Happy Hubble Holidays!

This is a really good idea: using gorgeous Hubble images to make cards for the season. The site has instructions on how to print them, and of course links to the images as well.

I have to say, I think my favorite is this one:

The picture is from the Galactic center in Sagittarius, where stars are plentiful. I recognized it immediately (I’m a dork), but the idea of using it for ornaments was pretty clever and very funny.

The most ironic one is this one:

I hate to break it to my friends at Hubble, but Mars is the god of war. Maybe a hawk would have been a better choice for the silhouette.

Or maybe it’s all part of the subtle War on Christmas: all the cards say "holiday" and "season", and not Christmas. Maybe they should have a Hubble picture of the Star of Bethlehem?

December 10th, 2007 9:16 AM by Phil Plait in Astronomy, Cool stuff, NASA, Pretty pictures | 9 comments | RSS feed | Trackback >

9 Responses to “Happy Hubble Holidays!”

1. uknesvuinng Says:
December 10th, 2007 at 9:48 am

That last picture very obviously proves there is no space and the sky is a solid dome above us. You can’t get that size of silhouette on Mars if it’s really far away![/sarcasm]
2. Hanson Gaugler Says:
December 10th, 2007 at 9:53 am

Maybe it is War and Peace.
3. PK Says:
December 10th, 2007 at 10:24 am

Rather than a “war on Christmas” (worth fighting, I’d say!), the cards probably say holiday/season because the state is not allowed to endorse religion.
4. Michael Lonergan Says:
December 10th, 2007 at 10:32 am

I really don’t have a problem with “Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Pleasant Solstice Greetings”, or whatever people want to say. I just wish people would get over their collective hang-ups and enjoy the season, however they choose to celebrate it, religious or secular.
5. Ken_g6 Says:
December 10th, 2007 at 10:33 am

That’s not the worst of it. Did you see the one labeled hc002? Way to keep that “Mars as big as the full Moon” rumor going!
6. Gnat Says:
December 10th, 2007 at 11:37 am

I wish I’d known about this before spending all day Sunday writing out my Christmas cards!

Oh, well, I’ll have to remember it for next year!
7. Ray M Says:
December 11th, 2007 at 5:22 pm

How charming… the dove took a dump on Mars!
8. Moose Says:
December 11th, 2007 at 5:23 pm

Actually, having the dove superimposed on Mars is quite apt. Doves, apparently, are pretty cranky, bitey critters when they’re threatened.
9. MandyDax Says:
December 12th, 2007 at 6:16 pm

Which Star of Bethlehem? The near conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in 7BC or the near conjunction of Mercury, Mars, and Jupiter in 2BC?

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Phil Plait, the creator of Bad Astronomy, is an astronomer, lecturer, and author. After ten years working on Hubble Space Telescope and six more working on astronomy education, he struck out on his own as a writer. He has written two books, dozens of magazine articles, and 12 bazillion blog articles. He is a skeptic, and fights misuses of science as well as praising the wonder of real science.

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