The center of our spiral Milky Way Galaxy is loaded with stars, dust and gas, and at its very center, a supermassive black hole.

Astronomers have at last observed newborn stars at the center of our galaxy. The discovery was made using the infrared vision of NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope.

Conditions at the center are fierce, with stellar winds and powerful shock waves .

And all the cosmic dust that is between us and the center of our galaxy has prevented observations -- until now.

The galactic center is a very interesting place. It has young stars, old stars, black holes, everything. It is is a mysterious place, just a fraction of the size of the entire Milky Way, but stuffed with 10 percent of all the gas in the galaxy -- and loads and loads of stars.

The team of scientists have found three very young stars embedded in cocoons of gas and dust -- stars that will help reveal the secrets at the core of the Milky Way. The young stellar objects are all less than about 1 million years old !

new development

Look past the beautiful mountain from the doorway.

Look toward the New Development.

You can not see it from the doorway --

Long to go there.

You want to see a living place sheltered by walls and gates.

One day,  drive through the New Development.

Be shocked by its emptiness,

its high walls with new streets far beneath,

barren, utterly new, no grass yet,

and everything shades of the same red brown,

even the houses and the roofs of the houses.

Who lives here?

One open garage, one lit living room,

and on a TV, the Sicilian volcano --

scary fertile hot lava beds look more hospitable than the pitiful future gardens

of the New Development.

Drive home (it's so close).

Look past the beautiful mountain, scarred by the New Development.

Look toward the walls and gates that you can not see.

It seemed like another planet, didn't it,

unearthly, ugly, and unnatural.

You will long to go there again.

by H.A. Krein

Adam (a first) Lambert (a sacrifice) is a god come to teach us about our relationship with Nature.

Things are looking up.

Sid Laverents "Multiple SIDosis"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cRZmvr-2QM  

don't know if yous saw the obituary the other day, but above is a link to his best-loved film.  

the intro sets it up so you can appreciate his technical achievement; stick with it to the fun part. 




here is the link to his obit (he was 100 years old):

http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-sid-laverents13-2009may13,0,4848753,full.story  

and this obit which is a bit better:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/17/arts/17laverents.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=sid%20laverents&st=cse

To me he is the artist with one hundred per cent inspiration AND one hundred per cent perspiration -- work that's not play make jack and jill dull. 

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/43571/title/Honing_the_Hubble_constant

Revised value supports finding that dark energy does not vary with time

Dark energy is a mysterious repulsive force that causes the universe to expand at an increasing rate.

The question of whether or not dark energy varies with time has profound significance for the fate of the universe. For instance, if the stuff grows stronger with time — akin to stepping on the cosmic accelerator — the entire universe could end in a Big Rip, with every last atom torn asunder. A constant dark energy would end in a lonely universe, with every galaxy fleeing from each other so rapidly that a Milky Way astronomer some 30 billion years from now would look out and see nothing beyond our galaxy’s own stars. If dark energy drops to zero, the universe might end in a Big Crunch, with gravity’s tug creating a giant implosion.

-- Ron Cowen

guinevere's gown through the looking glass