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Something interesting in space? Unbelievable!

Normally, I leave the boring clouds of gas and emptiness to Phil, but this Hubble photo of the Carina Nebula actually has something cool.

i-e739e736d43ba4f66bb8f47aeea02690-space_cephalopod.jpeg

Now I don’t want to hear anything from any of you about pareidolia. If the loons get their Virgin Mary in burnt pancakes, I want my Cosmic Cephalopod in distant smears of hydrogen.

I get email » « On the spot

Comments

  11. 'Tis Himself says

    Thanks, Rev BDC. The screwed up formatting isn’t something I did by mistake to my computer.

  13. Janine, Ignorant Slut says

    Posted by: Sven DiMilo | February 23, 2009

    That’s a cosmic sperm whale approaching from below.

    We’re whalers on the moon,
    We carry a harpoon.
    But there ain’t no whales
    So we tell tall tales
    And sing our whaling tune.

  14. Larry says

    Appears somebody forgot a closing HTML tag or something.

    Must be an act of god in divine retribution for something or the other.

  17. WRMartin says

    *squinting*
    I see a prairie dog with rocket skates and a cape zooming over the hill.

    Still, it’s an awesome image.

    The prairie dogs sure have been busy out there in space. Who knew?

  18. Patricia, OM says

    Damn! What happened?
    Are you Aussies trying to stand on your feet instead of your hands again? Cut that out! It tilts the innertubes.

  19. Marc Abian says

    My immediate thought was “dog in dress”, but then that’s my standard reaction to most things.

  21. Ouchimoo says

    That is so much cooler than a virgin Mary in toast any day.
    I mean really, Heavenly Cephalopod or a burnt piece of toast

    I think we now know who the real gods are.

  23. Benjamin Geiger says

    WRMartin @ #17:

    To me, it looks like a herd of beautiful wild ponies running free across the plains. (Last time I took one of these tests, they told me it could be anything I wanted…)

  24. Doug says

    What about the image of Darwin in the bottom right hand quadrant? Right above the dark gas clouds.

  27. Max says

    That region of Eta Carinae is referred to as “Loch Ness” by astronomers.
    What you’re looking at is a “blok globule.”
    –Thanks, Astronomy magazine!–it’s actually part of a much larger photo

  31. KannonFodder says

    Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn

    And his pillow is a nebula…

  33. says

    “If the loons get their Virgin Mary in burnt pancakes, I want my Cosmic Cephalopod in distant smears of hydrogen.”

    Done, done, and done!

    We shall be covered by the Great Appendages, and under Them we shall take refuge. We shall not be afraid by terror at night nor war in daylight. Only upon the Great Appendages shall we look for salvation.

  35. says

    <PZ frowns upon the unknowing heretic>

    “Great Appendages”? That’s a whole different clade altogether. You want the First Church of Anomalocaris, down the hall and to the right.

  38. SC, OM says

    That’s a cosmic sperm whale approaching from below.

    Stop talking or we’ll have to take you out, DiMilo.

  40. SEF says

    I was expecting one of the first comments to be “Iä! Iä! Cthulhu Fhtagn!” or “I for one welcome the coming of our squid overlords”.

    Though actually I was seeing more of a dog’s head first. Perhaps some sort of Lovecraftian-Egyptian mutant hybrid god then.

  41. davem says

    I tilted my head to the left, and saw a face at the bottom – and it looks like he’s got horns on his head, and he’s eyeing up the cosmic squid for lunch…

  44. says

    My humble apologies…I was overcome by a religious moment and rational thought was deserted. But only for a moment (I hope)!

    May I correct my apostasy:
    We shall be covered by the Great Tentacles, and under Them we shall take refuge. We shall not be afraid by terror at night nor war in daylight. Only upon the Great Tentacles shall we look for salvation.

  46. Peter McKellar says

    Any chance there is enough detail to determine the species? That way we could determine which is The One True Cephlapod(TM)

    Nice Janine, The Slut. Is that yours or an old sea shanty?

    This reminds me of that joke about the patient indignantly telling the psychiatrist “But you’re the one with all the dirty pictures!!!”

  47. SEF says

    he’s got horns on his head

    Horns to the left, bulbous forehead, side-on view of eye at top, sharp cheek-bone, upturned nose, sharp chin, some sort of fur/frill on the stocky neck and perhaps a ghostly shoulder overlaying that.

  50. Larry says

    PZ,
    You need to spend more time with Phil. After all, your biology originated from out there somewhere.

  52. Benjamin Geiger says

    Kassul @ #34:

    It’s been a LONG time since I’ve seen Daria. I just have a weird memory for random quotes. My coworkers learn quickly to just smile and nod.

    (Oh, and I’ve been following QC for years now. Given the recent “Gina Riversmith” storyline, I’m waiting for Faye to murder Sven (and probably blame it on Pintsize).)

  53. says

    We’re whalers on the moon,
    We carry a harpoon.
    But there ain’t no whales
    So we tell tall tales
    And sing our whaling tune.

    Sung by robotic actors at the amusement park on the Moon in a Futurama episode. The running gag in Futurama is that in the year 3000 they don’t have a clue about life a thousand years ago and even Fry who was frozen in 1999 failed a course in 20th Century history.

    2009 is Year of Astronomy BTW

  54. Bride of Shrek OM says

    I always see a penis in these type of photos.

    In fact I believe, instead of pareidolia, I suffer from it’s lesser known cousin, penisdolia.

  56. says

    Well if you rotate the image 180 degrees, it sorta looks like Billie Holiday taking a bow and receiving the crowd’s love…

    there’s no reason NOT to rotate it, is there? I mean, where’s “up” out there?

  57. cyberguy says

    Doug (#24) is 100% correct. There is definitely the face of Darwin in the lower right hand quadrant, nearly in profile, looking slightly up and to the left.

    If you go 1/4 of the way up the image, and 1/4 of the way in from the right you’ll find his nose.

    Unless, of course, that is not actually an image of Darwin, but none-other than a bearded Jehovah. *gulp*

    Or it could be Karl Marx…

    Or some other impressively bearded elderly gentleman dating from the mid- to late nineteenth century.

    Or clouds of hydrogen gas.

    ;-)

  58. Brownian says

    Does anybody else see the lobster?

    Is that what the kids are calling it these days? If so, then yes.

  59. marc buhler says

    For a few years now, I have used the “Astronomy Picture of the Day” site to provide the background images for the computers I use at work and at home.

    http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

    The archive goes back a dozen or so years, so there are heaps of easily downloaded images to suit anyone.

    OK – I am a traitor – perhaps there is a “biology picture of the day” site that computer backgrounds can be selected from, but….

  66. Brownian says

    Thanks for the link John. That galaxy zoo is really cool (okay, I think I fubared a classification or two when I started, but that’s why they compare multiple classifications). I wonder if systematic biologists could set up something similar to assist in classification?

  68. says

    It looked to me like the head of a dog with the body of a squid. The cephladog, a Kirk Cameronesque “transitional” form?

  71. DLC says

    No no, you’re all wrong! it’s clearly Arthas, the Lich King™
    stalking through space! Or a giant planet-eating squid . . .

  78. meh1963 says

    (To the tune of Monty Python’s “Bright Side of Life”)

    In a universe of only six millenia,
    we see light that’s traveled half a million years.
    while this flies in the face
    of soi-disant divine grace
    we must meekly accept that which appears.

    While we’re searching for a sign from the universe
    that proves that it was purely built for man
    we see a cephalapod
    (yes, the hue’s a little odd)
    In light that’s shining across epochal spans….

    Soooo

    Always trust in the age of the light
    (de dum de dum de dum dem de dum)
    Always trust in the age of the light
    (de dum de dum de dum dem de dum)

    Lightspeed doesn’t change
    (even at far range)
    Universal constants just don’t lie…
    So if the light is older
    than scripture says, don’t smolder
    just kiss that stupid book’s dogma good-bye….

    Always trust in the age of the light (&c)

    (Not, by any means, in the class of the usual bits, but it struck me funny. Hope you like. Aspiring to be in Cuttlefish class poetry someday.)

  84. Art says

    Despair Squid, as prophesied by that most luminous of shows, Red Dwarf. Even at that range it has an effect. Explains the economic downturn and general negative attitude.

    Our squidy overlords have send us the the dark one because we have failed to worship them and protect their kind on earth.

  88. Peter Ashby says

    I wish the astronomical community would borrow a trick from biology and introduce scale bars. Are we looking at something measured in AUs? Light Years? Parsecs? what?

  90. Daniel M says

    uh…that kinda looks like a huge novelty..uh..carnal pleasure self-gratification sin-enabling device.

    …can I say giant space dildo and get away with it? I can’t? oh shi-

  91. says

    You know, up until last week I had never heard the word “paredolia.” I was well aware of the phenomenon but didn’t know there was a word for it. Now since hearing it for the first time, it’s come up just about every day this week.

    I’m tempted to ascribe significance to that, just because I like being ironical.

  93. David Marjanović, OM says

    Somewhat deformed squid with very clear tentacles. No Darwin, no dog, no crustacean, no plesiosaur… no finger even.

    I wonder if systematic biologists could set up something similar to assist in classification?

    Nope. Phylogenetics, you see, is a science.

    Looks like a Klingon bird of war to me . . . .

    Come on! Even I know is that “warbird” is what the Romulan ships are called!

    Crash this

    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10103521/

    Come on! It already has 11.7 million votes!

    I’m tempted to ascribe significance to that

    It’s called “recency illusion”.

  94. tim Rowledge says

    Benjamin @ 52 –

    (Oh, and I’ve been following QC for years now. Given the recent “Gina Riversmith” storyline, I’m waiting for Faye to murder Sven (and probably blame it on Pintsize).)

    Faye will never murder Sven. For a start he’s teflon-dick, for another she’s actually fallen for him. Now Raven, there’s a different story. Faye might well murder her for sheer stupidity.

  96. says

    [i]It’s called “recency illusion”.[/i]

    I know; more colloquially the “blue Volkswagen effect.”

    I was just making a joke about ascribing significance to the frequent use of a word which itself means essentially “ascribing significance to perceived but insignificant patterns.”

  97. Alexis says

    It’s obvious…first the intelligent designer gives the squid a superior eye with the plumbing and wiring behind the retina instead of in front, and no blind spot; then it places its image in the firmament…the intelligent designer is a squid!

  101. Miguel says

    Cthulhu lives and the stars are right indeed!

    Sorry….a little gothic horror literary alusion there.

  103. eddie says

    Re heretic @100

    What a waste of a comment.

    PS – I see no-one commenting on my recent suggestion that the giant snake was a descendant of Bertha.