Comments on: Kali ma… Kali ma… Kali ma, shakti deh!

By: Phil Plait

Phil Plait — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 04:45:00 +0000

ash (45): It’s a line from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Follow the link at the bottom of the post. I am not making fun of anyone here.

By: Dragonchild

Dragonchild — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 00:49:19 +0000

It’s a sailboat.

By: Anchor

Anchor — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 22:54:31 +0000

I see what looks like a star-forming nebula with a young cluster of energetic young stars blowing a great bubble in the cloud…

By: Checkmate1

Checkmate1 — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 15:53:38 +0000

I see the pink Dolly Parton figure, seated, facing us with a glowing lamp in her right hand…..seems to have put on a little weight.

By: Chris

Chris — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 14:36:30 +0000

I see a guy throwing up. The pink blob near the lower middle

By: ash

ash — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 14:04:54 +0000

I m sorry if I m harsh here but title of the article has nothing to do with contents. It’s like misleading at some point. I don’t know if author wants to get attaintion or something else but its not fair. I do believe in scince like u guys do infact that’s the only practicle and true things we have which can explain why we r here and why universe is created. But because we believe in science doesn’t mean we make fun out of those people who belivea in god. I m sorry if I m misunderstood article. But this is what I believe and wanted to say.

By: ashok

ashok — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 14:00:04 +0000

By: Tony Venturo

Tony Venturo — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 12:34:42 +0000

I see magnificent perfection.

By: Messier Tidy Upper

Messier Tidy Upper — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 11:56:08 +0000

Ah memories. This nebula – and the BA’s post here – conjures up one of the best and most fun movies I’ve ever seen! Love ‘Indiana Jones & the Temple of Doom’ – classic movie.

Y’know, it *does* look like chilled monkey brains too. With a giant human heart sitting right on top at that!

By: ggremlin

ggremlin — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 11:38:43 +0000

Personally, I think you see the wrong end of the monkey. I’ve see that before at the local zoo when a close relative was expressing his(maybe her) displeasure at being confined.

By: Chelsea

Chelsea — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 01:21:35 +0000

I’m seeing a woman’s torso…Dolly Parton style….the floating head from some critter from Star Trek….an upside down fruit bat….an orangutan’s face, upside down(well, maybe more of a gibbon)…and really stretching that red blob in the lower left corner to be an upside down jellyfish.

Love these deep sky shots. Now I’m REALLY wanting a decent telescope.

By: Ut

Ut — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 23:43:33 +0000

I’ll add my name to the growing list who see the human heart (though I can see the munkee hed, as well as Homer Simpson’s head, and a melting head from Raiders, the egg and sperm, the hadoken, and the Playboy bunny, too).

@Joseph G (#31)

The Sun’s heliopause may not be particularly big, but what we’re looking at here is the effects of the combined stellar winds of what appear to be hundreds of stars. Just as the air stirred up by a single feather may be insignificant compared to that of an entire wings worth, the pressure caused by one star’s wind and light may be completely unnoticeable while a cluster of similar stars can stretch out for hundreds of light-years.

You have to keep in mind, too, that larger stars have more ways to push against the nearby interstellar medium, too. The much higher levels of ultraviolet light they give off can help push the gas away, and so can the shockwaves produced as they tear themselves to pieces in violent supernovae explosions (especially early on in the formation of the bubble while there’s still something of note for those shockwaves to pass through).

By: Lynn Wilhelm

Lynn Wilhelm — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 19:58:10 +0000

I don’t see it either. Egg and sperm for me.

Oh, wait. Looked again and I think I see it. The sperm is the monkey’s face. That’s a big holey head.

By: James Sweet

James Sweet — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 19:28:19 +0000

I saw the picture and recognized the Temple of Doom reference in the title… and I thought you were going to say it looked like when the Thuge priest held up the dude’s heart. Pareidolia is a strange thing, eh?

I saw the Android logo in a stain on my bathroom floor the other day, but unfortunately it wasn’t particularly visible in the picture I took. Bummer.

By: Fox

Fox — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 18:35:02 +0000

I saw a human heart, but that could just be the paraedolia response to the title of the article.

By: mike burkhart

mike burkhart — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 18:25:51 +0000

Looks like a comet entering a black hole ,by the way the Thuge worship rituals in Indana Jones and the tempel of doom were made up,no one knows the Thuge worship rituals .The Thuge were wiped out in 1892 and left no writings.And for fellow Indana Jones fans may I recomend the comic: Indana Jones and The fate of Atlantis you will love it.

By: KC

KC — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 18:12:27 +0000

I dub thee the “Monkey Brain Nebula”!

By: Joseph H.

Joseph H. — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 18:09:07 +0000

NSFW pareidolia had my mind in the gutter. So what I saw was a women wearing a cowl and nothing else. Her face is hidden but her chest stomach and navel appear and fade away as the waist approaches.

Similar to something you might see in a barbarian comic book.

By: Ann

Ann — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 18:06:10 +0000

I recognized the joke just from the title. Dear lord, I’m geekier than I thought I was.

By: Joseph G

Joseph G — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 17:19:54 +0000

Chalk me up in the “bloody heart” column. In fact, that’s ALL I can see.
Does this qualify as the galaxy’s biggest Rorschach Test? And should I be worried?

Serious astronomy question, though – the bubble is hundreds of light years across, and yet, the heliopause of our own sun is just a matter of light-hours distant. I know blue stars are extremely energetic, but enough so that their solar winds reach out several dozen (at least, right?) light-years and still have enough oomph to move what must be dozens or hundreds of solar masses worth of matter?

Phil was absolutely right when he said that astronomy tends to positively crush your sense of scale.

/boggled

By: Richard

Richard — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 16:03:41 +0000

You must of had chilled monkey brains for breakfast to come up with something like that!

By: Kausik Datta

Kausik Datta — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 16:01:24 +0000

I see a gigantic mouth trying to devour a jellyfish. Talk of pareidolia!!

By: Roberto

Roberto — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 16:01:24 +0000

Phil, your pareidolia sights are getting more far-fetched every time. I think it’s time to look for professional help…

By: J. Major

J. Major — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 15:54:18 +0000

Open shark jaws! NOM

By: Chad Brown

Chad Brown — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 15:43:47 +0000

I can see the sperm AND the monkey.. or should I say.. ape!? It looks like a chimp, right side of the face towards the viewer and looking in a slight downward angle (about 4 o clock).

The section of pinkyness directly to the right of the big bubble looks like a brow ridge and as soon as I saw that I got it..

Docta Jones!!