Stargazers peer into the 'Eye of God' The European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere, aka (mercifully) ESO, has released an impressive image of the Helix Nebula captured by La Silla Observatory in Chile. The nebula, lying at around 700 light-years away in the constellation of Aquarius, has quickly been dubbed the "Eye of God", for …
Surely anybody with even a basic sense of logic can only be drawing the conclusion from this and various rigourously conducted scientific research that there is NO "god".
If the sky-fairy brigade want to take every bit of evidence leading towards big bang theory and turn that on its head to meet their own "god" agenda then that is their right, of course, but I would expect El Reg to fall on the side of rationalism not superstition.
Sure, it looks like an (human/animal) eye, but given nobody (who hasn't received a sharp blow on the head or is suffering mental illness or delusions) has actually seen "god" (why might that be I wonder??) how does anybody conclude it looks like the "eye of god".
</rant>
Paris - at least she exists.
Not to deflate this story but this image came round on email months ago.
It's nice but not exactly what I'd call the Eye of God.
Looks like he had a late night.
And blue eyes? Think he/she/it has got blonde hair too? Maybe a beard and white robe as well?
Oh do just give up.
Besides there's loads of better pics of galaxies and nebula that would make a much better contender for 'Eye of God' status.
Personally I'll keep an eye out for the left earlobe of God.
Or maybe the quiff of the Almighty.
The Eye of Harmony.
Less likely to agitate the pro/anti-religious nutters, and finally some stellar recognition for Gallifrey. Yes I know that strictly it should be a black hole, but lets be a little creative. Think of it as a re-imagining.
I guess I'll have the one with the really stiff high collar and shoulder pads.
(Want to know why they wear them? To avoid being stabbed in the back by all the other Lord Cardinals)
Have you actually, physically met her?
For all you know, she could just be a figment of your over-active imagination.
"Just be grateful it's not the Arse of God. "
That's where we are at the moment, is it not. It would certainly explain the current levels of 'deep shit' we appear (to me anyway, but I could be imagining all this) to be experiencing.
The impressivness of this image is that it is a ground based image. The well known versions of the Helix, the origional "Eye of God" pic that does the rounds is a Hubble image. This new image is an exemplar of the astounding strides made in ground based observations in the days since the HST first flew. There is a very good reason the James Webb telescope, if and, when, it finally flies won't be a visual wavelength 'scope. Since the HST flew visible wavlength astronomy from ground based telescopes has closed the gap and are now exceeding the HST's capability. Not just in light grasp (which they always had) but in raw resolution. Space based observations need to look at stuff we can't see from the ground to continue to justify themselves.
Go download the original image and have a look. All 85MB of it. Then compare with the NASA HST image. The ESA image has about twice the resolution. (And less noise.) Now THAT is impressive.
If it's the "other end", wouldn't that be a black hole in the centre?
Though considering black holes tend to swallow matter than throw it out... anyone else remember the Red Dwarf episode about the planet where time travels backwards and the scene with the Cat at the end?
Hang on just one little min
Just because it is called eye of god does not necersarilly infer that the namee beleives in god.
It represents what that individual can represent an image in his mind !
If i tell you i met a man with glowing Red eyes would you not have a picture in your mind as to what the eyes look like. Regardless of the fact you beleive my fancifull tales of a friday night.
And anyway i think its ceiling Cats eye !
Ceiling cat is watching you Mas........
Sir Isaac Newton, possibly the greatest scientist of all time, was also one of the biggest religious maniacs of his day. Meanwhile, the worst mass murderers in history (Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, Mao) were avowed humanists who denied the existence of god.
I'm not saying this to defend anyone's right to believe or not to believe anything, just that human behaviour is a lot more complex than some people on this thread seem to realise.
Paris, to try and distract some of you from your fulminations...
I just got out of the wrong side of bed this morning. I was more disgruntled at the use of the word "obvious" than the word "god". The eye of god is a name that would simply never have occured to me is all...
And I am really not going to get into any frustrating and ultimately unresolvable arguments about religion or tolerance or anything else along those lines. I have many, many better ways of wasting time.
I don't believe in gods, religion or any other hocus pocus, but nothing irritates me more when the arsehat brigade start acting oh-so-offended just because something has a name that sounds a bit religious.
You want to call Christmas 'The Holidays', go right ahead, but fuck off forcing other people to conform to your crybaby and extremely boring existence.
The truth is these people are just anti-Christian. You don't see them asking for Mars and Venus to be renamed or the Sun and Moon for that matter. No, but because someone used a bit of poetic license to name a giant gas cloud The Eye of God, they're getting their panties in a twist. Fuck off back to California where you belong.
But the first I heard about this was in the tabloid newspaper The Sun today. They excitedly stated that it would take light two and a half years to cross. And then when on to say that it could have whole galaxies in it.
Humm, me thinks that the Sun science editor (should such a post exist) would like to invest in an encyclopaedia that told them what the approximate diameter of a galaxy was. They may be rather surprised to find that it is a bit larger than 2.5 light years.
Mind you, it’s not as bad as the Pepsi re-brand that’s currently doing the rounds on the Internet. Search for Pepsi and breathtaking. They say that a light year is 671 million mile an hour.
As to jobs and who deserves them, I'll leave that to you.
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