This is the eye of the Helix Nebula. The image is from the Spitzer Space Telescope and is about 700 light years from Earth. NASA Scientists think the red haze around the dead star is from the dust of colliding comets, the cosmic survivors of a sunlike star that became a white dwarf.Helix is a good name but I would have called it Godzilla's Eye.
5 comments:
now normally I wouldn't know about White Dwarfs; but last week at a Surrey Hills street market I bought a great book for only 50c called The Origin Of The Earth (1951) and have been on a steep learning curve ever since. It is fascinating to now know that the best-known White Dwarf is the Companion Of Sirius with a density about 60,0000 times that of water"; and that "the ordinary laws of gases do not apply" to the White Dwarf class of stars.
This great book was written by Professor SMART who had the Regius Chair of Astronomy at Glasgow University in 1950.
OMG! What a photograph!
Thanks for posting that ,Jahteh!
Zoe xxx
Sirius is called the 'Dog Star' and 50c is more than a bargain, it was a steal.
Zoe, I love the crop circle gravatar. The best site I found for them was http://www.cropcircleconnector.com
but it looks like you found it.
scary after a few drinkies huh!
Hi middle child, it's not just me that thinks it looks like a giant lizard eye, is it? Too many sci-fi movies, that's my trouble.
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