Hand of God?

[pledm]

Hand of God: Scientists reveal amazing X-ray image of a supernova in deep space
We've already seen pictures of his eye... now we have the first image of the hand of God.

The ghostly blue cloud seems to form an outstretched thumb and fingers grasping a burning lump of coal.

This astonishing image was taken by Nasa's Chandra X-ray observatory, which is orbiting 360 miles above the Earth's surface.


The Hand of God: A small, dense object only 12 miles in diameter is responsible for this beautiful X-ray nebula that spans 150 light years

It recalls those of the Helix planetary nebula, whose blue centre surrounded by white clouds earned it the nickname 'the eye of God'.

The hand was created when a star exploded in a supernova, creating a rapidly-spinning 12-mile-wide star called a pulsar, which is deep inside the white blob at the hand's wrist.

The pulsar is spewing out enormous amounts of electromagnetic energy, creating a dust and gas cloud so wide that it would take a light beam 150 years to cross from side to side.


Eye in the sky: The Helix nebula

The red disc is a separate cloud of gas. The fingers are thought to have been created as the energy passed from the pulsar to this gas cloud.

Nasa scientists estimate the moment depicted here actually happened 17,000 years ago.

It has taken since then for the X-rays, travelling at 670million mph, to reach Earth.
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Just thought it was pretty amazing

[Summer]

I posted this on Lovemagick too, Pledm. Great minds think alike. ;D

[pledm]

Another update;

Is there anyone out there in the 'question mark' galaxy?

With its unique glowing shape and colours spiralling down to a dot it appears to be begging the question - is anyone out there?

This image, taken at a distance of more than 100,000 light years by the Hubble space telescope, shows a group of galaxies interacting with another.

It was released today in honour of the 19th anniversary of the telescope's launch.


Punctuation mark in the heavens. The scientific name for the galaxies linked by a stream of glowing superstars is Arp 194

The cosmic fountain of stars, gas and dust has been named the Arp 194 system by Nasa.

The upper light orange area is believed to be a jumble of galaxies that are in the process of merging.

Cascading down from it are bright blue areas of light which are a stream of hot 'super' star clusters.
These are referred to as a 'fountain of youth' by Nasa which says each cluster may in turn contain dozens of individual young star groupings.

The lower 'dot' of the question mark shape is a single spiral galaxy.


Since its launch in April 1990, Hubble has taken more than 570,000 images

Since its launch on April 25th 1990, Hubble has made more than 880,000 observations and captured over 570,000 images of 29,000 celestial objects. Its position outside the Earth's atmosphere allows it to take sharp images with almost no background light.

However its future is in doubt as Nasa made plans yesterday to launch a fifth and final mission to service the ageing telescope, which was out of service for more than a month last year.

Next month will see the launch of the shuttle Atlantis, which will contain tools to maintain Hubble for another five years.

Hubble's successor, the James Webb telescope is due to be launched in 2013.
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Just love pics like this. ;D