Carina Nebula

This is the Carina Nebula. It is a couple of thousand light-years away and is huge, tens of light-years wide.

It is known for being the site of Eta Carinae, a very old massive star predicted to go supernova any time between now and 2000 years from now.

This is how the Hubble Space Telescope saw it, an inspirational picture when you consider that just one of those little black blobs, Bok globules, contains a nascent star system.

When I had a laptop, this picture looked amazing on it. It is somewhat less so on my computer's lcd monitor. I think it is pretty and an illustration of the self-perpetuation of Creation in the Universe. Eta Carinae may be destroyed in a supernova, but as its shockwaves pass through this nebula, gravity compression and scattered elements may breed a whole new group of stars. New planets, possibly new life.

Astronomy is wonderful, my most beloved thing.