APOD 1.5: The Lagoon Nebula

 

This large lagoon nebula is home to many young star clusters and hot gas. This one spans 100 light years across and 500 light years away. It is so big, you can actually see it from earth without a telescope, towards the direction of the constellation Sagittarius. A bright knot of gas and dust in the nebula's center is known as the Hourglass Nebula. 



 

 

 

 

APOD 1.4: Aurora Over Maine

 

Earlier this month active sunspots rotated into view and unleashed a series of solar flares and plasmas into the Solar System. In particular, a pair of Coronal Mass Ejections  (CMEs) entered the Earth's magnetosphere toward the end of last week, creating the most intense geomagnetic storm (a temporary disturbance of the Earth's magnetosphere caused by a solar wind shock wave and/or cloud of magnetic field which interacts with the Earth's magnetic field) so far this year. the plasma clouds traveled all the way down to Wisconsin and the northern lights were viewed over Acadia National Park in Maine.





Biography Source Citations: Longomontanus

"Longomontanus." Science and Its Times. Ed. Neil Schlager and Josh Lauer. Vol. 3: 1450 to 1699. Detroit: Gale, 2001. 394. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 18 Sept. 2014.

"Severin, Christian." Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Vol. 12. Detroit: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2008. 332.Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 18 Sept. 2014.

APOD 1.3: Milky Way Over the Northern Lights

 



        Aurora Borealis was seen over Östersund, Sweden with a large part of the Milky Way floating over it. The auroras were caused by the sun ejecting plasma clouds into the solar system. Auroras would continue do to a sunspot that moved into the solar system.

APOD 1.2: Airglow Ripples Over Tibet

 

       In late April, following a big thunderstorm over Bangladesh, giant colorful air ripples appeared over Tibet, China. The pattern is created by atmospheric gravity waves, which are waves of alternating air pressure as they rise higher up and the air gets thinner. Airglow is produced by chemiluminescence, the production of light in a chemical reaction.



APOD 1.1

     For my first blog entry, I chose an event that happened on August 27. This is a snapshot of the Milky way Galaxy over Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, USA. the colors of the Milky Way were brightened by the steam and bacteria evaporating off of Silex Spring, which has a magma chamber located underneath.