Orion's Bullets & Crescent Moon

From Images 108

Cosmic bullets pierce the outskirts of the Orion Nebula some 1500 light-years distant in this sharp infrared close-up. Blasted out by energetic massive star formation the bullets, relatively dense, hot gas clouds about ten times the size of Pluto's orbit, are blue in the false color image. Glowing with the light of ionized iron atoms they travel at speeds of hundreds of kilometers per second, their passage traced by yellowish trails of the nebula's shock-heated hydrogen gas. The cone-shaped wakes are up to a fifth of a light-year long. The detailed image was created using the 8.1 meter Gemini South telescope in Chile with a newly commisioned adaptive optics system (GeMS). Achieving a larger field of view than previous generation adaptive optics, GeMS uses five laser generated guide stars to help compensate for the blurring effects of planet Earth's atmosphere. (APOD)

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The waxing crescent Moon is visible in the southwest shortly after sunset for the next several days. The Capricorn New Moon was Friday(11:44 am, PST).

From Images 108

"Tonight the tiny crescent New Moon may be visible near Mars (14 Aquarius) low on the western horizon.

It was the first visible crescent of the Moon that began the New Lunar Cycle for most ancient cultures, still practiced today in Hawaii and the Jewish and Muslim traditions.

Visual connection with the New Moon is the perfect time to do a New Moon Ceremony and in Aquarius with Mars its about taking action that creates revolutionary change for evolutionary purposes." ~Shamanic Astrology Mystery School

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>Huge Quasar Cluster is Largest Cosmic Structure
"What’s the biggest thing in the universe? That would be a cluster of quasars so large it would take a vehicle traveling at the speed of light 4 billion years to cross.

The structure, known as a Large Quasar Group, or LQG, is so massive scientists say it may challenge a fundamental principle of cosmology, laid out by Albert Einstein, which states that when viewed on a sufficiently large scale, the properties of the universe are the same for all observers." Read More

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Astronaut Tweets Gorgeous Photos from Space

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New and Full Moons 2013

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