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About Bad Astronomy
Phil Plait, the creator of Bad Astronomy, is an astronomer, lecturer, and author. After ten years working on Hubble Space Telescope and six more working on astronomy education, he struck out on his own as a writer. He's written two books, dozens of magazine articles, and 12 bazillion blog articles. He is a skeptic and fights the abuse of science, but his true love is praising the wonders of real science.
The original BA site (with the Moon Hoax debunking, movie reviews, and all that) can be found here.
Contact me: The Bad Astronomer "at" gmail "dot" com
Bad Astronomy was chosen as one of Time.com's Best Blogs of 2009. Science Getaways
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December 14th, 2011 at 6:16 am
I think the star with the crazy bowshock was my favorite.
December 14th, 2011 at 7:13 am
Comet Lovejoy update. You can see its death plunge into the sun by looking at the SOHO LASCO image. It’s the streak on the bottom of the image.
“Do you see a light Homer?” “Move into the light my son.” “Be strong Marge, he’s gone to a better place.”
December 14th, 2011 at 7:36 am
“Stars die complicated deaths. Even low-mass stars like the one we circle every year don’t just cough in Act 1 and die in Act 3.”
Of course not, silly. They have to sing a very dramatic aria first.
December 14th, 2011 at 9:00 am
Arp 273 is my favorite. Very pretty. Also like the observation about the proximity of neighbors at different levels of granularity.
December 14th, 2011 at 9:07 am
BigBadSis (3): Spoken — um, sung — like a true mezzo soprano.
December 14th, 2011 at 9:10 am
I’d have voted for Auriga’s Wheel (Ok, the images were taken in 2007, but not found until June of this year).
Those who play first-person shooters can hear the voice in their head screaming “HEADSHOT”!
December 14th, 2011 at 9:41 am
I love these pictures! It shows there is still so much to discover out there.
Just a few comments about Hanny’s Voorwerp: ‘Voorwerp’ is Dutch for ‘Object’, not ‘Thing’. ‘Thing’ would be ‘ding’ in Dutch. Then Hanny’s Voorwerp would be a “Ding in the Universe”, but I don’t think that is what Steve Jobs was talking about… but I’m getting off track now .
Besides that, Hanny loves music, plays guitar and is a big Queen fan. But her job is a biology teacher at a high school. More about Hanny and the Voorwerp at her personal site: hannysvoorwerp.com
December 14th, 2011 at 10:50 am
“The Milky Way is among the biggest galaxies in the Universe”
It is? I always thought it was fairly average– large compared to dwarfs, but tiny compared to ellipticals. Is my generalization wrong? Or is it just because there’s so many more dwarfs that pushes the Milky Way galaxy into a high percentile?
December 14th, 2011 at 11:30 am
“I love the way the central region looks smooth and uniform, but the dust clouds in the arms are patchy, crinkly like the top of a snickerdoodle.”
Damn you, Phil, now I want a snickerdoodle! Also, I will never, ever get tired of saying “Hanny’s Voorwerp”.
December 14th, 2011 at 12:27 pm
Great pictures, but the text isn’t displaying properly (in Firefox).
December 14th, 2011 at 12:46 pm
Definitely cold star birth in scorpion’s tail is the best.
December 14th, 2011 at 3:42 pm
“The Milky Way is among the biggest galaxies in the Universe”
Actually, compared to some galaxies, the Milky Way is quite small. We contain about 300 billion stars in a 100,000 light year radius. However, the elliptical galaxy M87 contains nearly 1 trillion stars! And the elliptical galaxy IC1101 contains nearly 100 trillion stars in an area of 6 million light years!
December 14th, 2011 at 6:57 pm
Awesome photographs. A bit scary, the one that looks like a germ growning out of the pitri dish that is space, but other than that, all is beyond well.
December 14th, 2011 at 8:39 pm
Slim (8) & JeffM (12): Most galaxies are far smaller than the Milky Way. Yes, plenty are bigger, but we’re way toward the massive end of the scale, especially for spirals. It’s odd, actually: we have conditions conducive for life on Earth, and we happen to be in a big galaxy. It could be coincidence, or there could b some connection; maybe big galaxies do better for setting up the right circumstances for life. I don’t see how, but two coincidences together are always suspicious.
December 14th, 2011 at 10:14 pm
In star vs blackhole, I bet the star was thinking “Oh shhhhiiiiiiiiii…” the whole time.
December 15th, 2011 at 1:15 am
“It could be coincidence, or there could b some connection; maybe big galaxies do better for setting up the right circumstances for life. I don’t see how, but two coincidences together are always suspicious.”
I would have thought that the larger a galaxy (the more stars it contains), the larger the chance for a habitable planet to exist there and for life to emerge. I don’t think that the size of a galaxy has a direct effect on the existence of life, but the power of numbers and statistics obviously should mean that larger galaxies are more likely to bear life (or, if you assume that life isn’t that rare on galactic scales, a larger galaxy would contain more planets with life than a smaller one).
December 15th, 2011 at 4:58 am
Arp 273 is disturbing. It looks like really cheezy art from the 1960′s, like a painting from some bloke who doesn’t understand the first thing about astrophysics. (Of course, that’s a layman’s opinion of the emotional impact: I’m sure it’s real)
December 15th, 2011 at 7:47 pm
Superluminously wonderful selection. Thanks BA.
I notice that the WISE mission’s facebook page notes that they liked this selection incl. many of their images too!
Minor nit but there is one thing missing here though – the supernova in M101 from August this year. Click on my name for link or cut’n'paste :
into the search box – posted by the BA here on the 25th August, 2011 at 6:03 PM for more.
So many great astronomical images I guess its all too easy to accidentally miss one ..
December 15th, 2011 at 7:47 pm
For more about the M101 white dwarf type supernova – SN 2011fe & also temporarily named PTF 11kly – see the BA blog links :
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/10/01/new-pic-sn2011fe-in-m101/
&
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/09/07/supernova-update-its-peaking-now/
&
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/08/25/astroalert-type-ia-supernova-in-m101/
One of the deep sky science highlights for 2011 – at least in the northern hemisphere – surely?
December 15th, 2011 at 8:51 pm
The first photo reminds me of the movie cover for Across the Universe.
December 16th, 2011 at 1:41 am
One tiny little (typo?) correction on the hubble exoplanet detection one: the original direct detection wasnot made with the “10-m Gemini telescope” – the Gemini telescopes are actually 8 meters in diameter. The original papers on the first direct detections used both Keck (which *is* a 10-m telescope) and Gemini. So both of them get the credit, but Gemini North is not a 10-meter telescope.
December 16th, 2011 at 9:06 am
Erik (210) You are of course correct. I fixed it, thanks.
December 16th, 2011 at 6:56 pm
[...] I am not including all 24 pictures. If you wish to view the rest or to read the details on each picture, click here. [...]
December 16th, 2011 at 9:23 pm
[...] Y un año más, como viene haciendo desde 2006, Phil Plait, AKA @BadAstronomer, hace su selección de las mejores imágenes astronómicas del año, aunque si el año pasado ya le salían catorce en lugar de la tradicionales diez, este año ya son 24, que están en Top 24 Deep Space Pictures of 2011. [...]
December 17th, 2011 at 4:50 pm
No denying it, that last shot of the Orion Nebula is just mind blowing and beautiful . Thanks so much for sharing!
December 18th, 2011 at 11:05 pm
[...] by DrRichardCranium to worldnews [link] [19 [...]
December 18th, 2011 at 11:27 pm
[...] NASA’s space program won’t be able to get us out of here, so we can gaze longingly at Discovery’s 24 best deep space photos. If there is intelligent life out there, could it be any more quirky than life on our funky, [...]
December 20th, 2011 at 8:56 am
Hi Phil,
I enjoyed this gallary very much. I’m surprised everybody is claiming ‘voorwerp’ means thing in Dutch. This is not the case. ‘Voorwerp’ means object in Dutch and thing translates into ‘ding’.
kind regards, Karolien
December 20th, 2011 at 8:19 pm
[...] More Going to Hell Than Were Damned a Century Ago.”* * * * * * * * *Phil Plait: “Top 24 Deep Space Images of 2011”He keeps posting stuff like this so I’ll keep linking to it.Blame Brian McLaren for [...]
December 21st, 2011 at 12:40 pm
Is it possible the Voorwerp is BEHIND the attendant galaxy, and so the reason it’s still lit is because the reflection of the galaxy’s core going dark hasn’t arrived here yet because of the greater distance to travel? I hope I made sense there.
Great job with the photos and explanations, Phil. You do a great job of making astronomy fun and interesting. Would it be worth considering waiting until the end of the year so that you don’t have to worry about new pics coming in and ruining your selection process?
December 21st, 2011 at 3:22 pm
As the guy who set up the Voorwerp Hubble images – in fact, our best guess at this point is that the ionized gas lies just slightly behind the galaxy IC 2497 (30,000 light-years or so behind). That plus the data in hand would minimize the amount of energy needed to light it up, and allow more time delay for the action to have taken place than having it a bit in front. There may be ways involving numerical modeling and more detailed 21-cm radio data that night nail down where it is more precisely, but you use what you have.
December 22nd, 2011 at 3:01 pm
I miss Vesta.
December 24th, 2011 at 5:03 pm
[...] top 24 Deep Space photos of 2011, here’s a pictorial overview of volcanic activity in 2011 and finally Flowing Data’s best [...]
December 27th, 2011 at 3:42 pm
Arp 273 looks like a beautiful, single space rose… lovely.
December 27th, 2011 at 3:52 pm
Okay, my impending 1st anniversary must be making me cheesy, but I know I see a near-perfect, glowing red heart in Abell 2744!
December 28th, 2011 at 1:50 am
It is amazing that the cosmos of million million suns are standing without a pin support. Gravity alone can not explain the situation due the distances of several light years. Hindu seers said God is Anant meaning endless. They also said God shines like million suns. A name of Goddess is Viswa (cosmos) bhramana (movement) karini (cause) meaning cause of the movement of cosmos. How they new of the movement of cosmos thousand years ago? HE is also called Viswaadhara meaning support of the cosmos. Amazing philosophy !
December 30th, 2011 at 1:09 pm
[...] Bad Astronomer serves up the best gorgeous deep space and solar system and space pictures of 2011. Comet Lovejoy deserves an honorable [...]
December 31st, 2011 at 5:50 am
[...] For contrast, scale, and just plain gorgeousness, take a look at Bad Astronomy’s Deep Space Photos of the Year. [...]
January 3rd, 2012 at 4:50 pm
[...] calendar, we’re one of 50 images you can vote for on space.com (we’re number 31), and the Bad Astronomer put us in his top 24 deep space pictures of this year! [...]