outside the box

"The Eye of God" ?
Tuesday, December 13, 2005

Surfing through BlogExplosion, i came across chasing the moon (trackback) that featured this. The owner didnt mention any link, as she claims it only came from a forwarded mail. So, here my investigative insticts drove me to find out more.

i immediately went to Astronomy Picture of the Day to search for this so called "eye". And found out this is a real capture, from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, of the Helix Nebula that showed on May 10,2003.

Facts: The Helix Nebula is the closest example of a planetary nebula created at the end of the life of a Sun-like star. A planetary nebula is gas around what used to be a star much like our sun.

The outer gasses of the star expelled into space appear from our vantage point as if we are looking down a helix. The remnant central stellar core, destined to become a white dwarf star, glows in light so energetic it causes the previously expelled gas to fluoresce. Although, a close-up of the inner edge of the Helix Nebula shows complex gas knots of unknown origin.

Fable: This does not occur only once every 3,000 years as other rumors imply. The circulating mail that started back in 2003 says the scientists called this "the eye of God" and a chain-reaction of comments have been added.

Puzzled Scientists: A similar case happened back in February 9,1996. Where the Eye of an Hourglass Nebula was discovered. Although it left a puzzling thought to the scientists.

First, the axis of this central region does not line up well with the outer hourglass structure. Next, the hot star (the white spot to the left of center) which ejected this gaseous nebula as it evolved towards its white dwarf phase, is not exactly at the center of the "eye".

These unexpected results leave astronomers looking for the missing pieces of the ejection process that created this unusual and beautiful structure.

Perhaps, there is somebody out there.. it may or may not be God, but whatever is out there that any human-made technology cannot explain.. is only left to our imaginations...

~*~*~

atomicvelvetsigh drank tea with Pandora @ 8:21 AM

2 Comments:

Chasing The Moon said...: Actually, I did in fact leave a link to the post you copied from my site. I stated that the correct information about this photo was was obtained from the NASA - National Aeronautics & Space Administration website. Of course you could find information about the same photo from more then a dozen other websites. But what better source to use then that of where the photograph originated from.; 12/13/05, 1:24 PM
atomicvelvetsigh said...: well and thanks for sharing your informative post 8) indeed, instances such as these are mind-opening makes us wonder what other forces are out there.. somehere..

thanks for dropping by 8D; 12/14/05, 9:45 AM

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...yup, the other side of the moon. too much dementia kills. so here's something that concerns what i like, news, abuse and stuff people send me, or stuff that i borrow from them.

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