Giant Nebula Hand in Space Photographed

In an old and rare Star Trek comic book, there's this story where the starship Enterprise gets held in space by a giant hand which turns out to be that of a space genie or a pretty physical illusion of one. Anyway, that was a fictional "hand in space." Astronomers have found a real one and it appears to be a right hand reaching out to a red nebula.

The hand in space is really part of pulsar PSR B1509-58. It used to be a star that collapsed on itself due to gravity to a mere 12 miles in diameter. So you can imagine how powerful this piece of matter is and the amount of energy it releases into space as the extremely powerful magnetic field directs subatomic particles like electrons outwards creating x-rays. The "blue hand" is a result of these x-rays from the pulsar and was revealed by the Chandra X-ray Observatory. It is a great example of a simulacrum. This one will likely be used for a lot of astronomy posters.

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Chief of Dinosaurs Fossil Found in Argentina

A new giant, plant-eating dinosaur has been found in Argentina by paleontologists. Called Futalognkosaurus dukei, it is believed to be one of the largest dinosaurs that ever existed. It also has one of the most difficult-to-remember names. Alive, it would have measured at least 32 meters in length, or 105 feet. The bones found showed evidence of being chewed upon by carnivores. The name is inspired by the native Mapuche people's words for "giant chief of the lizards." Director Jorge Calvo of the paleontology center at the National University of Comahue in Argentina says the find is one of the most complete of the dinosaur giants that exist. The image on top is an artist's rendition of how Argentina may have looked like 80 million years ago with F. dukei on the left.

The pictures are from the British Broadcasting Corporation site.

For a video of the fossils, jump here to i-Mash.

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