The sharpest image ever taken of the spiral galaxy M81

It could be a jet from a blackhole.

stunning picture! speechless

Yep could be the infamous "white hole" aka the other end of the black hole which spews out all the matter it sucks in!

But we know so little of what goes on in space it could be something we havnt thought of yet???

just downloaded that 700 meg file and looked at it 1:1 in photoshop (cs30)
all i can say is WOW...

the amount of specks of light is insane! all the little red dots, and blue dots, etc.
amazing find! especially the lower right and left edges. amazing spiraling galaxies to boot.

reply to post by Enceladus


GREAT FIND....A STAR FROM ME. I appreciate things like this, becuase it sure does make one think...how in the world did something like this
"JUST HAPPEN"......Big bang, yea right!!! Just AWESOME!

It´s pictures like this that reminds you of checking their site out more often, I have no use for paintings with pics like this. To bad they can´t afford to have 2 telescopes up there at the same time.

The T shaped image is just heavy gravitational lensing. This picture is so cool, I can't wait for some newer tech to get in the air for even more amazing images.

reply to post by Enceladus


That is absolutely gorgeous, Enceladus! Thank you so much for sharing! It's submissions like this that keep me coming back to ATS. Above the bickerings and name-calling, there are moments of shining light that bring us all together to bask in wonderment.

I have to agree with another poster, it does make you feel small and sort of insignificant when you realize the immensity of that system, that you would have to travel at light speed for 11.6 million years to reach it and once you got there, many, many more just to explore it. All I have to say is "Wow!" So many suns, so many possibilities.....

Originally posted by ben420
I pity such a close minded individual.

Just speaking what we know to be the truth as of today. I didn't know the truth was closed minded. I'm willing to see any good proof you have of life anywhere else. I don't know how much more open minded I can be than that.

Assuming that Earth is the only inhabitated planet out of trillions of planets is extremely arrogant. But I value your opinion, no matter how narrow minded.

I don't see how it's arrogant in any way. We're already pretty small in the Universe. That's a given. If there's nobody else out there, well, that makes us extra tiny and even more insignificant. Which we may very well be. Funny you would call that "arrogant."

And I question just how much you value my opinion, calling me close minded and arrogant and all.

[edit on 3-12-2007 by Nohup]

we dont know enough about exoplanets to say if earth type planets with biospheres are rare or common. Good news is we will find out with future spce missions like kepler & TPF

Originally posted by yeti101
we dont know enough about exoplanets to say if earth type planets with biospheres are rare or common. Good news is we will find out with future spce missions like kepler & TPF

And even if they're thick as fleas, just because there's a nitrogen/oxygen atmosphere and some water and ice doesn't mean life is guaranteed on them, because we don't even know how life started on this planet. It might have been an incredible crap shoot that won't happen again for another 100 billion years, if ever.

Originally posted by greeneyedleo
does anyone have any idea what this could be??

Great eye greeneyedleo....( no pun intended) what I believe we are seeing here is an event of almost unfathomable proportions...the collision of two spiral galaxies.


© 2007 by Don Dixon / cosmographica.com

Ironically enough..it is the same fate that awaits this galaxy...a cataclysmic collision with our nearest neighboring galaxy....not to be a wet blanket.

Awesome pictures and great find to both the OP and lil greeneyedleo...





[edit on 3-12-2007 by 1nL1ghtened]

After a truly astoundingly bad day, this has realy made my day. Thanks x 1000 thats going straight on my desktop and as I dont normaly go info astro pics thats saying something.


Wayne...

Originally posted by greeneyedleo
does anyone have any idea what this could be??

I believe those are two distant galaxies colliding. There was another thread about this, and the same thing came up. It was the same picture, but you could zoom in on from hubblesite.org.

Galaxy M81, Amazing New Picture

There are other high res pictures of other objects with M42 the Orion Nebula being my favorite. We found lots of anomalies there also in another thread, but I can't find it. All of those Hubble pictures are fascinating.

Originally posted by greeneyedleo
does anyone have any idea what this could be??

Extreme close-up:

Absolutely stunning images....all I can say is we are blessed to be alive to see something as wonderful as this. I had to make this my desktop background.It was just to incredible not to.

Great post, thanks for sharing this with us.

An amazing picture thats going on my HD.

Star for you. Many, many stars

WOW those stars in the top right corner must be huge!

they're probably thousands of times bigger than our sun!



[edit on 3-12-2007 by noobius0ne]

reply to post by 1nL1ghtened


Bingo its a collision of 2 galaxies.

This is the most amazing thing. Completely reinforces my obsession with astronomy.