Mostly Mute Monday: Space turns green on 4/20 (Synopsis)

“The illegality of cannabis is outrageous, an impediment to full utilization of a drug which helps produce the serenity and insight, sensitivity and fellowship so desperately needed in this increasingly mad and dangerous world.” -Carl Sagan

The Universe is filled with a wide variety of stars, planets, galaxies and other optical phenomenon. Despite the fact that there are no such things as green stars, on rare occasions, galaxies themselves appear to be emitting isolated green wisps into intergalactic space.

Image credit: NASA, ESA, and Z. Levay (STScI), with science by NASA, ESA, and W. Keel (University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa). Image credit: NASA, ESA, and Z. Levay (STScI), with science by NASA, ESA, and W. Keel (University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa).

What could be going on here? Since the first such object was discovered eight years ago, this was a hotly debated mystery, one that's been solved with an unlikely phenomenon: the same physics that underlies the aurorae here on Earth!

Image credit: NASA, ESA, W. Keel (University of Alabama), and the Galaxy Zoo Team. Image credit: NASA, ESA, W. Keel (University of Alabama), and the Galaxy Zoo Team.

Go get the whole story -- and all the images -- on this edition of Mostly Mute Monday!

Tags

More like this

"He ate and drank the precious Words, his Spirit grew robust; He knew no more that he was poor, nor that his frame was Dust." -Emily Dickinson When we look at spiral galaxies, we think of grand arms, star-forming regions and dust lanes lining our perspective. But unlike face-on galaxies, where…
"It's a brilliant surface in that sunlight." - Neil Armstrong Indeed, all that glitters so brilliantly in the cosmos does so because of the stars that have formed throughout it. Image credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team. Over the 14 billion-or-so years that our Universe has been around…
"At the last dim horizon, we search among ghostly errors of observations for landmarks that are scarcely more substantial. The search will continue. The urge is older than history. It is not satisfied and it will not be oppressed." -Edwin Hubble Given the relative peace of our night skies, combined…
"For me, the study of these laws is inseparable from a love of Nature in all its manifestations." - Murray Gell-Mann When you take a glimpse into the deep Universe, beyond the gas, dust, stars and planets of our own galaxy, you enter the realm of the galaxies. In general, they come in two types:…

didn't know Sagan had such a view of marijuana. Interesting :)

By Sinisa Lazarek (not verified) on 20 Apr 2015 #permalink

That does look like bud..cool, even the trichome development is there.
I'd say those galaxies are in the “window of peak maturity”.

Not that I would no mind you..

By Ragtag Media (not verified) on 20 Apr 2015 #permalink

I actually owned 3 acres in the Puna Rain forest, back in the late 80's early 90's.. I admit to being a Haole From The Mainland.
Property was a few miles up slope from the Kīlauea caldera, could see the glow of the Lava flow..
Pretty Cool.
Had to be careful of the "Growers" though, not to piss anyone off..

By Ragtag Media (not verified) on 20 Apr 2015 #permalink