Aurora Banks Peninsula

This well-composed composite panoramic view looks due south from Banks Peninsula near Christchurch on New Zealand's South Island. The base of a tower-like rocky sea stack is awash in the foreground, with stars of the Southern Cross at the top of the frame and planet Earth's south celestial pole near center. Still, captured on May 11, vibrant aurora australis dominate the starry southern sea and skyscape. The shimmering southern lights were part of extensive auroral displays that entertained skywatchers in northern and southern hemispheres around planet Earth, caused by intense geomagnetic storms. The extreme spaceweather was triggered by the impact of coronal mass ejections launched from powerful solar active region AR 3664.

from NASA https://ift.tt/sZfWXFK

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The Galactic Center in Radio from MeerKAT

What's happening at the center of our galaxy? It's hard to tell with optical telescopes since visible light is blocked by intervening interstellar dust. In other bands of light, though, such as radio , the galactic center can be imaged and shows itself to be quite an interesting and active place . The featured picture shows the latest image of our Milky Way's center by the MeerKAT array of 64 radio dishes in South Africa . Spanning four times the angular size of the Moon (2 degrees ), the image is impressively vast, deep, and detailed. Many known sources are shown in clear detail, including many with a prefix of Sgr, since the galactic center is in the direction of the constellation Sagittarius . In our Galaxy's Center lies Sgr A , found here in the image center, which houses the Milky Way's central supermassive black hole. Other sources in the image are not as well understood, including the Arc , just to the left of Sgr A , and numerous filamentary threads....

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The Observable Universe

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