Excellent post Rajini Rao and some great prose. It is odd, is it not, that we feel the need to even mention the G word when refer to this kind of thing. I know that Vatican got involved in the early debates about how the universe came about and sided with the Big Bang theory as it matched the scriptures – which hindered the growth of that theory.
I know that Atheism in the States is frowned upon somewhat but I find the pursuit of scientific truth otherwise hindered.
Wow, thanks Koen De Paus . I was ticked off that HuffPo did not bother to source any of the images (not an auspicious start to their Science section). Did you do an image search (or perhaps you just had Monocerotis stamped in your memory?) 🙂
madame scientist's not-so-mad musings 
Excellent post Rajini Rao and some great prose. It is odd, is it not, that we feel the need to even mention the G word when refer to this kind of thing. I know that Vatican got involved in the early debates about how the universe came about and sided with the Big Bang theory as it matched the scriptures – which hindered the growth of that theory.
I know that Atheism in the States is frowned upon somewhat but I find the pursuit of scientific truth otherwise hindered.
I love that picture and the story behind it is even better; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:V838_Monocerotis_expansion.jpg
It’s still not quite sure what caused this event and I love myself a good mystery. 😉 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V838_Monocerotis
Wow, thanks Koen De Paus . I was ticked off that HuffPo did not bother to source any of the images (not an auspicious start to their Science section). Did you do an image search (or perhaps you just had Monocerotis stamped in your memory?) 🙂
I’ve encountered this beauty before and she’s impossible to forget afterwards. 😉
I’ve got a wallpaper size picture of those 4 dated stages in my RealityCheck album. (I just noticed google scaled it down to 2k resolution – boo!) https://picasaweb.google.com/108487783243149848473/RealityCheck#slideshow/5632973146142367538
That’s quite a collection you have there, Koen De Paus ! From the Satanic (?) Leaf Tailed Gecko to the Butterfly Nebula..thanks for the share 🙂
nice
its really spectacular!
R u student