[CLICK ON IMAGE FOR HIGH RESOLUTION] The bright core and outer reaches of giant elliptical galaxy M60 (NGC 4649) loom large at the upper left of this sharp close-up from the Hubble Space Telescope. Some 54 million light-years away and 120,000 light-years across, M60 is one of the largest galaxies in the nearby Virgo Cluster. […]
[FOR HIGH RESOLUTION, CLICK ON IMAGE] / Adam Block, Mt. Lemmon SkyCenter, U. Arizona] The beautiful, dusty nebula NGC 2170 shines at the upper left. Reflecting the light of nearby hot stars, NGC 2170 is joined by other bluish reflection nebulae, a compact red emission region, and streamers of obscuring dust against a backdrop of […]
[CLICK ON IMAGE FOR HIGH RESOLUTION] / Bob Franke Beautiful barred spiral galaxy M109, 109th entry in Charles Messier’s famous catalog of bright Nebulae and Star Clusters, is found just below the Big Dipper’s bowl in the northern constellation Ursa Major. In telescopic views, its striking central bar gives the galaxy the appearance of the […]
[CLICK ON IMAGE FOR HIGH RESOLUTION] What did the first galaxies look like? To help answer this question, the Hubble Space Telescope has just finished taking the eXtreme Deep Field (XDF), the deepest image of the universe ever taken in visible light. Pictured above, the XDF shows a sampling of some of the oldest galaxies […]
It’s easy to get lost following the intricate filaments in this detailed mosaic image of faint supernova remnant Simeis 147 (S147). Also cataloged as Sh2-240, it covers nearly 3 degrees or 6 full moons on the sky. That’s about 150 light-years at the stellar debris cloud’s estimated distance of 3,000 light-years. … This sharp composite […]
This weekend Looper, a gritty time-travel thriller from writer/director Rian Johnson (Brick, The Brothers Bloom) arrives in movie theaters across the United States. The story: Powerful crime organizations in the late 21st century can’t off their foes without getting caught, so they illegally send victims back in time to the year 2044 to be disposed […]
People’s accomplishments are overrated. Lifetime achievement awards? Please. We are born unable to control bodily functions and exit similarly. The zenith of human existence occurs when one transcends loser status and mates only to give birth to adorable organisms subsequently capable of wrecking the planet. But do the parents have any earthly idea how to […]
THE obituaries and the laments are pouring in from around the world, and properly so, for author Ray Bradbury, dead this week at 91 – Bradbury was a writer for the whole world, not just for any one part of it. … He loved to talk. He loved his fans. He loved the adulation. And […]
We take it for granted that the past is fixed. History always happened the way we remember it happening. But how do we know for sure that that’s the case? If time travel is possible, time travelers could be zipping back and changing things around all the time. How would we even be able to […]
