Guthrie Govan Discussion

[alexkhan]

Space, nature on the grandest scale, fascinates quite a bit and I browse space-oriented sites every now and then. I found these pics taken by the Hubble Space Telescope that's orbiting the Earth. Quite awe-inspiring to say the least! Now expand your mind...

Space Phenomenon Imitates Art



This image resembling Vincent van Gogh's painting, "Starry Night," is an expanding halo of light around a distant star, named V838 Monocerotis (V838 Mon). This Hubble Telescope image was obtained with the Advanced Camera for Surveys on February 8, 2004.

Edge-On Galaxy



One of the universe's most stately and photogenic galaxies, the Sombrero galaxy, Messier 104 (M104) is a brilliant white, bulbous core encircled by the thick dust lanes comprising the spiral structure of the galaxy. As seen from Earth, the galaxy is tilted nearly edge-on. We view it from just six degrees north of its equatorial plane. This brilliant galaxy was named the Sombrero because of its resemblance to the broad rim and high-topped Mexican hat. The Hubble Heritage Team took these observations in May-June 2003 with the space telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys.

Gem in the Sky



In its first glimpse of the heavens following the successful December 1999 servicing mission, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope captured a majestic view of the Eskimo Nebula, a planetary nebula, the glowing remains of a dying, Sun-like star.

Ants in Space



From ground-based telescopes, the so-called "ant nebula" (Menzel 3, or Mz 3) resembles the head and thorax of a garden-variety ant. This dramatic NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image, showing 10 times more detail, reveals the "ant's" body as a pair of fiery lobes protruding from a dying, Sun-like star.

Pillars of Creation



Undersea corral? Enchanted castles? Space serpents? On April 1, 1995, Hubble snapped this image of pillar-like structures in the Eagle nebula. These eerie, dark pillar-like structures are columns of cool, interstellar hydrogen gas and dust that serve as incubators for new stars.

The Perfect Storm



This Hubble photograph captures a small region within Messier 17 (M17), a hotbed of star formation. M17, also known as the Omega or Swan Nebula, is located about 5500 light-years away in the Sagittarius constellation. The wave-like patterns of gas have been sculpted and illuminated by a torrent of ultraviolet radiation from young, massive stars (which lie outside the picture to the upper left).

Sunspot Loops



Even a relatively quiet day on the Sun is busy. This ultraviolet image shows bright, glowing arcs of gas flowing around the sunspots.

Hubble's Spectacular Spiral Galaxy



This new image was released to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope. The new Whirlpool Galaxy image showcases the spiral galaxy's classic features, from its curving arms, where newborn stars reside, to its yellowish central core that serves as home for older stars. A feature of considerable interest is the companion galaxy located at the end of one of the spiral arms.

The X-Ray Glint in the Cat's Eye



This composite image of Chandra and Hubble Space Telescope data offers astronomers an opportunity to compare where the hotter, X-ray emitting gas appears in relation to the cooler material seen in optical wavelengths. The Chandra team found that the chemical abundances in the region of hot gas were like those in the wind from the central star and different from the outer cooler material. Although still incredibly energetic and hot enough to radiate X rays, Chandra shows the hot gas to be somewhat cooler than scientists would have expected for such a system.

Crowning Jewel



Resembling a nightmarish beast rearing its head from a crimson sea, this celestial object is actually just a pillar of gas and dust. Called the Cone Nebula (in NGC 2264) - so named because in ground-based images it has a conical shape - this monstrous pillar resides in a turbulent star-forming region. This picture, taken by the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) aboard the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, on May 11, 2002, shows the upper 2.5 light-years of the Cone, a height that equals 23 million roundtrips to the Moon. The entire pillar is seven light-years long.

Stellar Sibling Rivalry



This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image of the Trifid Nebula reveals a stellar nursery being torn apart by radiation from a nearby, massive star. The picture also provides a peek at embryonic stars forming within an ill-fated cloud of dust and gas, which is destined to be eaten away by the glare from the massive neighbor.

Frightening Eyes



In the direction of the constellation Canis Major, two spiral galaxies pass by each other like majestic ships in the night. The near-collision has been caught in images taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and its Wide Field Planetary Camera 2.

Hourglass Nebula



This Hubble telescope snapshot of MyCn18, a young planetary nebula, reveals that the object has an hourglass shape with an intricate pattern of "etchings" in its walls. A planetary nebula is the glowing relic of a dying, Sun-like star.

Arcs Tell the Tale of Giant Eruption



The arcs of multimillion-degree gas appear to be part of a projected ring 25,000 light years in diameter. The size and location of the ring indicate that it may have been produced in a titanic explosion that occurred about ten million years ago.

The Lure of the Rings



Resembling a diamond-encrusted bracelet, a ring of brilliant blue star clusters wraps around the yellowish nucleus of what was once a normal spiral galaxy in this image from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope (HST) in January 2004. This image was released to commemorate the 14th anniversary of Hubble's launch on April 24, 1990 and its deployment from the space shuttle Discovery on April 25, 1990.

The Eagle Nebula



For the 15th anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope, scientists used the ACS, Hubble's newest camera, to record a new region of the eerie-looking Eagle Nebula, producing an image with stunning detail. The new Eagle Nebula image reveals a tall, dense tower of gas being sculpted by ultraviolet light from a group of massive, hot stars.

The Horsehead Nebula



The famous Horsehead Nebula sits amid the Orion molecular cloud complex. It's a protrusion at the edge of a larger region of dust. The dust obscures background stars, some of which light the fringes.

Gamma-Ray Burst in Milky Way



A composite Chandra X-ray (blue) and Palomar infrared (red and green) image of the supernova remnant W49B reveals a barrel-shaped nebula consisting of bright infrared rings around a glowing bar of intense X-radiation along the axis. This image was taken on Jun 2, 2004.

Hubble Sees Inside A Bubble



The Hubble Space Telescope captured this interesting photo of the inside of an inflating, see-through space bubble. The transparent bubble is considered a nebula, and it is called N44F. The scene is about 160,000 light-years away in a neighboring galaxy called the Large Magellanic Cloud.

Stellar Beauty



The complex structure of the Sun's whirling heat reveals itself when images of three different energies of ultraviolet radiation are combined.

Galactic Twin



What would our Milky Way galaxy look like if we could travel outside it and snap a picture? It might look a lot like a new image by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope of a spiral galaxy called NGC 7331 - a virtual twin of our Milky Way. The picture shows our twin as never before. Its swirling arms spin outward from a central bulge of light, which is outlined by a ring of actively forming stars.
_________________
Ed Yoon
Certified Guthrie Fan-atic
BOING Music LLC - Managing Partner
.strandberg* Guitars USA
Ed Yoon Consulting & Management
Guitar Center Inc.

[bill®]

Awesome.

[shredrulez]

wow, really awesome pics, ed! the space and the universe boggles the mind to no end. looking out to it and pictures like these often make our fleeting existence seem so trivial. our lives aren't even a blink of an eye and the earth not even a speck of dust. the universe is just so frigging vast and old and so frigging amazing...

[Delicato]

Those pics are fake. I don't belive in space.
_________________
Jesus saves, but Gretzky scores on the rebound

[shredrulez]

[Delicato]

I am indeed joking.

I actually love astrology. Thinking about it and really trying to "take in" its vastness
almost gives me a feeling of vertigo.

And I know the difference between astronomy and astrology.
I was just repeting what a student guiding councelor at my high school
said when she asked what I wanted to study at the university and I answered astronomy
_________________
Jesus saves, but Gretzky scores on the rebound

[alexkhan]

Glad you guys are digging the pics. We are certainly in a new golden age of astronomy now. It's a very exciting time with new discoveries being made constantly and I believe the pace will accelerate in the years ahead with rapidly improving technology. Science of all types fascinate me (including what goes on Earth and in the microscopic levels), but none as much as the grand scheme of things of outer space and the Universe. It's truly mind-boggling to ponder things working out there in such a colossal scale.

BTW, did anyone catch "Alien Planet" program on the Discovery channel recently? I watched it three times and it was fascinating every time. I certainly believe that there's life out there - perhaps billions and billions of planets like Earth teeming with life. Some could just have primitive forms of cell-like creatures that were on Earth billions of years ago and some could be millions or billions years more evolved than we are. I'm not sure it will happen in our lifetime, but I think it's just a matter of time before we finally discover life beyond Earth.
_________________
Ed Yoon
Certified Guthrie Fan-atic
BOING Music LLC - Managing Partner
.strandberg* Guitars USA
Ed Yoon Consulting & Management
Guitar Center Inc.

[Sgt Baker]

thanks for posting those photo's. they are super cool!!!

i often wonder what the music that aliens on different planets play sounds like. i recently watched star wars and the aliens in the cantina play some killer tunes. if it is really like that it would rule!

when i was a senior in high school in '95 i was reading a ton of alien books. i was totally convinced that they were going to land and tell us how they built the pyramids and stuff like that in '96. unfortunately that never happened... the aliens always disappoint me.

[RD]

Killer pics! I thought it was fake at first

[Delicato]

The colors are actually fake. They are added afterwards.
_________________
Jesus saves, but Gretzky scores on the rebound

[alexkhan]

[tafolla-howe-govan]

Those really are some of the most breathtaking pictures of space that I have seen Thanks Ed!! It really makes you wonder why, how, and who...


On a side note, I'm glad to see people on here with an open mind towards the subject of extra-terrestrials. Coming from the south, I get alot of weird looks and skepticism whenever I talk about aliens. Seriously though, why wouldn't there be life elsewhere? There are trillions of planets and stars in the universe, and the sun is also a relatively young star. So what is so outlandish about the notion that maybe there is a star many billions of years older than the sun with planets around it that have been housing life for eons longer than Earth? I'm sure that advanced civilizations are few and far between, but I know for a fact that they are out there. I believe they have visited Earth too, many times. There have been way to many eyewitness reports from credible people: Police Officers, Firemen, a whole lot of airplane pilots, Military personnel, even people who worked for NASA (Gordon Cooper).

The most interesting thing I ever saw about UFOs was on a history channel special. They talked about how the French govt. did the most comprehensive study to date on UFOs, and practically all of the cases they examined were reported by their military. In one instance a french fighter pilot approached a UFO that was described as a bright and glowing disc shaped object. He then tried to fire a missile at it, before he could reach the trigger his controls jammed up. When this happened another ball of light undocked from the original UFO and approached him. He then tried to fly away and when he did this his controls unlocked and he was able to get free. Now my question is how would this object (or its occupants) know that he was about to fire at it and be able to jam his controls, and then also know that he was going to retreat and let him go?

Another thing I saw talked about how a UFO penetrated a U.S. military base and made it all the way to a nuclear missile silo, it then began to shine beams of light at this missile. Apparently it somehow changed the tracking numbers on the missile when it did this and jumbled up the insides of it. The missile had to be taken apart and reconstructed because it was unable to fire Assuming this is true, what the hell could do this If true that would mean whatever these things are they have a peaceful agenda and maybe are preventing us from destroying ourselves and the planet (at least I hope that's the case!).

[M@]

Man, bloody awesome pics!

Now, do you think we can get Guthrie to use one of those pics for his new album cover?

Re Aliens: We as humans must be pretty arrogant if we think we are the only intelligent species in the Universe(s), however don't you think the Aliens (assuming they have this fancy technology and crazy space ships) would have made some more substantial contact with us by now (I don't buy the argument that some people put forward to this by saying "We are not ready to meet them yet, so they are waiting for us to develop until we are ready to meet")?

On a lighter note, I saw the latest Star Wars pic yesterday and it was fantastic!!! For me, the original Star Wars couldn't be beaten and I could never get into the later ones (especially those silly Ewoks!), but this latest one really brought back some of that old magic, and then some... Now, where did I stash those cool action figures?


Peace Earthlings.
_________________
"My day job feeds my family, my night gig feeds my ego!"

[alexkhan]

I like to think highly-evolved forms of aliens are already well aware of Earth and us but are just observers. It'd be like if we were to discover a planet in the future with primitive life forms - what would we do? We'd just observe and get scientific data. It'd be pointless to try to invade and take over or destroy everything there. Earth would be a scientific bonanza for visiting or observant aliens. Maybe someday they'll try to communicate with us, maybe they won't.

If we found animals in another planet that had approximate intelligence levels of most animals (or lower forms) found in our planet, would we try to communicate with them? The odds are that we'd find a planet that's millions or billions years behind where we are or millions or billions years ahead. The odds of finding another planet with intelligent life forms that are in the same technological century or even millennium would be infinitesimally small.
_________________
Ed Yoon
Certified Guthrie Fan-atic
BOING Music LLC - Managing Partner
.strandberg* Guitars USA
Ed Yoon Consulting & Management
Guitar Center Inc.

[shredrulez]

now aren't they saying that black holes are at the center of all galaxies? "gravity whirlpool" is what they call black holes, isn't it? amazing to think that supermassive black holes are the driving engines at the center of the largest discrete structures in the universe.