#lh95

Maybe I was hoping we would never have to do another one of these, but today’s news from Somalia broke my heart again. I hope against hope that this is the last flag image we make.

Image: LH 95 observed by Hubble

In honor of Towel Day, here are some interstellar towel designs from Shoenstaub (we’ve posted their rugs before) with help from the Hubble Space Telescope.

Black & blue nebula (LH 95)

Black & white nebula

(really bothering me that I can’t identify it -

Tarantula Nebula

maybe?)

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LH 95

LH 95 is a star forming region located about 160,000 light years away towards the constellation Dorado, the Swordfish. It is about 150 light years across, and is part of the Large Magellanic Cloud Galaxy, a small dwarf galaxy orbiting our own Milky Way.

LH 95 contains many bright, blue stars commonly visible in images of star forming regions. This view of the region, however, has a high enough resolution that smaller, yellower, and dimmer stars are visible as well. These stars also heat surrounding hydrogen gas, producing a blue sheen. Supernovae in the area have also left behind clouds of dust and gas.

SPACE PANTS and startorial teamwork FTW!!!! Emily recognized the pattern (the ubiquitous LH 95 imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope), and Summer recognized the brand as River Island, as reported in the Irish Times!

These space pants (spants?) were a lucky find at Buffalo Exchange by educator Janet Lee from @amnhnyc and brought to my attention by Brian Levine, who also cleverly photographed Janet with his Celestial Buddies collection.

My #TBT this week is all the way back to last winter's American Astronomical Society meeting (#AAS223), where we launched startorialist!

Dr. Lanika Ruzhitskaya, who is now the director of the Science Outreach Center at St. Francis University, wore this stellar dress to the opening reception. She bought it on Amazon so I suspect it's this one, and I'm certain the image is star-forming region LH 95 in the Large Magellanic Cloud as imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope.

A year ago I wouldn't have recognized LH 95 at all, and now I'm seeing it all over the place - what a difference a year makes!

LH 95

LH 95 is a star forming region located about 160,000 light years away towards the constellation Dorado, the Swordfish. It is about 150 light years across and part of the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy, a satellite galaxy to our Milky Way.

Stars with high mass- at least three times the size of our Sun- expel strong stellar winds and ultraviolet radiation that illuminate surrounding gas, creating the blue glow of the nearby hydrogen. The region also contains many low mass stars, which astronomers are studying to better understand what conditions lead to their formation.