It appears one of the alien invaders from the classic arcade game Space Invaders is out roaming the galaxy and the Hubble telescope got him on camera. The galaxy is a spiral galaxy. The image was taken in infrared light by Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3. Due to an effect called gravitational lensing light is bent and distorted by gravity. The gravitational field surrounding galaxy cluster Abell 68, which is a massive collection of galaxies about 3 billion light years away, is what is causing the distortion. You can see a second, less distorted image of the same galaxy to the left of the alien invader. Here's a link to the full-resolution image of the cluster.
On a regular Friday morning one single meteor stuck Russia’s Ural region, the Chelyabinsk region being hit the hardest. One reporter described what people see was bright intense lights, then hearing very loud explosions that could temporarily deafen people. The explosions shot through windows firing shards of glass through rooms in buildings injuring people. The count of people injured was over 1500, men, women and children alike. The meteor was 55 feet and mass about 10 thousand tons. The blast was about 500 kilotons, and was compared to the nuclear blast on Hiroshima estimated at 15 kilotons. Part of the meteor was collected for study and other parts were taken for the purpose of selling them to the public. Every time I hear a story like this one I remember my experience seeing and hearing the explosion of pepcon blast here in Vegas. I was walking to work when I hear a blast and see a white cloud forming all before the shockwave knock me on my backside, literally unexpected sweeping off my feet.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.cnn.com/2013/02/22/world/europe/russia-meteor/index.html?iref=allsearch
Seeing footage from security cameras as the Chelyabinsk meteor lights up the sky is pretty intense. Can't imagian the damage it would do if it hit a large city. I had never heard of the PEPCON blast until your comment but looked it up that must have been a sight to see. How for were you from the explosion?
DeleteThat is so cool. Space is so fancinating, I've loved it my whole life. It's just amazing when you think what is out there. I look forward to reading more of your posts!
ReplyDeleteI've always found space amazing too. I drive my wife crazy watching shows about space on tv.
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