The galaxy is known as NGC 1385. ESA/Hubble & NASA, J. Lee and the PHANGS-HST Team
NASA published a “jewel-bright” photo of a spiral galaxy many millions of light-years from Earth.
The galaxy – NGC 1385 – is in the Fornax constellation.
The constellation’s name is Latin for “furnace.”
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The Hubble Space Telescope captured an image of a “jewel-bright” spiral galaxy, which is 68 million light-years from Earth.
NASA and the European Space Agency published the photo. NASA said in a Friday blog post that it showed NGC 1385, a galaxy in the constellation Fornax.
Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 – a “workhorse camera” – captured the image, the US space agency said. The camera was installed in 2019 during astronauts most recent Hubble visit, it added.
The name Fornax is not from “an animal or an ancient god,” said NASA, but instead comes from the Latin word for furnace.
“The constellation was named Fornax by Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille, a French astronomer born in 1713,” the ESA said in text accompanying the photo.
The agency added: “Lacaille named 14 of the 88 constellations we still recognize today. He seems to have had a penchant for naming constellations after scientific instruments, including Atlia (the air pump), Norma (the ruler, or set square), and Telescopium (the telescope).”
The photo was the latest in a long succession of beautiful photos captured by the cameras aboard the Hubble Space Telescope during its three decades observing the cosmos.
The galaxy is known as NGC 1385. ESA/Hubble & NASA, J. Lee and the PHANGS-HST Team
NASA published a “jewel-bright” photo of a spiral galaxy many millions of light-years from Earth.
The galaxy – NGC 1385 – is in the Fornax constellation.
The constellation’s name is Latin for “furnace.”
See more stories on Insider’s business page.
The Hubble Space Telescope captured an image of a “jewel-bright” spiral galaxy, which is 68 million light-years from Earth.
NASA and the European Space Agency published the photo. NASA said in a Friday blog post that it showed NGC 1385, a galaxy in the constellation Fornax.
Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 – a “workhorse camera” – captured the image, the US space agency said. The camera was installed in 2019 during astronauts most recent Hubble visit, it added.
The name Fornax is not from “an animal or an ancient god,” said NASA, but instead comes from the Latin word for furnace.
“The constellation was named Fornax by Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille, a French astronomer born in 1713,” the ESA said in text accompanying the photo.
The agency added: “Lacaille named 14 of the 88 constellations we still recognize today. He seems to have had a penchant for naming constellations after scientific instruments, including Atlia (the air pump), Norma (the ruler, or set square), and Telescopium (the telescope).”
The photo was the latest in a long succession of beautiful photos captured by the cameras aboard the Hubble Space Telescope during its three decades observing the cosmos.
Will Smith and David Ayer on set for Suicide Squad 2016Image: Warner Brothers
David Ayer, director of the 2016 Suicide Squad, has taken to Twitter to discuss his experience shooting the film.
The upcoming release of James Gunn’s Suicide Squad film has drummed up old feelings that Ayer needs to get off his chest officially. From his three-page letter posted to his Twitter last Thursday, fans now know a bit more about his experience working on the movie.
Ayer’s letter comes in response to a Tweet from film critic Tim Grierson at Screen Daily who said, “Well, here’s something I didn’t expect to write: I really loved The SuicideSquad,” wrote Grierson. “Many times while watching the new movie, I thought, ‘Yeah, David Ayer should just abandon the idea of that director’s cut.’”
As a writer/director David Ayer is hit (End of Watch, Training Day) or miss (Sabotage, Bright). However, all his films have a signature tone and style that I can admit is missing from his version of the Suicide Squad. The 2016 movie looks and feels it was created in an executive boardroom, so it’s understandable why Ayer has disowned it.
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“The studio cut is not my movie. Read that again,” he wrote. “And my cut is not the 10-week director’s cut – It’s a fully mature edit by Lee Smith standing on the incredibly [sic] work by John Gilroy. It’s all Steven Price’s brilliant score, with not a single radio song in the whole thing. It has traditional character arcs, amazing performances, and solid 3rd Act resolution.”
Ayer noted that he isn’t a hater. In fact, he praises Gunn’s version and all involved. “I’m so proud of James and excited for the success that’s coming. I support WB and am thrilled the franchise is getting the legs it needs,” he wrote. “I’m rooting for everyone, the cast, the crew. Every movie is a miracle. And Jame’s [sic] brilliant work will be the miracle of miracles.”
Warner Bros. isn’t going to shell out the same amount of money they gave to Zack Snyder to complete his cut of the Justice League, so let’s hope Ayer’s Suicide Squad doesn’t require any reshoots or additional footage. Can the director garner enough hype around #releasetheayercut to get HBO to acquiesce?
The Suicide Squad is set for release in theaters in the U.S. and on the HBO Max streaming platform on August 6.
Gear up for Saturn’s annual show in the night sky!
Starting Monday (Aug. 2), you can find Saturn shining in the sky as part of a celestial phenomenon called opposition. Earth and the ringed planet will be on the same side of the sun and connected with our star by an invisible line, allowing skygazers on Earth to see a fully illuminated Saturn. Saturn reaches this brightest point at about 2 a.m. EDT (0600 GMT) on Monday, according to the website EarthSky.org. It will be highest in the sky around midnight local time and located in the constellation Capricornus.
Skywatchers will be able to spot several gems, the most obvious being Saturn’s rings. This year, Saturn’s northern hemisphere will be tilted in our direction at a slant that allows for a nice look at Saturn’s rings inclined at an angle of 18 degrees with respect to Earth, according to the website In-The-sky.org. The angle should also allow sunlight to reflect off the icy rings to illuminate them from our perspective.
Related: The brightest planets in August’s night sky: How to see them (and when) Read more: Saturn’s summer season ends as Hubble telescope watches (photos)
On Monday (Aug. 2), Saturn will reach opposition among the stars of central Capricornus. At opposition, Saturn will be at a distance of 830.6 million miles (1.337 billion kilometers) from Earth, and it will shine at magnitude of 0.18 — its brightest for 2021. (Image credit: Starry Night)
Viewers may also get to see Titan, Saturn’s largest moon. “Through a small telescope, Titan is actually pretty easy,” astronomer Phil Plait told NPR. “If you take a look, you might see a little star right next to Saturn. That might very well be Titan — you can go online and find planetarium software” to confirm it, he said.
Carlos Blanco, a particle physicist at Princeton University and an avid skywatcher, told Space.com that he recommends viewing Saturn with a telescope that offers a narrow field of view and high magnification.
“In the sky, planets are unique in that they are relatively bright but almost point-like, as opposed to the moon or the Andromeda galaxy, which extend several degrees in the sky,” he said.
“So to get a good look at them, you want to have a scope such that the image you see in the viewfinder is roughly as big as the planet. In other words, the circle that the viewer makes in the sky should be very tight around that point of light,” he said. “Roughly speaking, the higher the magnification power of the telescope, the smaller the field of view, and vice versa.”
Blanco recommends an 8-inch Dobsonian telescope; check out Space.com’s list of this year’s best telescopes for recommendations.
The night sky when viewed looking south from New York City around 2:00 a.m. local time, when Saturn reaches opposition. This image was created by Dominic Ford from In-the-sky.org. (Image credit: Dominic Ford/In-the-sky.org)
Don’t worry if you can’t locate a telescope in time, because Saturn is one of the most distant objects that people can view in the sky with the naked eye. As a general rule of thumb, Plait recommends finding the brightest point in the night sky (after Venus has set, that is — that planet is easy to recognize because it shines low in the sky after sunset or before sunrise). That bright point is Jupiter, he told NPR, and Saturn will be the next-brightest point in the sky, west of Jupiter.
Understanding how opposition works will help, too. Opposition occurs when a planet appears opposite the sun in Earth’s sky. In this case, Saturn will climb high in the Northern Hemisphere’s sky at night because it is opposite the sun, which is high in the sky on the daytime side.
Follow Doris Elin Urrutia on Twitter @salazar_elin. Follow uson Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
Residents in the UK and Cuba have described seeing shiny objects falling from the sky, which were followed by a loud noise. Unconfirmed meteor sightings were also reported in the US.
A dashcam recorded a bright ball of light flying across the sky over the island of Jersey, a British territory in the English Channel.
Around the same time, locals in the UK reported hearing a loud bang in the southwestern counties of Devon, Dorset, Cornwall and Somerset. The sound was described as a “sonic boom” and a “huge rumble” on social media.
A person told DevonLive that it sounded “like a big explosion.”
“It was this big bass-y boom that reverberated for a good 20 seconds or so, followed by a series of popping noises,” he said.
Another apparent meteor was spotted flying over Cuba, where residents said they saw shiny objects in the night sky and heard what sounded like explosions. Reports on social media claimed that the meteor was also seen from Jamaica.
Apparently there are reports of a #meteor explosion over Moa, Holguin in Cuba.A seismological station detected the shock wave and there are multiples visual reports as wells.#NOAA#GOESEast GLM imagery has a bright flash right over the area of visual reports at 02:05 UTC pic.twitter.com/WWoNaO4kfV
— CM2ESP (@CM2ESP_Raydel) March 20, 2021
The head of Cuba’s National Seismological Service, Enrique Arango Arias, told the Cubadebate news website that the“phenomenon” was observed from the towns of Moa, Sagua de Tanamo and Maisi. He added that the agency’s equipment recorded a shock wave, whose source did not come from the ground.
The country’s Institute of Meteorology was quoted by the media as saying that it recorded a flash in the upper atmosphere, which had likely come from the blast.
The National Seismological Service noted that the bright objects seen from Earth could be meteors or smaller space rocks, trash or debris from spacecraft and satellites. The agency later said it could not find any evidence that the meteor hit the ground, which means that the cosmic object likely disintegrated mid-air.
There were also unconfirmed reports of a meteor streaking over the east coast of the US. A video circulating on social media purportedly shows a bright fireball descending from the sky over Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Local TV channel KDKA cited the American Meteor Society saying that 131 reports were submitted about this event.
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