sigmoid.social is one of the many independent Mastodon servers you can use to participate in the fediverse.
A social space for people researching, working with, or just interested in AI!

Server stats:

602
active users

#astronomy

172 posts114 participants10 posts today
Continued thread

Arp 87: Merging Galaxies from Hubble
* Image Credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble
nasa.gov/
esa.int/
science.nasa.gov/mission/hubbl
* Processing: Harshwardhan Pathak
skiesandscopes.com/harshwardha

Explanation:
This dance is to the death. As these two large galaxies duel, a cosmic bridge of stars, gas, and dust currently stretches over 75,000 light-years and joins them. The bridge itself is strong evidence that these two immense star systems have passed close to each other and experienced violent tides induced by mutual gravity. As further evidence, the face-on spiral galaxy on the right, also known as NGC 3808A, exhibits many young blue star clusters produced in a burst of star formation. The twisted edge-on spiral on the left (NGC 3808B) seems to be wrapped in the material bridging the galaxies and surrounded by a curious polar ring. Together, the system is known as Arp 87. While such interactions are drawn out over billions of years, repeated close passages will ultimately create one merged galaxy.
Although this scenario does look unusual, galactic mergers are thought to be common, with Arp 87 representing a stage in this inevitable process. The Arp 87 dancing pair are about 300 million light-years distant toward the constellation of the Lion (Leo). The prominent edge-on spiral galaxy at the far left appears to be a more distant background galaxy and not involved in the on-going merger.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arp_87
science.nasa.gov/missions/hubb

cv.nrao.edu/~jhibbard/MergeSeq
cv.nrao.edu/~jhibbard/MergeSeq

apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap140715.ht
apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap061111.ht
ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1972

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_(con

apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap231024.ht

In #Berlin for the Event Horizon Telescope collaboration meeting 2025 (#EHT2025) at the Harnack Haus. Looking forward to a week full of new results, fruits of tedious work and checking - we don’t take things lightly. This is possible only due to a global collaboration of 13 stakeholder organizations, 60 affiliated institutions and over 400 scientists all working together on multi-year black hole images,
multi-wavelength observations and eventually „movies“. #astrodon #astronomy #astrophysics

I am almost missing the good old days in which retired engineers or new undercover Einsteins used to sent me their theories of everything (without equations, or with un-intelligible scribbles etc).

Now instead, they send me "their interesting conversations with Grok/ChatGPT" and I just want to cry in despair.

The #AI bubble has even managed to ruin the fun in #retired_engineers, and I cannot forgive the AI hype for this (besides other things).

Continued thread

2025 July 14

NGC 2685: The Helix Galaxy
* Image Credit & Copyright: Stefan Thrun
app.astrobin.com/u/Stefan-Harr

Explanation:
What is going on with this galaxy? NGC 2685 is a confirmed polar ring galaxy - a rare type of galaxy with stars, gas and dust orbiting in rings perpendicular to the plane of a flat galactic disk. The bizarre configuration could be caused by the chance capture of material from another galaxy by a disk galaxy, with the captured debris strung out in a rotating ring. Still, observed properties of NGC 2685 suggest that the rotating helix structure is remarkably old and stable. In this sharp view of the peculiar system also known as Arp 336 or the Helix galaxy, the strange, perpendicular rings are easy to trace as they pass in front of the galactic disk, along with other disturbed outer structures. NGC 2685 is about 50,000 light-years across and 40 million light-years away in the constellation of the Great Bear (Ursa Major).
app.astrobin.com/i/3a3kzg?r=B
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_2685
ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2009

science.nasa.gov/universe/gala
apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap190325.ht

mathinsight.org/applet/paramet
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursa_Maj

apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap250714.ht

TOPIC> Polar Ring Galaxies

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A polar-ring galaxy is a type of galaxy with an outer ring of gas and stars that rotates over the poles of the galaxy. These polar rings are thought to form when two galaxies gravitationally interact with each other. One possibility is that a material is tidally stripped from a passing galaxy to produce the polar ring. The other possibility is that a smaller galaxy collides orthogonally with the plane of rotation of the larger galaxy, with the smaller galaxy effectively forming the polar-ring structure.

The best-known polar-ring galaxies are S0s (lenticular galaxies), but from the physical point of view they are part of a wider category of galaxies, including several ellipticals.

The first four S0 galaxies that were identified as polar-ring galaxies were NGC 2685, NGC 4650A, A 0136 -0801, and ESO 415 -G26. While these galaxies have been extensively studied, many other polar-ring galaxies have since been identified. Polar-ring S0 galaxies may be found around 0.5% of all nearby lenticular galaxies, and it is possible that 5% of lenticular galaxies may have had polar rings at some point during their lifetimes.

The first polar-ring elliptical galaxies were identified in 1978. They were NGC 5128, NGC 5363, NGC 1947 and Cygnus A, while the polar-ring S0 galaxies NGC 2685 and NGC 4650A were at that time indicated as resulting from similar formation processes. Only some years later, when the first observations of the stellar and gas motion of polar-ring elliptical and S0 galaxies were possible with a better spectroscopic technology, the external origin of the gaseous rings was clarified. In addition to the best-known example, NGC 5128 (Cen A), a very regular polar ring elliptical, is NGC 5266.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NGC

New #Intro with updates 😜. Still live in #Pittsburgh! Currently work on a team doing #data conversion. Finished #GradSchool with a Masters in Data Analytics. My favorite author is #BrandonSanderson but love #fantasybooks, #scifi and #stephenking.

Other Interests
#Reading📚
#Astronomy 🔭
#StarWars 🌌
#Movies 🎥
#Cycling 🚴‍♂️
#VideoGames 🕹️

Favorite Bands:
#PinkFloyd
#Rush
#TalkingHeads
(Too many to list them all!)

I also hate #Trump so if you voted for him don’t bother me.

#VoteBlue💙

Replied in thread

Der Mond ist aufgegangen
Die goldnen Sternlein prangen
Am Himmel hell und klar:
Der Wald steht schwarz und schweiget,
Und aus den Wiesen steiget
Der weiße Nebel wunderbar.

The moon is risen, beaming,
The golden stars are gleaming
So brightly in the skies;
The hushed, black woods are dreaming,
The mists, like phantoms seeming,
From meadows magically rise.

* 1st verse of the song "Der Mond ist aufgegangen" by Matthias Claudius translated by Margarete Münsterberg
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Der_Mond.

Welcome back to the weekend full moon topic and have a nice and relaxed evening! 🌕 🔭

2022 June 16

Strawberry Supermoon from China
* Image Credit & Copyright: Jeff Dai (TWAN)
twanight.org/profile/jeff-dai/

Explanation:
There were four Full Supermoons in 2022. Using the definition of a supermoon as a Full Moon near perigee, that is within at least 90% of its closest approach to Earth in a given orbit, the year's Full Supermoon dates were May 16, June 14, July 13, and August 12. Full Moons near perigee really are the brightest and largest in planet Earth's sky. But size and brightness differences between Full Moons are relatively small and an actual comparison with other Full Moons is difficult to make by eye alone. Two exposures are blended in this supermoon and sky view from June 14. That Full Moon was also known to northern hemisphere skygazers as the Strawberry moon. The consecutive short and long exposures allow familiar features on the fully sunlit lunar nearside to be seen in the same image as a faint lunar corona and an atmospheric cloudscape. They were captured in skies over Chongqing, China.

apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap220616.ht

#space#earth#moon

WRITER FUEL: The Extremely Large Telescope will revolutionize our view of the cosmos when it sees first light in Chile in 2028. In fact, it could detect hints of alien life around our closest neighboring star system in its first night of operations, new simulations suggest.

limfic.com/2025/07/13/writer-f

"The Perseids are coming — here's how to watch the glorious meteor shower before the moon ruins the show" by @LiveScience - Perseids meteor shower peaks on the night of August 12-13. But the #Moon just past full will rise around 10pm local time, washing out the sky for all but the brightest meteors. livescience.com/space/meteoroi #Perseids2025 #Perseids #MeteorShower #astronomy #LowFlyingRocks

Live Science · The Perseids are coming — here's how to watch the glorious meteor shower before the moon ruins the showBy Jamie Carter