Physics Photo of the Week

Physics Photo of the Week December 20, 2024  Galaxy M33 - Color photo by Donald Collins, College View Observatory Several weeks ago I published a monochrome image of the Galaxy M33 . The gray scale of astronomical photos are rather dull compared to the photos printed in color.  The color in astro photos also reveal much more about the physics of the astronomical objects - especially galaxies.  In this deep sky image of the galaxy that is several million light years distant from our planet Earth, all the discrete stars that we see in the image are foreground stars that exist rather close to us within our own Milky Way galaxy.  The billions of stars in the distant galaxy are so far away and so numerous that they blend together to resemble clouds.  Notice that the clouds of stars in the outer spiral arms of Galaxy M33 appear bluish, while the star clouds near the core of the galaxy are more reddish.  These colors mainly refer to the average temperatures of th...

Physics Photo of the Week December 6, 2024 Wake in clouds from mountain peak - satellite photos composed by D. Collins   The satellite image above shows the northeastern US in mid-winter (February 2024).  The left half of the image shows the many snow-covered lakes in the Adirondacks of northern New York.  The middle section shows snow-covered mountain ridges of Vermont that run north and south.  The mid right-center section shows a interesting piece of New Hampshire and a small gap in the clouds running southeast of a special white spot.  The white spot is the snow-capped summit of Mt. Washington breaking through the clouds and illuminated by the rising Sun. The zoomed-in image at right shows the effect.  Mt. Washington's summit, at 6288 ft. above sea level, is the highest mountain point in the northeastern US*.  The summit has p enetrated the cloud layer that was blowing towards the southeast.  The downstream part of the clouds show a wake in...