Idealism vs. Realism

neuronsandneutrons:

astronomer-in-progress:

sagan-naut:

I’ve come to restore balance in the astronomy tag.
This was my first attempt at astrophotography, and even after 3 years of stargazing M42 will always be my favorite diffuse nebula to photograph.
I used Sky-Watcher 80 ED; Celestron CG-5 mount; Nebulosity; Canon XS.

Great shot!

liquidatomicgonads:

Although Saturn’s rings extend out from the planet’s equator over 50,000 miles (80,000km), they are only about 33 feet thick (10 meters).

astrodidact:

thenewenlightenmentage:

Space Photo of the Day: The Solar System’s Largest Moon

What does the largest moon in the Solar System look like? Ganymede, larger than even Mercury and Pluto, has a surface speckled with bright young craters overlying a mixture of older, darker, more cratered terrain laced with grooves and ridges. Like Earth’s Moon, Ganymede keeps the same face towards its central planet, in this case Jupiter. In this historic and detailed image mosaic taken by the Galileo spacecraft that orbited Jupiter from 1995 to 2003, the colors of this planet-sized moon have been enhanced to increase surface contrasts. The violet shades extending from the top and bottom are likely due to frost particles in Ganymede’s polar regions. Possible future missions to Jupiter are being proposed that can search Europa and Ganymede for deep oceans that may harbor elements thought important for supporting life.

leviathan8:

Mars’s interior

Scientists believe that Mars’s interior consists of a crust, mantle, and core as if Earth’s interior but they do not know the relative sizes of these components. Because no spacecraft has ever brought instruments that can study Mars’s interior to the planet, the only real data that scientists have about the planet’s structure are its mass, size, and the structure of the gravity field. From that data, scientists can learn some things about density in different parts of the planet.
Compared to Earth, Mars probably has a relatively thick crust. Beneath the Tharsis bulge, an area of volcanic activity in the Northern Hemisphere, it may be as thick as 80 mile. Beneath the landing site of the United States spacecraft Viking 2, it may be as thin as 15 km (9 mi.).
The core is probably mostly iron, with a small amount of nickel. Other light elements, particularly sulfur, could exist in the core as well. If so, the core may be quite large. From studying the earth’s magnetic field and core, scientists theorize that the motions of the liquid rock in the earth’s core generate its magnetic field. Mars does not have a significant magnetic field, so scientists believe that Mars’s core is probably solid.
It is unknown whether plate tectonics certainly exist on Mars or a crust made up of separate sections that move about and sometimes crash into each other. Because Mars is so much smaller than Earth, it cooled quickly after formation and the crust thickened, forming one solid piece. Though the Martian crust is not broken into separate plates, Mars’s liquid mantle has sculpted the surface of the planet. The molten rock has broken through the crust to form volcanoes and its motion has cracked the crust to form large rifts.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

subatomiconsciousness:

Rho Ophiuchi and Antares by hirocun on Flickr.

Idealism vs. Realism: Pursuit of Excellence (based on the demanding for an excellent Country)

▼

archaic-physicist:

The reason that brought me here, to this specific sheet, was the fact that the night before I started to write this, I was trying to distract myself from any kind of disturbances, when it, I looked at the mask which is hanging on my bedroom’s mirror; the mask, was a gift from a very special…