Thanks to a convergence of digital image processing, the Internet, and a renaissance of powerful ground-based and space observatories, people today are accustomed to seeing drop-dead gorgeous pictures of celestial objects:
tie-dye nebulae,
technicolor stars, and
majestic galaxies. The irony is that some of the most extraordinary things in the universe can only be seen as fuzzy blobs by our most powerful telescopes. This was underscored by
last week’s announcement of a series of extraordinary X-ray and gamma-ray blasts from a star being devoured by a monster black hole. 2012 doomsday predictions pale in comparison to the violence of an entire star being stretched like taffy and them swallowed into the gravitational abyss of a
Battlestar Galactica-class black hole.
link
Far-Out Artist impressions of the Cosmos: Slideshow
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