It's too bright here to see the Perseids, so, from the Spitzer Space Telescope:
Light-years in length, this cosmic tornado is actually a powerful jet cataloged as HH (Herbig-Haro) 49/50 blasting down from the top of a Spitzer Space Telescope view. Though such energetic outflows are well known to be associated with the formation of young stars, the exact cause of the spiraling structures apparent in this case is still mysterious. The embryonic star responsible for the 100-kilometer per second jet is located just off the top of the picture, while the bright star seen near the tip of the jet may just by chance lie along the line of sight. In the false-color infrared image, the tornado glows with infrared light generated as the outflow heats surrounding dust clouds. The color coding shows a trend from red to blue hues at the tornado's tip indicating a systematic increase in emission at shorter wavelengths. The trend is thought to indicate an increase in molecular excitation closer to where the head of the jet is impacting interstellar gas. HH49/50 is about 450 light-years distant, located in the Chamaeleon I molecular cloud.From the NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day.
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4 comments:
The tornado's tip touches a big blue ball.
Suppose that's Maxx's collar ornament? Seen much bigger than it was due to some astronomical oddity?
You didn't miss much in the way of meteors. I met up with some old meteor-watching friends up on Skyline Drive on Saturday for some observing the day before maximum. Stayed out until 3, and we saw about 4 Perseids/hour during that 6 hour period.
We were at 3400 feet altitude, and the sky was awesome, as far as East Coast skies go. Good thing we could while away some time with binoculars.
I sat out for about 20 minutes last night and saw a grand total of 1 meteor. Not worth the price in blood - the mosquitos had a field day.
That makes me feel better.
I saw maybe 10/hour after midnight. A nice shower but nothing great. You need to get out from under those light polluted skies sometime and see what the sky really looks like.
Backyard Astronomer
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