SPACE STUFF

Why is outer space so captivating? It's as beautiful as it is horrifying. Think about it: a gigantic vacuum full of rocks and gas surrounds us on all sides. Void, cold, expanding and contracting...I can't even stare at the sky for very long without thinking about the thin layer of atmosphere that is standing between all life on earth and nothingness. 

Funny talk coming from a girl named Nova.

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"A ribbon of gas, a very thin section of a supernova remnant caused by a stellar explosion that occurred more than 1,000 years ago, floats in our galaxy. The supernova that created it was probably the brightest star ever seen by humans."

Weird!

Space is so cool.

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I mean, just look at these photos.

Then look again while telling yourself "THIS IS REAL".

It's hard to believe.

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You'd expect unicorns and wizards to come flying out of this.

But no, it's space. They'd die. It's just a nebula. No big deal.

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SPACELOG.ORG is a really cool website that has documented communications between Major Tom and the ground control. (Total David Bowie up in this bitch. BTW, did you know that song is actually about a heroin overdose? Now you do. My dad told me.)

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 Here's the Orion Nebula.

cool huh?

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2010 Hubble Space Telescope Advent Calendar. Every day until Christmas The Big Picture is going to put up a photo from the Hubble Space Telescope. The first one's already up. It's fantastic. And scary! EE! 

SPACE STUFF!

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This is called a crab nebula. 

It's what's left after a supernova that was recorded 

in the year 1054 in China and Japan. 

Can you believe this thing?

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 Dark Matter!

 I didn't even know that was a real thing.

Sounds evil.

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Good ol' planet GJ 1214b ...aka one of the"super earths". Either it's steamy or hazy, they're not sure. I'm hoping for hazy because water = aliens = extreme terror.

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 Antennae Galaxy

"These two spiral galaxies, drawn together by gravity, 

started to interact a few hundred million years ago. 

The Antennae Galaxies are the nearest and youngest 

examples of a pair of colliding galaxies."

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Here's a recent article on the "super earth" and the fact that there are way more stars than scientists thought.

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 "Extreme" star birth.

"This image, released for Hubble's 17th anniversary, shows a region of star birth and death in the Carina Nebula. The nebula contains at least a dozen brilliant stars that are 50 to 100 times the mass of our Sun."

Ho. Ly. Shit.

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Scratch n Sniff photos of the moon. Apparently it smells like gunpowder. 

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This is called the Sombrero Galaxy. WOW!

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Here are the prettiest and most unbelievable photos you've ever seen: HubbleSite gallery 

All the images used in this post are from there.