I mentioned the double helix nebula in a post a couple of days ago: The Sky’s Too Jam-Packed These Days. Some of you weren’t familiar with it. In fact I didn’t know about it until a couple or three months ago. Here’s a bit more about it:
The double helix nebula:
The spots are infrared-luminous stars, mostly red giants and red supergiants. Many other stars are present in this region, but are too dim to appear even in this sensitive infrared image.
The double helix nebula is approximately 300 light-years from the enormous black hole at the center of the Milky Way. (The Earth is more than 25,000 light-years from the black hole at the galactic center.)
This false-color image was taken by the Multiband Imaging Photometer for Spitzer (MIPS).
Date 15 March 2005(2005-03-15)
Source http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/images/2305-sig06-004-Double-Helix-Nebula
That double-helix pattern in the gas is perpendicular to the galactic plane. It’s mainly interesting by what it implies. Problem is, nobody’s actually sure what it implies.
Aside from my humble self. And I’m not saying nuthun.
Old Jules
So Far From Heaven 