quote:The three iconic space pillars photographed by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope in 1995 might have met their demise, according to new evidence from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope.
A new, striking image from Spitzer shows the intact dust towers next to a giant cloud of hot dust thought to have been scorched by the blast of a star that exploded, or went supernova. Astronomers speculate that the supernova's shock wave could have already reached the dusty towers, causing them to topple about 6,000 years ago. However, because light from this region takes 7,000 years to reach Earth, we won't be able to capture photos of the destruction for another 1,000 years or so. ......
Stuff like this just blows my mind. I can't even get my head around the scale of what's happening in this region of space.
Registered: Jul 2002
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Da_bang80
A few sectors short of an Empire
Member # 528
posted
For some reason, everytime I see those, I get a little bit of penis envy...
-------------------- Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. The courage to change the things I cannot accept. And the wisdom to hide the bodies of all the people I had to kill today because they pissed me off.
Anyway, the kicker here of course is that the Pillars don't really LOOK like that, thanks to spectral enhancements made mostly for our benefit. And yet, SF shows consistently get it wrong and show stellar phenomena being all bright and colourful. Beurk.
posted
And in other news, the Sun might have exploded over seven minutes ago and we wouldn't realize it for another sixty-some seconds...
*sigh* Sometimes I just don't get people. All those nebulae and astronomical formations are nothing more than gigantic versions of the rainclouds we used to look up and imagine looked like bunny rabbits. They just take a lot longer to disappear.
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
Registered: Nov 2000
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quote:Originally posted by Mark Nguyen: Well, *I* start itching.
Anyway, the kicker here of course is that the Pillars don't really LOOK like that, thanks to spectral enhancements made mostly for our benefit. And yet, SF shows consistently get it wrong and show stellar phenomena being all bright and colourful. Beurk.
Mark
So do a lot of Sci-Fi themed video games, like many Star Trek games.
Registered: Feb 2005
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posted
I just saw an example of that on Voyager yesterday...man, I'd forgotten how BAD that show was.
Every time I see the Horse Head nebula, I get a little bit of horse head envy... You envy getting head from a horse? What would Mr. Ed say?
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
Example of?? The Eagle Nebula??? They used it rather graphically - excuse the pun in "Into the Fire" Babylon 5 when the Whitestar was waiting for the First Ones I believe.
-------------------- "Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica." - Jim Halpert. (The Office)
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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