Our Beautiful Universe - Photos and Videos

[DennisN]

This thread is dedicated to the beauty and awesomeness of our Universe. If you feel like it, please share video clips and photos (or nice animations) of space and objects in space in this thread. Your posts, clips and photos may by all means include scientific information; that does not make it less beautiful to me (n.b. the posts must of course comply with the PF guidelines, i.e. regarding science, only mainstream science is allowed, fringe/pseudoscience is not allowed).

n.b. I start this thread because I wanted to share a clip, but it did not feel appropriate to put it in "The Great Outdoors" thread, since it seems it's more of a "nature thread", which of course also is beautiful.

Even though I certainly don't mind you posting your own stuff here as well, please note that there is a dedicated thread for your own astrophotography photos here (which is better if you want to discuss your photos and get advice): Astrophotography photos.

<< Mentor Note -- that Astrophotography Photos thread was closed recently, so that members could post their photos in their own threads instead >>

Well, now, onwards to the beauty of our Universe; I start this thread with the following clip:

The Astounding Fact About The Universe - Neil Degrasse Tyson

 

[DennisN]

(I will also repost some other precious clips from other PF threads...)

The World Outside My Window - Time Lapse of Earth from the ISS


All Alone in the Night - Time-lapse footage of the Earth as seen from the ISS

 

[DennisN]

This beautiful short film was previously posted by Astronuc in this post (@Astronuc).

The Overview Effect (19 min 10 s)

 

[DennisN]

This beautiful clip of our Sun was posted by OmCheeto here (@OmCheeto).

NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, 5 year video

 

[OmCheeto]

I enjoyed watching the following video yesterday.

​

It's somewhat timely, as Dawn will be captured into orbit by Ceres in about 5 days.

 

[DennisN]

It's somewhat timely, as Dawn will be captured into orbit by Ceres in about 5 days.

Very, very interesting, I did not know about it! I wish the Dawn team and the project best luck!

Also, we will hopefully get much better photos and information about Pluto this summer, in July 2015, when the probe New Horizons reaches Pluto (it has traveled for nine years):



More clips here from NASA about the mission:
http://www.youtube.com/user/NASANewHorizons

..and there was a recent short thread on PF about it here.

 

[DennisN]

I just remembered this clip, which I think I have posted somewhere before on the forum (but I do not remember where):

The Known Universe by the American Museum of Natural History

 

[Garth]

Thank you DennisN - when we were the furthest out and we started to come back to the Milky Way it made me feel we were lost amongst 10¹¹ galaxies and I hoped the driver knew her way home - she did!

Garth

 

[DennisN]

Another one I remembered:
Unprecedented 16-year long study tracks stars orbiting Milky Way black hole (ESOcast 2, 2008)


Links:

• A Black Hole at the Centre of our Galaxy
• Unprecedented 16-Year Long Study Tracks Stars Orbiting Milky Way Black Hole (more pictures and videos to the right on the page)
• Max Planck Institute For Extraterrestrial Physics (homepage, Galactic Center Research)

 

[wabbit]

Thanks for sharing these - this thread reminded me of the many beautiful images and videos from
SOHO and among these, this (old) one in UV:

 

[DennisN]

Saw a really cool clip a couple of days ago, maybe not so much "astro", but it is about objects in space (sort of) and most definitely in our Universe , so here it is:

In his off-duty time, NASA Astronaut Don Pettit experiments with the physics of water in the weightless environment aboard the International Space Station. Published as a collaboration between NASA and the American Physical Society.

 

[Bandersnatch]

This is mostly science fiction now and most likely will remain so for the rest of our lives, but what it does is fit the thread title well:


By the way, the video in post #7 is (partially at least) a video-capture of a free planetarium software 'Digital Universe' available from Hayden Planetarium website:
http://www.amnh.org/our-research/hayden-planetarium/digital-universe
I don't think you can view the solar system as depicted, but certainly the milky way and the extragalactic scales are accessible (in separate instances, however).

 

[OmCheeto]

This is mostly science fiction now and most likely will remain so for the rest of our lives, but what it does is fit the thread title well:


By the way, the video in post #7 is (partially at least) a video-capture of a free planetarium software 'Digital Universe' available from Hayden Planetarium website:
http://www.amnh.org/our-research/hayden-planetarium/digital-universe
I don't think you can view the solar system as depicted, but certainly the milky way and the extragalactic scales are accessible (in separate instances, however).

I loved the smile at the end of the video. It reminded me of Kip Thorne's comment about "Interstellar". Something to the effect, that you can mathematically model something, but actually being there, is freaking awesome.

I've seen this video before, but after recently going along for the ride with both the Philae-Rosetta and Dawn missions, it's actually 100 times better this time. Before that, it was just a fantasy video. And now, it strikes me as very real. Thanks!

On a similar note, I've been mesmerized by an Earth atmosphere simulator for the last 2 weeks. I found it whilst in a "Wind" themed thread. Since then, I've stared at it probably every day, for at least a couple of hours. In another thread, based on those observations, I mentioned that it would take me 100 years to describe what's going on.

About the only thing you can do, is plug in as many numbers as possible, and get a supercomputer to make a simulation.

There are rivers of air above our heads, flowing in every conceivable direction, at every height.

Earth

Looking down on the North Pole:

26500 meter elevation

17500 meter elevation

10,500 meter elevation

Surface
​

Explain what you've just seen, in 100 words years, or less.

 

[Bandersnatch]

Explain what you've just seen, in 100 words years, or less.

Challenge accepted!

The wind you feel caressing your skin is just an afterthought of something much greater. Even a terrible hurricane is but a swirl in the colossal rivers of air, serpentine and shifting, just outside the reach of the tallest mountaintops. However, venture higher, twice as high as before, and you'll see the rivers joining to form a sea of currents, dwarfing their low altitude cousins, yet calmer and ponderous. But the realm of Aeolus lies higher than the mightiest of peaks among the planets. There, the winds abandon their individual will to eternally dance in great circles of celestial geometry.

Whether that counts as 'explaining' to anyone but some ancient Greek peasants is another matter.

 

[OmCheeto]

Challenge accepted!

The wind you feel caressing your skin is just an afterthought of something much greater. Even a terrible hurricane is but a swirl in the colossal rivers of air, serpentine and shifting, just outside the reach of the tallest mountaintops. However, venture higher, twice as high as before, and you'll see the rivers joining to form a sea of currents, dwarfing their low altitude cousins, yet calmer and ponderous. But the realm of Aeolus lies higher than the mightiest of peaks among the planets. There, the winds abandon their individual will to eternally dance in great circles of celestial geometry.

Whether that counts as 'explaining' to anyone but some ancient Greek peasants is another matter.

Bam! Nailed it.

Believe it or not, I was contemplating adding Jody Foster's quote from "Contact", but, as you know, I've already quoted that scene:

They should have sent...a poet.​

​

That was a fun thread. Everyone learned how old everyone was. ​

 

[Bandersnatch]

On a similar note, I've been mesmerized by an Earth atmosphere simulator for the last 2 weeks.

Goddamnit, Om. That's seriously addictive. I could eat popcorn to that.

Hmmm... maybe I could hook it up to my telly somehow. Leave it on forever.

 

[liometopum]

IMAGES:
9450 images available for public use from ESO; a great many are of ESO itself.
Check out http://www.eso.org/public/images/
Details for public use at http://www.eso.org/public/copyright/

ALMA’s view of the outflow associated with the Herbig-Haro object HH 46/47

The radio galaxy Centaurus A, as seen by ALMA


VIDEOS:
They have a seemingly endless number of videos too.
http://www.eso.org/public/videos/

 

[OmCheeto]

9450 images available for public use from ESO; a great many are of ESO itself.

Nine thousand, four hundred, and 50 images!
Nobody's got time for that.
And why would anyone want to look at pictures telescopes and dishes?

hmmm... (checks site)

OMG.

I just spent 5 minutes staring at a panorama called ALMA’s Solitude.

And the astro pictures are... WOW!

Thank you!

 

[virgil1612]

Speaking of the immensity of the Universe, this is a picture that amazes me: NGC 4921 seen by Hubble. Look at all those far away galaxies visible everywhere through the halo of the main galaxy.

 

[OmCheeto]

I am assuming, that I was so enchanted by "ALMA's Solitude" (thanks again @liometopum !), that I researched who took the photo.

I ran across this one on the 24th of April:



I found the stars, reflected from the telescopes, enchanting.
At 2:22, the star's reflections, move in different directions.
It was one of those "whoa", Keanu Reeves type moments, for me.

photographer: Babak Tafreshi

 

[liometopum]

That video was great, and your research to find it is impressive! Thank you for doing and sharing!

 

[DennisN]

I ran across this one on the 24th of April:

Simply a stunningly beautiful clip! And cool music too! And now I will try to find out who the composer of the music is... EDIT: Some say that he who seeks shall find, and so I did: AliRainiMusic (facebook), and on that page I found another beautiful clip :



EDIT 2 : And also this nice tribute to "Sky gazers":

 

[LFT11501]

These videos are great!

This is one of my favorites:

 

[OmCheeto]

I've always wondered, why we didn't have pictures like this.
Perhaps we did, and I just didn't notice.

This High-Res Moon Photo Was Made by a Self-Taught Astrophotographer
Published on May 4, 2015

Of course, after getting immersed in the Ceres thread, I can no longer look at even a crater, with, indifference.

 

[DennisN]

I've always wondered, why we didn't have pictures like this.

Beautiful!

Star Size Comparison (by "morn1415")


(if the clip above for some reason doesn't play, here's another version with other audio)

 

[DennisN]

I also remembered this...

The Millennium Simulation (Max-Planck-Institut)
The Millennium Run used more than 10 billion particles to trace the evolution of the matter distribution in a cubic region of the Universe over 2 billion light-years on a side. It kept busy the principal supercomputer at the Max Planck Society's Supercomputing Centre in Garching, Germany for more than a month.

More info, pictures and videos:

• The Millennium Simulation Project (MPA)
• Millennium-II (MPA)
• Millennium Run (Wikipedia)

 

[OmCheeto]

When Hollywood, and NASA, meet:

​

Something to put on our calendars.

More info here:
Astronomers Predict Fireworks from Rare Stellar Encounter in 2018 (NASA)
July 2, 2015

 

[Electrolyte]

http://www.nicholasbuer.com/

My favorite place to just mentally get away, and my favorite video from there.

 

[DennisN]

To Scale: The Solar System
Source: http://videosift.com/video/To-Scale-The-Solar-System

 

[davenn]

very cool video, @DennisN

 

[Borg]

I open the ISS live stream every day. Nothing to see when it's on the dark side unfortunately but this image below will update with the current position of the ISS whenever you refresh the page.

Looks like PF is caching the image. Here's the direct link -
https://www.physicsforums.com/view-source:http://www.heavens-above.com/orbitdisplay.aspx?icon=iss&width=300&height=300&satid=25544

 

[Artribution]

​

Here we see disproven the commonly held notion that shields don't work inside a nebula. Bow shock of LL Orionis plowing through the Orion Nebula, protected by its stellar wind.

 

[DennisN]

A Flight Through the Universe, by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

 

[DennisN]

Illustris Simulation: Most detailed simulation of our Universe
(from 0.4 billion years after the Big Bang and onwards)


Original version of the clip is available here:
http://www.illustris-project.org/movies/illustris_movie_cube_sub_frame.mp4

 

[wolram]

Picture of our sun.