Crab Nebula
According to the folklore of the Celts and other ancient cultures, Halloween marked the midpoint between the autumnal equinox and the winter solstice on the astronomical calendar, a spooky night when spirits of the dead spread havoc upon their return to Earth.
Nowadays, Halloween is primarily a time for children to dress in costume and demand treats, but the original spirit of Halloween lives on in the sky in the guise of the Crab Nebula.
A star’s spectacular death in the constellation Taurus was observed on Earth as the supernova of 1054 A.D. Now, almost a thousand years later, a superdense neutron star left behind by the stellar death is spewing out a blizzard of extremely high-energy particles into the expanding debris field known as the Crab Nebula.
It’s really worth a peek, once a month or so, to see what the folks at the Chandra Observatory are up to.
OK, now I’m confused. Just answer me this: As a Christian am I still supposed to stone children who show up wearing satanic costumes?!
#1 Only if you want to.. 🙂
Check ’em for radiation, first.
its a day to get drunk… except i gotta work the day after, so not this yr…
Go ahead if they’re more than, say 11 or 12. I hate it when teens come up, in half-assed costumes, mumbling demands for snacks. Go get a job! Here, here’s a pack of Feen-A-Mint; chew the whole pack!
Anyway, I love this stuff and make treks to the local observatories when I can, just to show my support if nothing else (it gets damned cold at night up here though!)