A Beautiful Trifid (2009 May 30)

[orin stepanek]

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap090530.html

There seems to be something going on with the dark dust lanes. They look like ropes or like a web crossing over the nebula. There must be some strong attraction of the dark dust particles to cause this phenomena I would think!
A beautiful picture otherwise. 8)

Orin

[apodman]

In this photo, the dust lanes seem to divide the red nebula behind it into four sections, not three. They look like a frog jumping in our direction. But what of Lazarus?

[orin stepanek]

In this photo, the dust lanes seem to divide the red nebula behind it into four sections, not three. They look like a frog jumping in our direction. But what of Lazarus?

You mean the Lazarus project?

And So why does the dark material behave in this manner. Looks like it is stretching; also clumping together. Or is it contracting; maybe forming stars?

Orin

[apodman]

You mean the Lazarus project?

No, actually I mean this Lazarus (the guy on the left):

The Trifid Nebula appears in the Star Trek original series episode "The Alternative Factor". As the character Lazarus jumps between this universe and another, anti-universe, the Trifid is portrayed as if it were the portal between the two.

In the end, antimatter Lazarus traps his insane regular-matter twin to wrestle him for eternity in the corridor joining the two universes and thereby prevent him from causing what Spock refers to as "annihilation, Jim - total, complete, absolute annihilation". Everyone on the bridge of the Enterprise is happy that both universes have been saved from matter-antimatter annihilation ... leaving Kirk to ask, "But what of Lazarus?" Then they play the theme song and roll the credits.

---

On a serious note, I don't know why the dust lanes do what they do.

[orin stepanek]

Oh Yeah; I had forgotten about him. I liked the old Star Trek serial. I wish they had some good stuff on TV today.

[orin stepanek]

Is this maybe the dark material found in the Trifid Nebula?

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1979Ap&SS..65...83W

How can we be sure? What is the cause? Is this the fodder that creates stars?

Orin