"What are YOU looking at?" That is one freaky cosmic head! (NASA, ESA, J. Dalcanton, B.F. Williams, and M. Durbin [University of Washington])
Halloween is tomorrow and we can't stop posting about frightfully good stuff!
Yesterday, we told you about the origin of gummies. Today, we're going deep into the cosmos — 704 million light years away! — to bring you a giant space face!
At the top of this post, you'll see the Arp-Madore 2026-424 system. And though the photo was actually taken by the Hubble Space Telescope back on June 19, 2019, it's pretty clear why NASA chose to release it just before Halloween. Look at that spooky image!
Anatomy of a stellar skull
The Hubble Space Telescope captured this image back in June. (Getty Embed)
How did these masses of stars of stars collect in such a way, right down to the "eyes" being one colour and the rest of the face another? It's all thanks to a collision!
The eyes are made of a pair of colliding galaxies. These galaxies are full of billions and billions of mature stars, that burn white and yellow hot. This is what gives the eyes such a brilliant hue. And what about the blue of the rest of the space face?
These are new stars that are forming thanks to the energy, dust, gas, and other matter released by the collision. These stars are very young, and they glow with a soft blue warmth. That's the science part.
As for why and how all of this stellar stuff managed to fall into place as a face, well... sometimes you just get lucky. It just so happens that we're viewing all of this from the perfect angle, at the perfect moment to see this stunningly scary sight. (And it also helps that the NASA scientists turned the image on its side to look more like a face).
So Happy Halloween, everyone, from their galaxies to ours! Watch below... if you dare!
no way! 😮
😀 😀 🙄 💡 😳