In commemoration of the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ:
I enjoy Christmas trees, but in this occasion, in lieu of a tree or other Christmas
decoration, I present this NASA photograph: This portion of a celestial “Christmas
tree” is located in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) at about 160K light years (LY)
from our own Milky Way Galaxy. The LMC spans some 14K LY (as compared to the
110K-LY size of our Milky Way Galaxy) and is one of our neighboring dwarf galaxies.
The LMC includes this young globular-like star cluster –NGC1850 which appears to
be only 50 million years old (seen towards the central region of this Hubble Space
Telescope photo). This cluster, composed by about 10K stars, is surrounded by a
pattern of filamentary (blue) nebulosity that is thought to have been created during
supernova blasts.
I estimate that the width of this photo spans some 130 LY, but it covers just a minute
point on the night sky as seen with the naked eye from planet Earth. To compare it,
the distance between our own star, the Sun, and our nearest neighbor star, Proxima
Centauri -a dwarf red star member of the triple star system Alpha Centauri, is a bit
more than 4 LY only.
Due to my love for astronomy and my greater love for God, the Creator, I believe
this sight is: excellent, wonderful, terrific, splendid, marvelous, tremendous,
magnificent, brilliant, inspired (and more synonyms)… and, with my love for people,
I present this view to you… thanks to NASA. Luis Felipe Molina. December 2, 2011
I enjoy Christmas trees, but in this occasion, in lieu of a tree or other Christmas
decoration, I present this NASA photograph: This portion of a celestial “Christmas
tree” is located in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) at about 160K light years (LY)
from our own Milky Way Galaxy. The LMC spans some 14K LY (as compared to the
110K-LY size of our Milky Way Galaxy) and is one of our neighboring dwarf galaxies.
The LMC includes this young globular-like star cluster –NGC1850 which appears to
be only 50 million years old (seen towards the central region of this Hubble Space
Telescope photo). This cluster, composed by about 10K stars, is surrounded by a
pattern of filamentary (blue) nebulosity that is thought to have been created during
supernova blasts.
I estimate that the width of this photo spans some 130 LY, but it covers just a minute
point on the night sky as seen with the naked eye from planet Earth. To compare it,
the distance between our own star, the Sun, and our nearest neighbor star, Proxima
Centauri -a dwarf red star member of the triple star system Alpha Centauri, is a bit
more than 4 LY only.
Due to my love for astronomy and my greater love for God, the Creator, I believe
this sight is: excellent, wonderful, terrific, splendid, marvelous, tremendous,
magnificent, brilliant, inspired (and more synonyms)… and, with my love for people,
I present this view to you… thanks to NASA. Luis Felipe Molina. December 2, 2011
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