Hubble is, like, SUCH a show-off!
Are these things really out there or are they just makin’ this stuff up? The alleged photo above is allegedly what Hubble was looking at on February 8, 2004. Compare that with what you were looking at on February 8, 2004. It’s the familiar view of V838 Monocerotis, with its expanding halo, that motorists in the vicinity of Chicago, Illinois, enjoy every day on their way home from work.
The Sombrero galaxy, Messier 104, what else? Putting on a hat dance in the early summer of 2003.
Hubble had just had its glasses cleaned by those nice people from NASA in 1999 when it looked around and saw the Eskimo Nebula, the glowing remains of a dying star.
A segment of Messier 17, a star factory also known as the Omega or Swan Nebula, out in the industrial suburbs 5,500 light-years away in the Sagittarius constellation. Ultraviolet radiation from young, massive stars fashion the gas into photogenic sculptures every time tourists like Hubble come around with their cameras.
A pair of galaxies doing the tango 300 million light-years away in the constellation Coma Berenices. NGC 4676, whose nickname is “The Mice” because of the long tails of stars and gas, will be copulating soon, so we’d better give them some privacy.
