Caltech astronomer Robert Hurt is responsible for the vast majority
Photo: NASA. Collage: "Hi-tech"
Like clouds on Earth, clouds of gasand dust in space can sometimes resemble familiar objects or even popular movie creatures. As Hurt said, he didn’t specifically look for the silhouettes of the monster in the telescope images. “I just happened to look at an area of the sky that I had looked at many times before, but I had never zoomed in on. Sometimes framing changes everything. I saw eyes and a mouth that screamed, “This is Godzilla,” says the astronomer.
In fact, the photo showsnebula - a cloud of gas and dust in space - photographed by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Over billions of years, countless stars have formed in this place. When viewed in visible light, which human eyes can discern, this area is almost completely hidden by dust. But infrared light can penetrate clouds, revealing hidden areas like this.
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