Who said that watching really bad science fiction movies is not educational? For those who grew up with The Blob, the Hubble Space Telescope has finally found its galactic origins. The HST has spotted a mysterious giant green blob in outer space that appear to be giving birth to new stars.
The blob is a massive hydrogen gas formation first discovered by a Dutch elementary school teacher Hanny van Arkelin in 2007. It was named Hanny’s Voorwerp (HAN’-nee’s-FOR’-vehrp). Voorwerp is Dutch for “object.”
Scientists believe that the blob is collapsing and stars are forming from the pressure. The blob is the size of our own Milky Way galaxy.
For those who saw the 1958 movie, do you run to your bomb shelters just yet. It is 650 million light years away — each light year is about 6 trillion miles.
Yet, how naive the final lines of the movie now seem:
Lieutenant Dave: I think you should send us the biggest transport plane you have, and take this thing to the Arctic or somewhere and drop it where it will never thaw. . .
Lieutenant Dave: At least we’ve got it stopped.
Steve Andrews: Yeah, as long as the Arctic stays cold.
Oh, Lieutenant Dave, will erstwhile movie characters ever learn?
Source: Universe Today and Reddit.
Jonathan Turley
Chan,
hope I’m at least correctly formatted, or at least performed by Patti Smith (May not be Safe for Work)
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaY7P4kqxCw&fs=1&hl=en_US]
It is really funny how you operate, like sharks but without teeth.
Go gum someone else, you bore me.
The rhetoric on the deaths in Arizona tells me all I need to know about the character of people on this blog.
My research is complete. My professors are going to love this paper. And Bubbha you and your rantings are a prominent segment. Thanks for the material.
Gynase, you are just a foot note.
Also, as bad as his displays of the basics of political science and its terminology is (especially for a self-proclaimed poli sci major), his understanding of astronomy is even worse.
Unless he was thinking Tootie was right about van Arkel being a member of KISS. But that would just be another field he’s demonstrated an incompetence in – popular American music of the late 20th Century.
Gyges,
Oh, he’s terrible at it. It comes from that whole mindset where he doesn’t understand that words have meanings and that he doesn’t get to make them up as he goes along to fit his faulty premises.
Buddha,
Nah, I just don’t think he’d care what I said.
Plus, he’s really bad at it, so I’m not sure it counts. It’s sort of like getting mad that the four year old gets to sing at the outdoor market, but you don’t get to busk.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_performance
Gyges:
I see both you and Bubbha are sheep in sheep’s clothing.
Thank you for the referals, I will take your advice.
Gyges,
Oh, but he gets to make fun of my education?
Nah. Don’t think so. He was the one who started bragging about where he went to school like it would impress anyone.
Until I hear otherwise, anything is fair game on troll-boy.
Buddha,
I’m not entirely sure that making fun of Chan’s school is entirely in the spirit of the Prof.’s civility rule, but that’s between you and JT.
Of course, I’ve made fun of his formatting, so my stones should probably remain un-thrown.
He can’t help it, Gyges.
It’s the wonderfully substandard education he’s getting at Hillsdale Clown College.
Chan,
Um. What you said in no way contradicts what he said.
You’ve been making yourself look pretty bad lately. I mean, Buddha gets vicious, and gets a little too into his foaming at the mouth rants for my taste, but he’s never just petty.
You on the other hand have been reduced to something slightly above the level of saying “Buddha is laughing, more like Buddha is farting. Am I right?”
You need to work on your form a little. I suggest studying Marx, Twain, and Churchill, THEY knew how to insult people.
nice headline
http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/Cool-Astronomy/2011/0107/Scientists-plan-mission-to-probe-Uranus
You can’t fool me. I might have been born in a galaxy far..far..away, but I’ve been up for a light year.
I’m not sure which part of that will stymie the average teenager, but my predicted response from most of them would be “unt-uh”. 🙂
Bubbha:
once again you dont know shinola from your assahola.
Tootie has it exactly right, there is another structure called the Horse Head Nebula believed to create stars as well.
Your public school education is showing again.
http://www.glyphweb.com/esky/nebulae/horsehead.html
Wonder what Stephen Hawking has to say on this matter, should be very interesting.
Isn’t it Brian May of Queen that is also an astrophysicist?
Guess they didn’t figure on global warming when the movie was made…………lol
Tootles,
Once again, you are totally wrong.
It was found by a Dutch school teacher named Hanny van Arkel.
Actually it only looks like a blob because that’s the only part of the mass lit by a now “unlit” quasar. It’s afterglow on part of a rope like filament of gas that stretches to the core of galaxy IC 2497, which may have merged with another galaxy about a billion years ago.
Wasn’t this found by that guy who belong[ed] to the rock and roll band KISS?
He went back to get his PHD in Astrophysics and I believe he located this blob (star nursery).