the-star-stuff:

Star trails over the Australian Outback by photographer Lincoln Harrison

Photographer Lincoln Harrison spends hours with his camera in the Australian Outback to create these magnificent star trail pictures. The colourful spirals are the result of the Earth moving, creating the impression that the stars are travelling across the night sky. 

the-star-stuff:

All 786 confirmed planets in one handy infographic

Planets are turning out to be so common that to show all the planets in our galaxy, this chart would have to be nested in itself—with each planet replaced by a copy of the chart—at least three levels deep.

[XKCD]

the-star-stuff:

Rocky Super-Earth and Gas Giant Are Latest Superstar Couple

A rocky planet 1.5 times the size of Earth and a Neptune-like gas giant were spotted orbiting a star daringly close to each other.

The two-planet Kepler-36 system is the Kepler space telescope’s latest treasured find, reported today in the journal Science by researchers from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and the University of Washington. Passing less than five Earth-moon distances apart every 97 days, the planets are far closer together and more different in density than any two planets in our solar system.

Image: Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

the-star-stuff:

Are neutrons traveling between parallel worlds?

Recent experiments at ultra-cold temperatures have shown a phenomenon known as “neutron loss,” in which we somehow lose track of these subatomic particles for short periods. This probably has a mundane explanation…but just for fun, here’s an awesomely insane explanation.

You can check out the entire original paper right here at the European Physical Journal.

Image by Markus Gann, via Shutterstock.

This is my favorite one!

the-star-stuff:

Orion the Hunter

The constellation Orion the Hunter — visible in the winter sky from the Northern Hemisphere — is big and bright, so it’s easy to photograph. This 5-minute single exposure captures the colors of Orion’s prominent stars, most notably coppery Betelgeuse (Alpha Orionis), which sits in the upper-left corner. The Orion Nebula (M42) glows below the three stars of the Hunter’s Belt and the wispy tendrils of Barnard’s Loop make a large red C on the left side of the shot. Finally, look carefully beneath the leftmost star in the Belt for a tiny dark indentation in the red cloud of gas. That’s the elusive Horsehead Nebula (B33). 

by Chin Wei-Loon from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

This stuff is pretty amazing

This is alot of what Ireland looks like :] damn i love that country

Truth