at distant astronomical targets for scientific observations.
Santa Claus approaches the International Space Station
The first Christmas aboard the International Space Station (ISS) occurred in 2000 with the Expedition One crew. Astronaut Bill Shepherd and Cosmonauts Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev spent a quiet Christmas Day opening gifts and talking to their families.
NASA helps Santa Claus
Sometimes Santa needs some help navigating around the world on Christmas Eve, so on Dec. 24, 2001 Expedition Four Commander Yury Onufrienko and Flight Engineers Daniel Bursch and Carl Walz joined space station Flight Director John Curry and his Mission Control personnel in Houston to help Santa Claus complete his mission on time. Click on any of the links below to see how NASA helped Santa out:
As we look to the future, humans might one day celebrate the holidays on the Moon and Mars, in a free-floating space colony orbiting Jupiter, or in some other part of the Milky Way galaxy. But perhaps we should look to Star Trek for guidance — humorous guidance in this case!
There will be a beautiful Full Moon out the night of Valentine’s Day this year. So take your Valentine outside that moonlit night and wish upon your star!
