Starship Asterisk*

• The central part of this nebula reveals not only knots, but also many remote galaxies seen right through the thinly spread glowing gas.

apodman wrote:Is that a water screw you're packing, or is your telescope just happy to see a helix?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquarius_(constellation) wrote:Aquarius is one of the oldest of the recognized constellations along the zodiac. It is found in a region often called the Sea due to its profusion of constellations with watery associations such as Cetus the whale, Pisces the fish and Eridanus the river. Aquarius has been identified as the pourer of the waters that flooded the earth in the ancient Greek version of the Great Flood myth.

neufer wrote:

BMAONE23 wrote:

bystander wrote:I assume when you say we, you are referring to Sol, and not the Milky Way.

You assume correctly

Mike Sanders wrote:"You'll be S.O.L. , and you *know* what that means!" - WCW Monday Nitro (1995)

Sol Robeson wrote:"You remember Archimedes of Syracuse, eh? The king asks Archimedes to determine if a present he's received is actually solid gold. Unsolved problem at the time. It tortures the great Greek mathematician for weeks - insomnia haunts him and he twists and turns in his bed for nights on end.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archimedes%27_screw

Finally, his equally exhausted wife - she's forced to share a bed with this genius - convinces him to take a bath to relax. While he's entering the tub, Archimedes notices the bath water rise. Displacement, a way to determine volume, and that's a way to determine density - weight over volume. And thus, Archimedes solves the problem. He screams "Eureka" and he is so overwhelmed he runs dripping naked through the streets to the king's palace to report his discovery." - Pi (1998)

bystander wrote:

BMAONE23 wrote:You're right in that it is likely that our galaxy would appear as far away to them as theirs does to us. If however; they were able to construct telescopes capable of discerning both stars and nebulae in our galaxy, and were able to see this particular nebula, we would appear as a star relatively close to the center of the nebula.

I assume when you say we, you are referring to Sol, and not the Milky Way.

BMAONE23 wrote:You're right in that it is likely that our galaxy would appear as far away to them as theirs does to us. If however; they were able to construct telescopes capable of discerning both stars and nebulae in our galaxy, and were able to see this particular nebula, we would appear as a star relatively close to the center of the nebula.

geckzilla wrote:... the nebula is close enough to us that it actually appears as part of our galaxy ... so easy to lose perspective.

neufer wrote:To prevent war, the galaxies are in the Helix Nebula.

Junior, there are no galaxies in the Helix Nebula.
The Helix Nebula is just this planetary nebula.
Galaxies are huge. They're made up of billions of stars.

geckzilla wrote:My favorite part is all the distant galaxies which appear near the center of the nebula. When they look at us, our milky way also appear within the center of the nebula.

Edit: er, oops, I guess the nebula is close enough to us that it actually appears as part of our galaxy. My mistake... so easy to lose perspective.

• To prevent war, the galaxies are in the Helix Nebula.''
  
  Junior, there are no galaxies in the Helix Nebula.
  The Helix Nebula is just this planetary nebula.
  Galaxies are huge. They're made up of billions of stars.

JimWWhite wrote: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap090303.html
Wonderful pic of the Helix Nebula. Did anyone notice the dozens of galaxies in the background? There are probably many more but that was my quick estimate of the number. There are many beautiful spirals and elliptical galaxies to see if you expand the picture to the max size.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap070223.html wrote:<<Explanation: Dust makes this cosmic eye look red. The eerie Spitzer Space Telescope image shows infrared radiation from the well-studied Helix Nebula (NGC 7293) a mere 700 light-years away in the constellation Aquarius. The two light-year diameter shroud of dust and gas around a central white dwarf has long been considered an excellent example of a planetary nebula, representing the final stages in the evolution of a sun-like star. But the Spitzer data show the nebula's central star itself is immersed in a surprisingly bright infrared glow. Models suggest the glow is produced by a dust debris disk. Even though the nebular material was ejected from the star many thousands of years ago, the close-in dust could be generated by collisions in a reservoir of objects analogous to our own solar system's Kuiper Belt or cometary Oort cloud. Formed in the distant planetary system, the comet-like bodies have otherwise survived even the dramatic late stages of the star's evolution.>>