November 14, 2012 | 185 notes

thisistheverge: ‘Explore the Galaxy’ lets you travel across the Milky Way from the comfort of your browser Google’s Chrome Experiments have long provided users with in-browser distractions that simultaneously show off the power of HTML 5, Javascript, and other open web technologies, but a new one that arrived today is definitely one of our favorites. “Explore the Galaxy” lets you zoom all the way in on the Sun and a number of other nearby stars and then click, drag, and scroll your way across the entire Milky Way galaxy. It’s a visual treat that really drives home the vastness of outer space that simultaneously fills your brain with knowledge — clicking on the 87 stars closest to Earth will pull up quick Wikipedia-sourced descriptions for each.

thisistheverge:

‘Explore the Galaxy’ lets you travel across the Milky Way from the comfort of your browser

Google’s Chrome Experiments have long provided users with in-browser distractions that simultaneously show off the power of HTML 5, Javascript, and other open web technologies, but a new one that arrived today is definitely one of our favorites. “Explore the Galaxy” lets you zoom all the way in on the Sun and a number of other nearby stars and then click, drag, and scroll your way across the entire Milky Way galaxy. It’s a visual treat that really drives home the vastness of outer space that simultaneously fills your brain with knowledge — clicking on the 87 stars closest to Earth will pull up quick Wikipedia-sourced descriptions for each.

May 2, 2012 | 162 notes

theatlantic: Picture of the Day: A ‘Remarkable’ Outburst From a Black Hole in a Neighboring Galaxy In Messier 83, a barred spiral galaxy some 15 million light years away (“nearby,” by cosmic standards), scientists have observed a “remarkable” outburst from a black hole — its X-ray output has increased by a factor of 3,000. The above image on the left comes from optical data collected by the Very Large Telescope in Chile and shows the whole galaxy. On the right is a zoomed-in section combining data from NASA’s Chandra and Hubble telescopes, with Chandra’s X-ray data shown in pink and Hubble’s optical data appearing in blue. The “ultraluminous X-ray source” (ULX) is the bright pink dot near the bottom of the right-hand image. The brightening that Chandra observed over a several-year period is one of the largest changes in X-ray output ever observed from a black hole. [Image: NASA]

theatlantic:

Picture of the Day: A ‘Remarkable’ Outburst From a Black Hole in a Neighboring Galaxy

In Messier 83, a barred spiral galaxy some 15 million light years away (“nearby,” by cosmic standards), scientists have observed a “remarkable” outburst from a black hole — its X-ray output has increased by a factor of 3,000. The above image on the left comes from optical data collected by the Very Large Telescope in Chile and shows the whole galaxy. On the right is a zoomed-in section combining data from NASA’s Chandra and Hubble telescopes, with Chandra’s X-ray data shown in pink and Hubble’s optical data appearing in blue. The “ultraluminous X-ray source” (ULX) is the bright pink dot near the bottom of the right-hand image. The brightening that Chandra observed over a several-year period is one of the largest changes in X-ray output ever observed from a black hole.

[Image: NASA]