5/3/2004: Bug nebula

[Undertoad]

The latest out of Hubble is another very picturesque one, which gets even better when you hear the explanation which I summarize from this very good description of the whole thing:

What you're looking at there is the end of the life of a star. This star is burning really hot, at 250000 degrees C. That's so hot, so unbelieveably hot, that it's one of those numbers that one just has no comprehension of. The hottest day I've ever felt was about 40 C, and all the measures of C degrees heat I've indirectly felt have at most 3 digits, as produced by fire or kilns or torches. Six digits of heat: you might as well just forget about the whole "heat is this sensation my nerve endings communicate to my brain" thing, because your nerve endings would be completely toasted within any distance you could use them to stick a thermometer to measure this star.

Now, this really hot star is in this shot, but you can't see it, for two reasons. One, it mostly gives off ultraviolet light, which we humans don't see very well with our eyes. Two, the star is totally obscured in this shot by the dust that it has thrown off, which consists of a blanket of hailstones.

Ya follow? Amazingly hot star, so hot we can't conceive of it, and we can't SEE it because it's surrounded by ICE formations. That bright stuff there is hailstones formed around particles of dust.

And they figure the star blew this dust out about 10,000 years ago, but they don't know why it hasn't been evaporated away.

Whoa.

[chrisinhouston]

I don't see a bug. You see a bug? Naaa.

[wolf]

That's not a bug ... that's a phoenix.

[Beestie]

[paranoid]
UT, you ignorant slut, that's no bug, its cosmic flatulence
[/paranoid]

[Bullitt]

I still think this was one of the better space flatulents i've seen Here

[Beestie]

Originally posted by Bullitt
I still think this was one of the better space flatulents i've seen Here

[paranoid]
Bitmap, you ignorant slut,you misspelled flatulence
[/paranoid]

[Torrere]

Oooh, pretty picture.

Ya follow? Amazingly hot star, so hot we can't conceive of it, and we can't SEE it because it's surrounded by ICE formations. That bright stuff there is hailstones formed around particles of dust.

The only way I can deal with these things is to think of them abstractly. I feel that I understand the idea, and it makes sense. However, if I try to connect this with the picture and grasp this as something that exists in the tangible real world, my brain overloads and I can only think: "Oooh, pretty picture."

I wonder what church-going Medieval Europeans would have thought of this picture.

[wolf]

Originally posted by Beestie

[paranoid]
Bitmap, you ignorant slut,you misspelled flatulence
[/paranoid]

Uh, excuse me, Mr. Grammar Nazi, sir?

That's Bullit, not Bitmap. Poor Bitmap is among the missing.

[Beestie]

Originally posted by wolf

Uh, excuse me, Mr. Grammar Nazi, sir?

That's Bullit, not Bitmap. Poor Bitmap is among the missing.

Yikes! Sorry Bitmap wherever you are. I'm not really a grammar Nazi, tho - just poking fun at an old thread.

[Elspode]

See the long, finger-like structures? That looks a lot like the long, finger-like structures in the Eagle Nebula pictures from a few years back.

Also, it seems that if we could see the whole region, it might look a lot like the now well-known picture of Eta Carinae .

[xoxoxoBruce]

Check out the videos on the linc UT put up.

[Elspode]

By golly...now, it *does* look real similar to Eta Carinae.