“Something cool” captured by Hubble telescope

Nebula-type thing “holds secret of life”, maybe

Scientists working with the Hubble Space Telescope have captured this image of something particularly cool somewhere up there.

Measuring lots of light years across, the thing is believed to date right back to before the creation of some other things which also look cool in pictures, said Irving Demetre, the project’s Graphical Enhancement Specialist, especially when rendered with totally awesome hues like this one.

“We believe that the image could tell us something about the nature of life itself,” Demetre said during a press interview yesterday. “I mean, just look at it! Makes you feel really small, yet somehow special. Especially those reds. And it’s a long way away too – you can tell it’s miles away by the way the background’s been done.”

Images like this one are made by combining high-resolution infrared data with radio and microwave-length data from a multi-inch telescope thing attached to a space rocket. These are rendered by NASA’s computers as digital images; these are released to the public, who then circulate them to each other in mass emails with subjects like “WOW! AMAZING PICS!!”, without really comprehending what the hell the picture is supposed to show.

“Of course,” said Demetre later, “this isn’t actually a photograph as such; more of a representation, really.  In fact, for all we know it could be made by some tedious unemployed blogger in Yorkshire with a photo of a cloud and copy of Photoshop.   But then, they all look like that after a while, don’t they? “