dirty space news

we can't always take ourselves too seriously, and the universe likes to remind us of this sometimes. which is why i'm sharing with you one of the best astronomical follies i've come across in recent times. today someone brought to my attention a recently-submitted research paper on hickson compact group 31, a group of small galaxies gravitationally interacting with each other. the paper shows an image of the galaxies in a way i've not seen before:hahaha! and if that wasnt blatant enough, they changed the color scale and showed the image again later on in the paper!this is not the only unintentional astronomical knob gag i've seen... the radio image below of the well-studied galaxy, M87, reveals "spectacular and complex structure" in the galaxy that is 50 million light years away. and last but not least, this is an artist's impression of the XMM-Newton telescope:amazing(ly detailed!)!i guess i'll never be too old or "professional" to enjoy a good knob gag! do you know of any others?