Celestial Sundays: Butterfly Nebula

Nebula is an intersteller cloud of gas, dust and plasma. They have no definate shapes in nature. They take all kinds. Like this one, the Butterfly Nebula, NGC 2346.

The Butterfly Nebula is 2000 light years away in the direction of the constelation Monoceros. The following are the description from Nasa:

It represents the spectacular "last gasp" of a binary star system at the nebula's center. At the center of the nebula lies a pair of stars that are so close together that they orbit around each other every 16 days. This is so close that, even with Hubble, the pair of stars cannot be seen as two separate components. Astronomers believe that one of the stars, when it evolved and expanded to become a red giant, actually swallowed its companion star in an act of stellar cannibalism. The resulting interaction led to a spiraling together of the two stars, culminating in ejection of the outer layers of the red giant. Most of the outer layers were ejected into a dense disk, which can still be seen in the Hubble image, surrounding the central star.
Source: Nasa

This is not the only stellar object that resembles a butterfly wing. Take a look at this planetary nebula, MyCn18.It is located about 8000 light years away. Taken in false color by the Hubble Space Telescope, it shows a rather young stellar object. Young in that the process of death that formed the nebula happened fairly recently in galactic terms.

Finally, I would like to end today's post with a beautiful picture of another nebula, created by a composite of X-Ray and optical images. The nebula in question is the Cat's Eye Nebula, NGC 6543. Have a nice Sunday people.
Image source: Nasa

Sporting Saturdays!

Ahh, badminton. A popular sporting even among the Asian countries. I wonder maybe it's becouse the most important trophy, the Thomas Cup always seems to circulate amongst the three elite Asian countries: China, Indonesia and Malaysia. Of course, there are pretenders to the throne. Countries like Thailand, India, Japan and Korea all tried to lay claim to the most pretigious trophy in the badminton world, in an effort to be the best. But alas, they are mere pretenders.
However, not all claimants to the throne are Asians. Two particularly good European stocks measure highly. Denmark and England. The Danish team figure particularly high in the world ranking, but again, they are the only real contenders for the crown. England lagged behind even though it host one of the most prestigious round in the circuit, the All-England. Players who lay claim to be All-England's finest is by default a very real world champion, unless of course they happen to be injured from doing the split. :D

Imagination

Ever have an imagination you felt was so real it affects you emotionally? Or imagining things that are clearly imposibble, but to you, it felt so real? Or dreams you know is a dream and yet wanting to believe it's real? Or fantasies that comes to life?

Welcome to the real world. A world that is rotten to the core that we started to create our own world in our imaginations to keep us sane. We create whole new level of customers friendliness when we got suckered shopping in Orchard Road, we fight battles after battles with flawless victory when we watched The Thin Red Line, we re-live the lives of our favorite heroes, imagining ourself in their shoes, trying out things we think the hero should do, sometimes crying, laughing, sometimes taking the role of the opposite sex, fantasising about the hero even.

The point is, this is perfectly normal. Dreams and imagination makes fantasies come to life to make our world a better place.

Vertical Limit

Ever had fears of height? Or do you have fear of heights? I do. And I'm not ashamed to admit it, even at work today.

Yesterday I helped my crewmen remove elevators, today it's the rudder's turn. Man, it was big. Took us whole day just to prepare it for hoisting, then another half day just to get it into position on the ground so that others can start work on it. Now my neck is stiff from all the straining and stretching while my back is killing me.

I should've goten a desk job.

Overtime Ovatine!

Yeah! This is the first night I'm doing overtime in such a long time. Man, I almost forgot how unexciting this is. For the first time in overtime collection history, I'm actually working during the overtime, as opposed to just snaking or sleeping. Damn, shouldn't have volunteered for the overtime. Give me so little money for my precious time.

Was my money stolen?

Several years ago, I never checked my bank statements. That's becouse I trust in Malaysian Banking's security arrangements and the robustness of the syste,.

Today, that illusion is shattered. I do not know if it is a blessing or a curse that I should lose several thousand ringgit to learn one lesson; always guard your bank account like your life. Check and re-check your statements to make sure it is actually you who withdraw the money. If not, faeries also can't help you my friend.

Just another friendly reminder to readers.

Neck...it hurts!

Arghh, my neck hurts so bad. Donno if it is stiff neck or sprained neck. Searched for the remedy on the Net but all I come up on sprained neck is some nonsence about body energy healing or something bullshit like that. And stiff neck, hell, I donno, it's as if tigerbalm's homepage, what with all the advertisements there. Hmmm, maybe I should use tigerbalm. Coz heat rub is not working.

Finally I've quit

Well, at long last I've quit Knight Online. Mind you that it is not a bad game per se, but server problems which plagued it since last year really turned me off from playing it. Now I feel bad about leaving my friend playing it alone. Well, not alone since there's a whole community in it.

On another front, my Typhoon aircraft model is taking me longer than I anticipated. From the normal 5 days has turned into a long 5 weeks. I have got to do it or else it will turn into a ghastly 5 months!

So hungry

Arghhh, I'm so hungry now and the PizzaHut is so slow in taking my order. I hate this.

Why some men stray

This question has been done to death many times over. Why married men stray? Why do they have an affair? Why hurt someone dear to them? What drove them to do these things?

I believe I has an answer. There are many types of men who cheat on their wife. Some do it becouse they do not love their wife. Some becouse they want to feel the thrill of the "hunt", some becouse of the rush that comes from the risk of being discovered, some do it becouse it is the only way to clinched a deal of some kind. While some do it becouse they love their wife, and even some do it becouse even when they love their wife, they love the affair even more.

The last one is the one I'm talking about here. Picture this: You are a married man. You meet a women by chance one stormy night, and in the heat of the moment, you have sex. You know you've done your wife wrong, and you definately know this is not a desirable outcome, and yet, year after year, you met with the woman at the same day at the same place, to consumate your affair. You feel strongly for her, and yet at the same time, you love your wife, and are responsible to her, and the woman of your affair, she feels the same way about you too. Both you and the woman meet up every year for 30 years, always at the same day and at the same place. Is this an affair? Or a love story? Or "Friends with benefits"?

What if your are that women? What if you are that man? Put your feelings to the test. How do you feel? Would you continue the affair for 30 years? Meeting only 30 times? I've thought about this. I felt that this afafir is despicable. Think how the wife must feel. Think of how the husband must feel. Right off, if I'm the husband, I'd kill myself. However, putting myself in the adulterous' man shoe...I would do the same: continue the affair. What can you do when the love of your life is in love with you and another man, but chooses to marry the other man? In desperation, an affair would seems like the best way to "marry" her without marrying her.

Damn, I hate these kinds of thought experiments.

Decisions

Decisions are like railroad tracks. You take one track out of many, and on this track, you do not know whether you will reach your destination, although you know where you want to go. And you began to have doubt in your mind about making this choise. In other words, decisions are tough cookie. Deal with it.