Normally, I leave the boring clouds of gas and emptiness to Phil, but this Hubble photo of the Carina Nebula actually has something cool.
Now I don't want to hear anything from any of you about pareidolia. If the loons get their Virgin Mary in burnt pancakes, I want my Cosmic Cephalopod in distant smears of hydrogen.
- Log in to post comments
More like this
"Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe." -Frank Zappa
Oh yeah, Zappa? Well, let me show you what hydrogen can do…
"The self-same atoms which, chaotically dispersed, made the nebula, now, jammed and temporarily caught in peculiar positions, form our brains; and the 'evolution' of brains, if understood, would be simply the account of how the atoms came to be so caught and jammed." -William James
Up in the…
“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
While new discoveries are made about the Universe, a…
“If history were taught in the form of stories, it would never be forgotten.” -Rudyard Kipling
You might not believe it, but when I was a kid, I hated writing. Absolutely hated it. And it wasn't because I didn't have anything to write, or because I didn't enjoy communicating my thoughts, or because…
Great Squid of Madrid!
The loving tentacles of our eternal cephalopodic father are revealed at last.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/6mb592
PZ! I think your space-octopus has broken your blog!
ALL HAIL MIGHTY SPACE OCTOPUS!
PZ ventures into Phil Platt's territory and everything gets comic sans.
That's a cosmic sperm whale approaching from below.
The FSM moves in mysterious ways.
Pesto be upon Him.
That's no FSM.
That's Cthulhu.
The end is nigh. Be thankful.
Hubblesite.org has a bunch of great astronomical pictures. This one is my present desktop wallpaper.
Our space alien squid overlords must be angry with you outing them as they have totally screwed teh formatting on the blog.
I still prefer
http://imgsrc.hubblesite.org/hu/db/2000/06/images/a/formats/large_web.j…
also the carina nebula
BTW PZ I don't know if everyone is having the problem but formatting on this page just went wonky for me (firefox 3)
Thanks, Rev BDC. The screwed up formatting isn't something I did by mistake to my computer.
It looks like Nessie. Great. Now the woos will think she's an extra-terrestrial.
We're whalers on the moon,
We carry a harpoon.
But there ain't no whales
So we tell tall tales
And sing our whaling tune.
Appears somebody forgot a closing HTML tag or something.
Must be an act of god in divine retribution for something or the other.
There's something called pareidolia... Just kidding.
I think it looks like a dog.
It looks like the Grim Reaper - though he must have misplaced his scythe.
*squinting*
I see a prairie dog with rocket skates and a cape zooming over the hill.
Still, it's an awesome image.
The prairie dogs sure have been busy out there in space. Who knew?
Damn! What happened?
Are you Aussies trying to stand on your feet instead of your hands again? Cut that out! It tilts the innertubes.
My immediate thought was "dog in dress", but then that's my standard reaction to most things.
All I can ever see in these types of pictures is genitalia.
That is so much cooler than a virgin Mary in toast any day.
I mean really, Heavenly Cephalopod or a burnt piece of toast
I think we now know who the real gods are.
Finally, photographic evidence for the existence of Mighty Cthulhu!
WRMartin @ #17:
To me, it looks like a herd of beautiful wild ponies running free across the plains. (Last time I took one of these tests, they told me it could be anything I wanted...)
What about the image of Darwin in the bottom right hand quadrant? Right above the dark gas clouds.
The Carina Nebula has been touched by His noodly appendage. RAmen.
You're all mental - it's clearly Hendrix. In flares.
That region of Eta Carinae is referred to as "Loch Ness" by astronomers.
What you're looking at is a "blok globule."
--Thanks, Astronomy magazine!--it's actually part of a much larger photo
Seriously, tilt it clockwise about 45° - it's Death I tells ya!
All right, who get's eaten first?
Pfff...nowhere near as impressive as Lenin in the shower curtain.
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn
And his pillow is a nebula...
Cthulhu fhtagn!
"If the loons get their Virgin Mary in burnt pancakes, I want my Cosmic Cephalopod in distant smears of hydrogen."
Done, done, and done!
We shall be covered by the Great Appendages, and under Them we shall take refuge. We shall not be afraid by terror at night nor war in daylight. Only upon the Great Appendages shall we look for salvation.
Benjamin Geiger @ #23
A Daria fan? On Pharyngula?
Apparently it's more likely than I thought.
Some more rorschach ink-blot humour @ QuestionableContent's 652nd comic(nothing questionable about this comic, and not much in the way of questionable stuff through the archives)
<PZ frowns upon the unknowing heretic>
"Great Appendages"? That's a whole different clade altogether. You want the First Church of Anomalocaris, down the hall and to the right.
You're all wrong, I say! It's Galactus on his way to devour our planet!
Squid? Sorry, PZ, but that looks more like a cheetah head to me (facing left). :)
Stop talking or we'll have to take you out, DiMilo.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carina_Nebula
The Carina nebula lies at an estimated distance between 6,500 and 10,000 light years from Earth.
Nice try, PZ. That cosmic squid cannot exist, as the universe is only 6000 years old. ;)
I was expecting one of the first comments to be "Iä! Iä! Cthulhu Fhtagn!" or "I for one welcome the coming of our squid overlords".
Though actually I was seeing more of a dog's head first. Perhaps some sort of Lovecraftian-Egyptian mutant hybrid god then.
I tilted my head to the left, and saw a face at the bottom - and it looks like he's got horns on his head, and he's eyeing up the cosmic squid for lunch...
I think it looks like a weasel.
Sweet apophenia of Armenia!
MMMMMMMMMM...
Cosmic calamari.
My humble apologies...I was overcome by a religious moment and rational thought was deserted. But only for a moment (I hope)!
May I correct my apostasy:
We shall be covered by the Great Tentacles, and under Them we shall take refuge. We shall not be afraid by terror at night nor war in daylight. Only upon the Great Tentacles shall we look for salvation.
To me it is, a dinosaur staring at the abyss, and his refection, the abyss, looks back.
Any chance there is enough detail to determine the species? That way we could determine which is The One True Cephlapod(TM)
Nice Janine, The Slut. Is that yours or an old sea shanty?
This reminds me of that joke about the patient indignantly telling the psychiatrist "But you're the one with all the dirty pictures!!!"
Horns to the left, bulbous forehead, side-on view of eye at top, sharp cheek-bone, upturned nose, sharp chin, some sort of fur/frill on the stocky neck and perhaps a ghostly shoulder overlaying that.
PlaydoPlato @
"Cosmic Calamari"
It is in Eat-a-Carinae ;)
Does anybody else see the lobster?
PZ,
You need to spend more time with Phil. After all, your biology originated from out there somewhere.
After reading this thread, I'm convinced the JWST needs to be renamed the Rohrshach Space Telescope.
Kassul @ #34:
It's been a LONG time since I've seen Daria. I just have a weird memory for random quotes. My coworkers learn quickly to just smile and nod.
(Oh, and I've been following QC for years now. Given the recent "Gina Riversmith" storyline, I'm waiting for Faye to murder Sven (and probably blame it on Pintsize).)
We're whalers on the moon,
We carry a harpoon.
But there ain't no whales
So we tell tall tales
And sing our whaling tune.
Sung by robotic actors at the amusement park on the Moon in a Futurama episode. The running gag in Futurama is that in the year 3000 they don't have a clue about life a thousand years ago and even Fry who was frozen in 1999 failed a course in 20th Century history.
2009 is Year of Astronomy BTW
I always see a penis in these type of photos.
In fact I believe, instead of pareidolia, I suffer from it's lesser known cousin, penisdolia.
Like we would expect you to see anything else? *smirk*
Well if you rotate the image 180 degrees, it sorta looks like Billie Holiday taking a bow and receiving the crowd's love...
there's no reason NOT to rotate it, is there? I mean, where's "up" out there?
Doug (#24) is 100% correct. There is definitely the face of Darwin in the lower right hand quadrant, nearly in profile, looking slightly up and to the left.
If you go 1/4 of the way up the image, and 1/4 of the way in from the right you'll find his nose.
Unless, of course, that is not actually an image of Darwin, but none-other than a bearded Jehovah. *gulp*
Or it could be Karl Marx...
Or some other impressively bearded elderly gentleman dating from the mid- to late nineteenth century.
Or clouds of hydrogen gas.
;-)
Is that what the kids are calling it these days? If so, then yes.
For a few years now, I have used the "Astronomy Picture of the Day" site to provide the background images for the computers I use at work and at home.
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
The archive goes back a dozen or so years, so there are heaps of easily downloaded images to suit anyone.
OK - I am a traitor - perhaps there is a "biology picture of the day" site that computer backgrounds can be selected from, but....
Well, I'll be damned.
Mom always told me Grandpa was in the stars now--I thought she was full of it.
For those that don't know, with a little bit of free time you can help scientists discover brand new galaxies at the non-profit Galaxy Zoo website:
https://www.galaxyzoo.org/
lol
That bearded man....
It's SANTA!!!!!
I see an American Staffordshire Terrier walking on its hind legs!
that would be the "great dog octupus"
Thanks for the link John. That galaxy zoo is really cool (okay, I think I fubared a classification or two when I started, but that's why they compare multiple classifications). I wonder if systematic biologists could set up something similar to assist in classification?
Glad I'm not the only one who saw the dog- definately a Labrador in a dress
It looked to me like the head of a dog with the body of a squid. The cephladog, a Kirk Cameronesque "transitional" form?
Godzilla! He's pulling himself out of the clouds and looking to his right.
Looks like a Klingon bird of war to me . . . .
No no, you're all wrong! it's clearly Arthas, the Lich King™
stalking through space! Or a giant planet-eating squid . . .
Is that god's "gigglestick"!?
Crash this
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10103521/
OMFSM! There's a chimp peeking out of Darwin's beard!
Blue Whale!
[bells and klaxons blare]
How anyone sees anything other than a plesiosaur with a wrack shawl is beyond me!
Why did you post the picture upside down?
(To the tune of Monty Python's "Bright Side of Life")
In a universe of only six millenia,
we see light that's traveled half a million years.
while this flies in the face
of soi-disant divine grace
we must meekly accept that which appears.
While we're searching for a sign from the universe
that proves that it was purely built for man
we see a cephalapod
(yes, the hue's a little odd)
In light that's shining across epochal spans....
Soooo
Always trust in the age of the light
(de dum de dum de dum dem de dum)
Always trust in the age of the light
(de dum de dum de dum dem de dum)
Lightspeed doesn't change
(even at far range)
Universal constants just don't lie...
So if the light is older
than scripture says, don't smolder
just kiss that stupid book's dogma good-bye....
Always trust in the age of the light (&c)
(Not, by any means, in the class of the usual bits, but it struck me funny. Hope you like. Aspiring to be in Cuttlefish class poetry someday.)
This isn't a cephalopod. It's a crustacean. Nephropidae.
Drew@10:
Is that god giving us the finger on the right?
I mean left.
Hmmm...
That does look coincidentally(?) like noodly appendages...
Holy Crap! It's the Lochness Monster!
Despair Squid, as prophesied by that most luminous of shows, Red Dwarf. Even at that range it has an effect. Explains the economic downturn and general negative attitude.
Our squidy overlords have send us the the dark one because we have failed to worship them and protect their kind on earth.
It's the Cosmic Brontosaurus of Thraxxx.
They're very rare.
SQUID ... IN ... SPACE
The continuing adventures of a extraterrestrial cephalopod...
Dog in a dress was the first thing I saw.
I wish the astronomical community would borrow a trick from biology and introduce scale bars. Are we looking at something measured in AUs? Light Years? Parsecs? what?
That's the flying spaghetti monster, may his noodly appendages bless us.
uh...that kinda looks like a huge novelty..uh..carnal pleasure self-gratification sin-enabling device.
...can I say giant space dildo and get away with it? I can't? oh shi-
You know, up until last week I had never heard the word "paredolia." I was well aware of the phenomenon but didn't know there was a word for it. Now since hearing it for the first time, it's come up just about every day this week.
I'm tempted to ascribe significance to that, just because I like being ironical.
I believe it is a Nessie-like progenitor, definitely the ones that populated our world...for sure.
Somewhat deformed squid with very clear tentacles. No Darwin, no dog, no crustacean, no plesiosaur… no finger even.
Nope. Phylogenetics, you see, is a science.
Come on! Even I know is that "warbird" is what the Romulan ships are called!
Come on! It already has 11.7 million votes!
It's called "recency illusion".
Benjamin @ 52 -
Faye will never murder Sven. For a start he's teflon-dick, for another she's actually fallen for him. Now Raven, there's a different story. Faye might well murder her for sheer stupidity.
Lots of ocean dwellers up there...
[i]It's called "recency illusion".[/i]
I know; more colloquially the "blue Volkswagen effect."
I was just making a joke about ascribing significance to the frequent use of a word which itself means essentially "ascribing significance to perceived but insignificant patterns."
It's obvious...first the intelligent designer gives the squid a superior eye with the plumbing and wiring behind the retina instead of in front, and no blind spot; then it places its image in the firmament...the intelligent designer is a squid!
I think I see a hint of webbing, which could make it a giant space Vampire Squid.
Yivo?
Those aren't tentacles... those are genticles! (because apparently testacles is too much like testicles anyway).
@Eddie #85,
It's Apatosaurus, you loon.
*shakes head*
Seriously...
Cthulhu lives and the stars are right indeed!
Sorry....a little gothic horror literary alusion there.
i gotta vote for Cthulhu myself!
Re heretic @100
What a waste of a comment.
PS - I see no-one commenting on my recent suggestion that the giant snake was a descendant of Bertha.