Lest we all take our petty selves too seriously
This is Planetary Nebula NGC 6302, known for obvious reasons as the Butterfly Nebula. According to NASA, it’s located in our own galaxy, the Milky Way, about 3,800 light years from Earth. If you look in the sky, it’s in the constellation Scorpius.
The photo was taken with the Wide Field Camera 3, installed just this May on the Hubble Space Telescope. It’s part of a collection of new photos posted recently by NASA.
Here’s how the space agency describes what you see here:
“This celestial object looks like a delicate butterfly. But it is far from serene.
What resemble dainty butterfly wings are actually roiling cauldrons of gas heated to more than 36,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The gas is tearing across space at more than 600,000 miles an hour — fast enough to travel from Earth to the moon in 24 minutes.
A dying star that was once about five times the mass of the Sun is at the center of this fury. It has ejected its envelope of gases and is now unleashing a stream of ultraviolet radiation that is making the cast-off material glow….”
Liberal, conservative, Republican, Democratic, black, white, male, female … it all seems pretty silly in a universe that holds such marvels.
Then again, since we humans are silly creatures, I’ll put up a thread just before the Obama speech tonight.
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175 comments Add your comment
Zip
September 9th, 2009
4:29 pm
WOW.
Stan
September 9th, 2009
4:35 pm
lol…it looks like a cosmic fart
I know folks…I’m as low brow as they come
Davo
September 9th, 2009
4:35 pm
“Then again, since we humans are silly creatures, I’ll put up a thread just before the Obama speech tonight.”
Thank God…your Carl Sagan impression is making me nauseous.
jconservative
September 9th, 2009
4:41 pm
I agree Zip – WOW. Nice thought Jay.
Here is another wonderful site that will add some humble pie to your ego.
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
The photos coming out of Hubble are just stunning.
md
September 9th, 2009
4:45 pm
Wonder what affect that “dying star” has on our “climate change”. Or the other many players in and outside our galaxy. The interesting thing is – we don’t know.
As Jay so eloquently put it “it all seems pretty silly in a universe that holds such marvels.”
Only the arrogance of man would presume to think he knows anything about the world beyond, much less the affect it has on one itsy bitsy planet called earth.
I Report/ Vast White Wing Conspirator (-: You Whine )-:
September 9th, 2009
4:48 pm
Come on bookman, that’s Obozo’s mouth after exhaling a cloud of Marlboro smoke.
He was babbling for the Hubble cameras.
Kim, Nottingham
September 9th, 2009
4:51 pm
We must rid ourselves of this weapon of mass combustion.
Kim, Nottingham
September 9th, 2009
4:52 pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44DlSj6bnn4
WARNING!!!
September 9th, 2009
4:52 pm
DON’T LOOK DIRECTLY AT IT. IT WILL FRY THE RETNAS RIGHT OUT OF YOUR EYEBALL!!!
LOOK AT IT ONLY THROUGH AN CARDBOARD TOILET-PAPER TUBE WITH SOME HOLES POKED IN IT FOR EYE OXYGEN.
TaxPayer
September 9th, 2009
4:53 pm
md,
The 16th century called and said that you’re too conservative for them. Try an earlier period.
@@
September 9th, 2009
4:54 pm
Doesn’t look like a “delicate butterfly” to me. Looks more like a violent contraction.
Don’t sweat the petty stuff and don’t pet the sweaty stuff. Good advice, eh jay?
TaxPayer
September 9th, 2009
4:55 pm
It was all staged in a little studio in California. If you look closely, you can see the strings holding up the butterfly wings.
md
September 9th, 2009
4:58 pm
I see tp is one of the arrogant ones – who’d a thunk it.
Truth
September 9th, 2009
4:59 pm
God is amazing! Isn’t awesome what all He can create?
md
September 9th, 2009
5:00 pm
Hey tp, since you seem to think you know quite a bit, answer the question. What affect does this dying star have on our planet? And as you libs like to do, please provide links.
Dusty
September 9th, 2009
5:02 pm
Well, I thought for a moment that Jay had gone conservative and had started preaching. Maybe to redeem himself after that last provocative piece of improper pulchritude? Anyway, nice photo, a few poetic lines, and thou beside me, singing in the wilderness. If you are confused, read the Rubaiyat.
Where is josef?
Davo
September 9th, 2009
5:03 pm
Report says return to moon isn’t ‘viable’
NASA would need $3 billion more annually for exploration, panel concludes
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32738086/ns/technology_and_science-space/
Humans Arent Going To Mars – or Anywhere Else – Without More Money
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/09/augustinereport/
Well there’s a real doozy for the utopians here…thinking you can have all this neat science and UHC; not gonna happen. I guess our kids can watch the Chinese land on the moon, then Mars, whilst we Americans pay for Joe the Hobo’s new liver.
Progress, right?
TaxPayer
September 9th, 2009
5:06 pm
Truth
September 9th, 2009
4:59 pm
God is amazing! Isn’t awesome what all He can create?
I don’t know. I’ve yet to see an autographed work.
md
September 9th, 2009
5:00 pm
Why would I bother with a non-believer. Besides, you have your faith to see you through. You don’t need science.
AmVet
September 9th, 2009
5:06 pm
Kim, luv that Eric Idle piece! Always have. Bugger alls included. Thanks!
“Only the arrogance of man would presume to think he knows anything about the world beyond, much less the affect it has on one itsy bitsy planet called earth.”
md, Taxpayer’s witty sarcasm aside, that is a preposterous proposition…Just saying.
That these discoveries scare the hell (get it?) out of many of the science-averse “faithful” is to me, quite hysterical…
Paul
September 9th, 2009
5:10 pm
Thanks, Jay. And thanks for the link.
Normal
September 9th, 2009
5:12 pm
My feelings of insignificance came at sea. I was on a small Destroyer in a class four typhoon, standing a Bridge watch. It was amazing. The force of the wind and rain. Knew right then…when Mother Nature is angry, ain’t nothing you can do but hold on and hope you don’t have to kiss your a** goodbye.
As for the Universe…well, makes Mother Nature look insignificant. In the picture above you are seeing a dying star, but on the edge of the Universe, the Great Spirit is still creating…Wow!
md
September 9th, 2009
5:13 pm
Or how about the affect of Antares? or the largest “known” star the Pistol Nebula?
Again, we have no clue (except tp, who thinks he knows). And these are stars that we know about. It doesn’t even include the gazillions we don’t know about.
You climate change specialists need to start looking at the world from the other direction vs earth as a big place. Check out the link for a little perspective.
http://www.rense.com/general72/size.htm
Normal
September 9th, 2009
5:14 pm
Dusty, I think Josef has an open house at his school today…
Dave R.
September 9th, 2009
5:15 pm
It’s a CAT scan of Bookman’s brain – not a lot of cohesion and a lot of roiling gas!
TaxPayer
September 9th, 2009
5:18 pm
md
September 9th, 2009
5:13 pm
How do you know that those stars are really there. You just think you know.
I Report/ Vast White Wing Conspirator (-: You Whine )-:
September 9th, 2009
5:18 pm
Sarah Capewell begged them to save her tiny son, who was born just 21 weeks and five days into her pregnancy–almost four months early.
They ignored her pleas and allegedly told her they were following national guidelines that babies born before 22 weeks should not be given medical treatment.
F “national guidelines” and the scuz that wrote them.
By the way, that^^ is Britain, not America.
Yet.
professional skeptic
September 9th, 2009
5:19 pm
Another day, another Republican with his political career up in flames due to a sex scandal. The same thing that happened to that star is happening on a daily basis to the Republican Party.
http://www.kcra.com/politics/20814160/detail.html
md
September 9th, 2009
5:20 pm
“Why would I bother with a non-believer. Besides, you have your faith to see you through. You don’t need science.”
Funny, when it comes to a universe we no next to nothing about, there really is no difference between your “science” and others “faith”. (By the way, I’m of the heathen persuasion, can you tell me what my “faith” actually is – assuming makes you look silly)
Davo
September 9th, 2009
5:21 pm
md
You don’t have to go to Antares to see how a star affects our climate
Small Fluctuations In Solar Activity, Large Influence On Climate
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/08/090827141349.htm
Solar Cycle Linked To Global Climate
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090716113358.htm
Normal
September 9th, 2009
5:24 pm
I’m of the heathen persuasion, can you tell me what my “faith” actually is – assuming makes you look silly)
——————
MD, I worship just about everything…I like to touch all the bases
AmVet
September 9th, 2009
5:25 pm
md, you “need to” (talk about arrogance) read The Outline of History by H.G. Wells. One of the very greatest books ever written.
An germane excerpt:
“If the earth were a small ball, one inch in diameter, the sun would be a globe nine feet in diameter. In proportion it would be at a distance of 322 yards away.”
For those who want to have more than the most rudimentary understanding of mankind, it is a must read…
They used to call me CrazyJoe now they call me Batman!
September 9th, 2009
5:25 pm
Davo says “Well there’s a real doozy for the utopians here…thinking you can have all this neat science and UHC; not gonna happen. I guess our kids can watch the Chinese land on the moon, then Mars, whilst we Americans pay for Joe the Hobo’s new liver.”
Batman says – Why Davo, who would’ve “thunk” it!!! YOU’RE concerned about Science? Weren’t you one of those “creationists”?
md
September 9th, 2009
5:27 pm
“How do you know that those stars are really there. You just think you know.”
Exactly!!!!!!
We can see many thru the Hubble, but we “know” very little else. I’m not the one hanging my hat on climate change science that puts “assumed/hypothetical” variables into models to justify an agenda.
Any true scientist would start his theory with the disclaimer that there is more unknown than there will ever be known.
md
September 9th, 2009
5:30 pm
Davo,
What I find comical is there is still debate between scientists about the affect of OUR sun. They haven’t even begun to look beyond that.
md
September 9th, 2009
5:36 pm
Normal,
I too do not discount any possibility. I may not believe in this or that, but I’m not inclined to dismiss anything that has not been proven otherwise.
Dusty
September 9th, 2009
5:37 pm
TaxPayer,
Go to the Grand Canyon. Every lovely enchanted magnanimous piece of it has His autograph. I love to go there just the see the wonder of it all.
I Report/ Vast White Wing Conspirator (-: You Whine )-:
September 9th, 2009
5:38 pm
So which moon do you orbit, AmWet?
TaxPayer
September 9th, 2009
5:39 pm
md,
So, again, how do you know that there are even stars out there. Also, how do you know that you are a heathen given that you don’t acknowledge definitions either.
AmVet
September 9th, 2009
5:41 pm
“Any true scientist would start…”
More unabashed arrogance?
Tell that to the “false scientists” who make this irrefutable FACT one the many embarrassing ones for the denier camp:
With the release of the revised statement by the American Association of Petroleum Geologists in 2007, NO remaining scientific body of national or international standing is known to reject the basic findings of human influence on recent climate change.
I’m guessing perhaps you have an inkling of just how many bodies of national and international standing disagree with your “premise”!
A veritable list of Who’s Who in Junk Science!
LOL…
TaxPayer
September 9th, 2009
5:42 pm
Dusty,
I looked and could not find it. Is it in Hebrew.
@@
September 9th, 2009
5:43 pm
Cosmoclimatology?
One of thousands in varying opinions.
Who do we trust? Al Gore, former politician with a financial interest in Cap & Trade.
md
September 9th, 2009
5:43 pm
Come on tp, your mommy didn’t buy you a telescope for christmas.
You got a point, make it vs playing ring around the rosies.
Tom
September 9th, 2009
5:43 pm
OMG! As the photo slowly unfurled before my eyes, I thought I saw Hell,fire, brimstone, an angry, vicious Old Testament god, debauchery and filth of every variety. In short, I thought it was …RepubliBeast. Coming for my Bible, my gun(s, my ammo, my house, my soul. But alas – it is only…this! Thanks. But it’s still not nice to…alarm people so. Meanwhile, the “others” are at this very moment standing in their lil kitchens, in front of their…”mixers.” Pouring in some hatred here, some bitterness there, some jealousey in the middle, a big pinch of personal failure there…. Cause it’s almost time for that Commie Obama ta speak. God bluss Murcuh. God bluss us heroic patriots uvrey one. Und our Christyun famlie values tew. Yup. Whoops! Better turn on thee hate-machjine fer the kiddies to hear. How dew you spell…f…F…FX???
Davo
September 9th, 2009
5:45 pm
“Batman says – Why Davo, who would’ve “thunk” it!!! YOU’RE concerned about Science?”
No…I LOVE science.
“Weren’t you one of those “creationists”?”
No. But I’ve gotten over any hostility I may have had with creationists. You shouldn’t mess with another persons core beliefs when it comes to their faith…in the end you just create hatred and for what? It’s not like my money rides on that issue being right or wrong.
Let it go.
TaxPayer
September 9th, 2009
5:45 pm
md
September 9th, 2009
5:43 pm
Come on tp, your mommy didn’t buy you a telescope for christmas.
You got a point, make it vs playing ring around the rosies.
I’m just playing your own silly game, md. Didn’t your mommy ever teach you that others get to play by the same rules as you.
Normal
September 9th, 2009
5:46 pm
Have you ever contemplated that as big as this universe is, that it might only be a single cell in another living organism? I have. Talk about humbling…
Bruno
September 9th, 2009
5:47 pm
“Any true scientist would start his theory with the disclaimer that there is more unknown than there will ever be known.”
Well said, md. I always get a kick out of Big Bang accounts which claim to have the origin of the Universe mapped out to the first .0000……….0001 seconds of time.
“I’m not the one hanging my hat on climate change science that puts “assumed/hypothetical” variables into models to justify an agenda.”
I recently spoke with a pal from HS who is on the verge of receiving a PhD in Geography, with special emphasis on climate change. He told me that although he was a hard-core liberal who voted for Al Gore, he believed that Gore was wrong about global warming. My friend’s prediction is that we are overdue for an ice age.
Normal
September 9th, 2009
5:49 pm
Tom
September 9th, 2009
5:43 pm
Tom, how come your Obama sounds like Bush?
Normal
September 9th, 2009
5:51 pm
My friend’s prediction is that we are overdue for an ice age.
Well, there goes the sun tan oil futeres market…Time to buy into the fur futures…
josef nix
September 9th, 2009
5:52 pm
The Rabbi is in! I think Jay may just be coming around. This is really something to consider and, avoiding Fierce Advocate like the insignificant little jug-eared twerp he is (okay, okay…I’d put myself in the same boat with him, but he told me and my kind we weren’t welcome) what Jay has posted is something to consider.
Of course the Fundamentalist Atheists will be wont to mock those of us who are still possessed of that sense of spiritual wonder which propelled out species in a few thousands of years from the trees to the stars.
Psalm 111:2
“Great are the works of the L-rd; They are studied by all who delight in them.” Psalm 111:2