^ linked image^ 
^uploaded image^Well, maybe. NASA has released these images of a stellar phenomena. I'll attach the long text in "comments" below so it will not take up so much room in the blogosphere arena.
Basically, the dust, stellar radiation, and gravitational effects have made an oddity that Lovecraft would have smiled over. And would have been outraged if someone had actually personified the optical illusion into a fiction - unless of course it was him, heh.
I almost always embed an image directly into blogger because I don't trust other web sites to maintain their files. So, above, are both the upload and linked image from the telescope. Enjoy the flash.
However, below I will link to the flash picture for fun. I'll attach the links in the "comments" section.
1 comment:
http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/161695main_spitzer-snake-330.gif
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/spitzer/news/spitzer-20061027.html
also - you must see the Halloween image ...
Great galactic ghoul : http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/68077main_halloween-combo.gif
Text of articles ...
Something scary appears to be slithering across the plane of our Milky Way galaxy in this new Halloween image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. The snake-like object is actually the core of a thick, sooty cloud large enough to swallow dozens of solar systems. In fact, astronomers say its "belly" may be harboring beastly stars in the process of forming.
"The snake is an ideal place to hunt for massive forming stars as they have not had time to heat up and destroy the cloud they are born in," said Dr. Sean Carey, also known as "Dr. Scarey," of NASA's Spitzer Science Center. Dr. Scarey, who is leading the new research, was also principal investigator of a previous Halloween image from Spitzer, showing a 'great galactic ghoul'
Spitzer was able to spot the sinuous cloud using its heat-seeking infrared vision. The object is hiding in the dusty plane of our Milky Way galaxy, invisible to optical telescopes. Because its heat, or infrared light, can sneak through the dust, it first showed up in infrared images from past missions. The cloud is so thick with dust that if you were to somehow transport yourself into the middle of it, you would see nothing but black, not even a star in the sky. Now, that's spooky!
Spitzer's new view of the snake provides the best look at what lurks inside. The yellow and orange spots located on and around it are massive stars just beginning to take shape. The bright red spot located on its belly is a monstrous stellar embryo, with about 20 to 50 times the mass of our sun.
Astronomers say these observations will ultimately help them better understand how massive stars form. By studying the clustering and range of masses of the stellar embryos, they hope to determine if the stars were born in the same way that our low-mass sun was formed -- out of a collapsing cloud of gas and dust -- or by another mechanism in which the environment plays a larger role.
The snake is located about 11,000 light-years away in the constellation Sagittarius.
This false-color image is a composite of infrared data taken by Spitzer's infrared array camera and multiband imaging photometer. Blue represents 3.6-micron light; green shows light of 8 microns; and red is 24-micron light.
This infrared image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows what astronomers are referring to as a "snake" (upper left) and its surrounding stormy environment. The sinuous object is actually the core of a thick, sooty cloud large enough to swallow dozens of solar systems. In fact, astronomers say the "snake's belly" may be harboring beastly stars in the process of forming.
The galactic creepy crawler to the right of the snake is another thick cloud core, in which additional burgeoning massive stars might be lurking. The colorful regions below the two cloud cores are less dense cloud material, in which dust has been heated by starlight and glows with infrared light. Yellow and orange dots throughout the image are monstrous developing stars; the red star on the "belly" of the snake is 20 to 50 times as massive as our sun. The blue dots are foreground stars.
The red ball at the bottom left is a "supernova remnant," the remains of massive star that died in a fiery blast. Astronomers speculate that radiation and winds from the star before it died, in addition to a shock wave created when it exploded, might have played a role in creating the snake.
Spitzer was able to spot the two black cloud cores using its heat-seeking infrared vision. The objects are hiding in the dusty plane of our Milky Way galaxy, invisible to optical telescopes. Because their heat, or infrared light, can sneak through the dust, they first showed up in infrared images from past missions. The cloud cores are so thick with dust that if you were to somehow transport yourself into the middle of them, you would see nothing but black, not even a star in the sky. Now, that's spooky!
Spitzer's new view of the region provides the best look yet at the massive embryonic stars hiding inside the snake. Astronomers say these observations will ultimately help them better understand how massive stars form. By studying the clustering and range of masses of the stellar embryos, they hope to determine if the stars were born in the same way that our low-mass sun was formed -- out of a collapsing cloud of gas and dust -- or by another mechanism in which the environment plays a larger role.
The snake is located about 11,000 light-years away in the constellation Sagittarius.
This false-color image is a composite of infrared data taken by Spitzer's infrared array camera and multiband imaging photometer. Blue represents 3.6-micron light; green shows light of 8 microns; and red is 24-micron light.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
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