A galaxy as seen by Hubble and Webb
Click for original image.
Cool image time. The picture to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken on March 20, 2026 in a coordinated observations by both the Hubble and Webb space telescopes.
This March 20, 2026, image of Messier 64, or the Black Eye Galaxy, is a composite view from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and James Webb Space Telescope. It shows Messier 64 captured at near- and mid-infrared wavelengths by Webb, while Hubble’s image shows the galaxy in ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared light.
Messier 64 is characterized by its bizarre internal motion. The gas in the outer regions of this spiral galaxy is rotating in the opposite direction from the gas and stars in its inner regions. This strange behavior may be the result of a merger between M64 and a satellite galaxy over a billion years ago.
The red in this image is dust, as the galaxy gets its nickname from the dark streak that wraps around its nucleus on its left side. In optical that streak is dark. Here Webb’s infrared view sees it in false color red.
READERS: It appears that it is a very slow news day today. Other than SpaceX’s IPO, which is on-going and too soon to post any reports, I can so far find nothing much of great significance on which to report.
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Nice picture. Why do I think it looks like the drain the Universe is going down?
Re: the SpaceX IPO, Forbes now reports Elon to be worth $1.2 trillion – more than four times the net worth of the #2 man on the billionaires list, Google’s Larry Page.
There will be people who will say this is not “fair.” I don’t agree. I think making big rockets is a lot more than four times as hard as making a search engine.
There will be an ex-barmaid from Westchester County who will say Elon couldn’t earn that much and must have stolen it from the rest of us – especially the poor. Good trick stealing an additional $400 billion in a matter of hours. Do all of the poor in America, put together, even have $400 billion to steal?
Of course, here in the Great White North, the SpaceX IPO didn’t go over very well with certain people:
https://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2026/06/12/you-dont-hate-the-media-nearly-enough-18/
It’s the Globe and Mail, one of those publications that tells its readers what to believe and how to think. This is coming from a country that once produced people who helped America put men on the moon.
The Left has control of academia, the news media, and pop culture.
There is little wonder why so many have come to view successful people with hatred and jealousy.
Dick Eagleson,
“There will be people who will say this is not ‘fair.’ I don’t agree. I think making big rockets is a lot more than four times as hard as making a search engine.”
This morning I heard a couple of commute radio entertainers talk about the IPO and that SpaceX’s cheap rockets have allowed for affordable manufacturing in space. They were impressed that pharmaceutical companies are making drugs in space, that other companies are planning to make fiber optics and data centers in space. They also pointed out that SpaceX is making thousands of its employees into multimillionaires. My question: Isn’t this kind of sharing of the wealth what leftists demand of companies and their owners? Of course, the radio guys think that the SpaceX employees aren’t going to show up for work on Monday, now that they are rich.
“There will be an ex-barmaid from Westchester County who will say Elon couldn’t earn that much and must have stolen it from the rest of us – especially the poor. Good trick stealing an additional $400 billion in a matter of hours. Do all of the poor in America, put together, even have $400 billion to steal?”
So the innovations involved in reducing the cost to orbit is already resulting in great benefits to we earthlings, and that is an extraordinary thing that deserves extraordinary reward. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez may not be able to earn a billion dollars — and does not deserve that much — but others can earn that much and more — and do deserve it.
All anyone has to do is come up with an idea that improves people’s lives so much that they willingly pay for the product or service. The barmaid isn’t that smart, but there are some pretty smart people in this world, and there always has been. If we don’t reward people for their very beneficial innovations, who will produce the innovative benefits for us all?
To answer your question, Dick: According to the IRS, the poor don’t have enough to pay their fair share of taxes. The bottom 50% of earners (these are the ones with incomes) pay -3% of the taxes. Yes, a negative number, because some people receive more benefits from tax credits than they pay in taxes, giving them additional revenue from the IRS itself.
Like most companies in America, SpaceX’s revenues come voluntarily in exchange or goods or services. Some people have a strange definition of “theft.”
Someone posted on X that Musk is now worth more than Canada. The Canadian national debt is now more than 1 trillion dollars (presumably in loonies–about 30% less in terms of American funds), with the interest on it being a billion dollars per week.
If Musk was to liquidate his assets, he could easily wipe out that debt.
BMJ; You are posting a lot of stuff about Musk and SpaceX’s IPO on threads that are inappropriate. I don’t really mind that much, but there is a place to do this off thread stuff every day, in the quick links post. Could you consider keeping this in mind?
And please continue to comment. It is good stuff. I just want it in a more pertinent location.
I should add that it isn’t just BMJ. That IPO really has nothing to do with this galaxy image. :)
Maybe that galaxy has a star in it for every dollar Elon Musk is now worth? :)
Duly noted, and my apologies.
It’s ‘theft’ if you have a dollar more than I do.
Robert,
Sorry for getting off topic. Even those of us who don’t intend to buy the stock individually are excited that space is finally going to fund itself in a very big way. We have let the enthusiasm spill over into the other topics.
Anyone who spends money on rocketry is to be lauded.
I just wonder why it is so many of the super rich are weirdos like John McAfee.
I cannot stand Paul Allen’s sister.