The graceful Whirlpool galaxy (Messier 51) in a gravitational embrace with its companion.
At the center of what is known as a grand design galaxy, space swirls around and disappears into a black hole. Just like water swirling down a bathtub or kitchen sink drain. What we see as the spiral arms are the trail of stars and dust as they follow the swirling curves in spacetime.
This, is light from 24 million years ago, seen from my backyard, in the spring of 2021. The light started it’s journey way before humans appeared on earth (1 million years ago). A message in a bottle beamed at the earth before the early Miocene period, at a time when the humans hadn’t shown up on earth and the last dinosaurs had long disappeared.
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| By William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse (Lord Rosse) Unknown source, Public Domain, Source: Wikipedia |
When he was not busy doing whatever Irish Earls did back then by day, he used to observe and sketch these mysterious objects (photography wasn’t yet there) using a giant telescope he built on the grounds of his castle.
Fortunately in 300 years, technology has been democratized enough that one doesn’t have to be an earl to capture these photon relics from another time.
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