Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Another Spooky Nebula !

Credit: Adam Block, NOAO, AURA, NSF
Explanation: The dark nebula SH2-136 appears to be celebrating Halloween all of the time. The complex process of star formation create dust clouds of many shapes and sizes -- it is (this link is cool!) human perception that might identify a ghoulish creature, on the right of the above image, chasing humans. Halloween's modern celebration retains historic roots in dressing to scare away the spirits of the dead. Since the fifth century BC, Halloween has been celebrated as a cross-quarter day, a day halfway between an equinox (equal day / equal night) and a solstice (minimum day / maximum night in the northern hemisphere). With our modern calendar, however, the real cross-quarter day will occur next week. Another cross-quarter day is Groundhog Day and Walpurgis Night.

3 comments:

Michael Bains said...

Beautiful. Simply and so.

Stardust said...

I love finding imagery in things in space and stuff here on earth...I am probably one of the few who are really interested in imagery and legends in rock formations on those riverboat and canyon tours like at Arches NP and Wisconsin Dells. :-)

When I was a kid, one of my favorite things to do was to lay in the grass and look up at the sky with the big puffy clouds and let my imagination go wild.

Anonymous said...

You know star, young earth believers have a realy hard time proving their claims. Think about it. Either they believe this stars are less then 6 000 light years away or that the speed of light is higher then what scientists claim.

Next time a xian tries to talk about the young earth, Just point to the sky. :)