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Astronomy Pic of teh Day August 19th 2012

1 comments, 111 views, posted 1:43 pm 21/08/2012 in Sci-Fi, Science & Space by my69pickup
my69pickup has 6030 posts, 2878 threads, 0 points
Cunning Stunts.

M72: A Globular Cluster of Stars
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble, HPOW

Explanation: Globular clusters once ruled the Milky Way. Back in the old days, back when our Galaxy first formed, perhaps thousands of globular clusters roamed our Galaxy. Today, there are less than 200 left. Many globular clusters were destroyed over the eons by repeated fateful encounters with each other or the Galactic center. Surviving relics are older than any Earth fossil, older than any other structures in our Galaxy, and limit the universe itself in raw age. There are few, if any, young globular clusters in our Milky Way Galaxy because conditions are not ripe for more to form. Pictured above by the Hubble Space Telescope are about 100,000 of M72's stars. M72, which spans about 50 light years and lies about 50,000 light years away, can be seen with a small telescope toward the constellation of the Water Bearer (Aquarius).

Beautiful Images: Facebook Sky
Tomorrow's picture: sun cloud

Extra Points Given by:

aion_z (5), Flee (5)

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3:33 pm 21/08/2012

aion_z

"The most astounding fact, is the knowledge, that the atoms that comprise life on Earth, the atoms that make up the human body, are traceable to the crucibles that cooked light elements into heavy elements in their core, under extreme temperatures and pressures.

These stars, the high mass ones among them, went unstable in their later years. They collapsed and then exploded scattering their enriched guts across the galaxy. Guts made of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and all the fundamental ingredients of life itself.

These ingredients become part of gas cloud that condense, collapse, form the next generation of solar systems, stars with orbiting planets, and those planets now have the ingredients for life itself.

So that when I look up at the night sky and I know that yes, we are part of this universe, we are in this universe, but perhaps more important than both of those facts, is that the Universe is in us.

When I reflect on that fact, I look up. Many people feel small because they’re small and the Universe is big, but I feel big, because my atoms came from those stars.

There’s a level of connectivity.

That’s really what you want in life, you want to feel connected you want to feel relevant.

You want to feel like you’re a participant in the goings on of activities and events around you.

That’s precisely what we are, just by being alive…" - Neil DeGrasse Tyson

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