Awesome
Surprised to see me use this word? You should be! I really deplore its modern use, in much the same way "tragedy" is used for the everyday. Be that as it may ... Cast your eyes upon the firmament ... the 10 most popular Hubble Telescope photos.
The Sombrero Galaxy - 28 million light years from Earth - was voted best picture taken by the Hubble telescope. Officially called M104, it has 800 billion suns and is 50,000 light years across. ♥♥♥ And why hopeful? That this photo was voted Number 1. gives me hope at least of humankind's discernment in design and maybe we'll work out the problems that beset us. It's beautiful in its utter "simplicity" when compared with the wonderfully colourful, but flashily complex 2-10.
Roll on E.L.E. 6.
2. The Ant Nebula, a cloud of dust and gas whose technical name is Mz3, resembles an ant when observed using ground-based telescopes. The nebula lies within our galaxy between 3,000 and 6,000 light years from Earth.
3. Nebula NGC 2392, called Eskimo because it looks like a face surrounded by a furry hood. The hood is a ring of comet-shaped objects flying away from a dying star. Eskimo is 5,000 light years from Earth.
4. The Cat's Eye Nebula
5.The Hourglass Nebula, 8,000 light years away. The pinched-in-the-middle look is due to the winds shaping it being weaker at the centre.
6. The Cone Nebula. The part pictured here is 2.5 light years in length (the equivalent of 23 million return trips to the Moon)
7. The Perfect Storm, a small region in the Swan Nebula, 5,500 light years away, described as 'a bubbly ocean of hydrogen and small amounts of oxygen, sulphur and other elements'.
8. Red Super Giant V838 Mon "Starry Night", so named because it reminded astronomers of the Van Gogh painting. It is a halo of light around a star in the Milky Way.
9.The glowering eyes from 114 million light years away are the swirling cores of two merging galaxies called NGC 2207 and IC 2163 in the distant Canis Major constellation.
10. The Triffid Nebula. A 'stellar nursery', 9,000 light years from here, where new stars are being born.
hubblesite.org
The Sombrero Galaxy - 28 million light years from Earth - was voted best picture taken by the Hubble telescope. Officially called M104, it has 800 billion suns and is 50,000 light years across. ♥♥♥ And why hopeful? That this photo was voted Number 1. gives me hope at least of humankind's discernment in design and maybe we'll work out the problems that beset us. It's beautiful in its utter "simplicity" when compared with the wonderfully colourful, but flashily complex 2-10.
Roll on E.L.E. 6.
2. The Ant Nebula, a cloud of dust and gas whose technical name is Mz3, resembles an ant when observed using ground-based telescopes. The nebula lies within our galaxy between 3,000 and 6,000 light years from Earth.
3. Nebula NGC 2392, called Eskimo because it looks like a face surrounded by a furry hood. The hood is a ring of comet-shaped objects flying away from a dying star. Eskimo is 5,000 light years from Earth.
4. The Cat's Eye Nebula
5.The Hourglass Nebula, 8,000 light years away. The pinched-in-the-middle look is due to the winds shaping it being weaker at the centre.
6. The Cone Nebula. The part pictured here is 2.5 light years in length (the equivalent of 23 million return trips to the Moon)
7. The Perfect Storm, a small region in the Swan Nebula, 5,500 light years away, described as 'a bubbly ocean of hydrogen and small amounts of oxygen, sulphur and other elements'.
8. Red Super Giant V838 Mon "Starry Night", so named because it reminded astronomers of the Van Gogh painting. It is a halo of light around a star in the Milky Way.
9.The glowering eyes from 114 million light years away are the swirling cores of two merging galaxies called NGC 2207 and IC 2163 in the distant Canis Major constellation.
10. The Triffid Nebula. A 'stellar nursery', 9,000 light years from here, where new stars are being born.
hubblesite.org