Contemplations – Most recent

I'm incurably curious about many aspects of this journey of ours. Here are a few noteworthy items I've stumbled across that I want to remember so I can revisit them from time to time.

Appetizer:

"Although I am a typical loner in daily life, my consciousness of belonging to the invisible community of those who strive for truth, beauty, and justice has preserved me from feeling isolated."
– Albert Einstein, from a short speech he gave to the German League of Human Rights, Berlin, in 1932, which can be found in Einstein: A Life In Science by Michael White and John Gribbin, Dutton, 1994, pages 262 – 263: via Internet Archive⩘ .

Most recent contemplations

The Lion's Head Nebula

An image of a decaying star. The star at the center is surrounded by tight rings of lit up gas and dust it is shedding. To me, it looks like an uncut diamond. Further out is a circular ring of more gas and dust, not quite as bright, but still reflecting the star's light. Obviously, other observer's see a lion's head surrounded by its mane.

I don't like many of the images produced to the James Webb Space Telescope, mainly because of lot of them are, I think, in the infrared spectrum, so everything looks reddish. I much prefer the visible-light images produced by the Hubble telescope. But I really like this one (I've cropped it a bit to focus on the nebula). To me, it looks like a rough-cut diamond floating in deep space.

From a NASA explanation⩘  of the image:

At first glance the nebula's overall structure in Webb's infrared images, with both the NIRCam (Near Infrared Camera) and MIRI (Mid Infrared Instrument) instruments, may look quite similar to Hubble's earlier visible-light view. However, Webb's infrared vision highlights features like compact clumps of dust and a haze of ionized gas.

What an amazing universe we live in.

Astronomy Picture of the Day, Aug 26, 2026⩘ .

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