September 2, 2019 - Birth and Death in the Lagoon

Birth and Death in the Lagoon  This colorful image, taken by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, gives us a window seat to the universe’s extraordinary tapestry of stellar birth and destruction. At the center of the photo, a monster young star 200,000 times brighter than our Sun is blasting powerful ultraviolet radiation and hurricane-like stellar winds, carving out a fantasy landscape of ridges, cavities, and mountains of gas and dust. This mayhem is all happening at the heart of the Lagoon Nebula, a vast stellar nursery located 4,000 light-years away and visible in binoculars as a simple smudge of light with a bright core. The giant star, called Herschel 36, is bursting out of its natal cocoon of material, unleashing blistering radiation and torrential stellar winds that push dust away in curtain-like sheets.

Image credit: NASA, ESA, and STScI

Weekly Calendar

September 2 - 8, 2019

Holidays - Sky Events - Space History

 

Monday 2

Labor Day

Mars in conjunction with Sun

2015: Soyuz TMA-18M launched carrying ISS Expedition 45/46 crew

Tuesday 3

Mercury in superior conjunction

1970: NASA cancels last two planned lunar landings
1976: Viking 2 lands on Mars
2006: SMART-1 spacecraft intentionally crashed into Moon

Wednesday 4

Thursday 5

First Qtr Moon 11:10 PM ET

1964: OGO-1 launched
1977: Voyager 1 launched

Friday 6

Jupiter 2° south of Moon

1947: First rocket launch (V-2) from an aircraft carrier
1983: STS-8 Challenger makes first shuttle night landing
2013: LADEE lunar orbiter launched

Saturday 7

1995: STS-69 Endeavour launched

Sunday 8

Saturn 0.04° north of Moon
Pluto 0.08° south of Moon

1966: “Star Trek” premieres
1967: Surveyor 5 launched
2000: STS-106 Atlantis launched
2004: Genesis spacecraft crash-lands on return to Earth
2016: OSIRIS-REx launched