Twisted Double-helix Nebula found in Milky Way
Posted on: Wednesday, 15 March 2006, 13:40 CST
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Cosmic nebulae usually look like blobs in space, but astronomers using the Spitzer Space Telescope reported on Wednesday they have found a nebula twisted like the double helix of DNA.
"Nobody has ever seen anything like that before in the cosmic realm," said Mark Morris of the University of California, Los Angeles. Most nebulae are "formless, amorphous conglomerations of dust and gas," Morris said in a statement, adding that this one "indicates a high degree of order."
The discovery of the twisted nebula, which stretches across 80 light-years at the center of the Milky Way, the galaxy that includes Earth, was reported in the current edition of the journal Nature.
A light-year is about 6 trillion miles, the distance light travels in a year.
"We see two intertwining strands wrapped around each other as in a DNA molecule," said Morris, lead author of the Nature article.
DNA, which forms the basic material in chromosomes, has a molecule that looks like a twisted ladder, known as a double helix.
The strands of the nebula may be torqued by twisted magnetic fields at the Milky Way's center, Morris said by telephone.
These magnetic fields are indirectly spawned by the gaping black hole at the galactic heart, he said. Black holes are massive matter-sucking drains in space, pulling in everything around them so powerfully that not even light can escape.
But before the matter falls into the black hole, it swirls around its edges. This rotation twists the magnetic fields, which in turn twist the nebula's strands, Morris said.
The nebula is relatively close to the black hole, just 300 light-years away. Earth is more than 25,000 light-years away.
NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope detects the infrared energy emitted by objects in space with high sensitivity and resolution, enabling it to clearly see the nebula's distinctive shape.
Source: REUTERS
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User Comments (1)
| 1. |
Posted by Arnold Wolf on 07/01/2007, 14:11 So Mr. Morris thinks that this aberrant nebula is most probably formed from large magnetic forces acting on a blob of gas, particles and meteor that form the common template of all human life on earth. I wonder if the DNA nucleotides in the cells of our body are formed by a magnetic force from a nearby black hole twisting into a complex encrypted code that directs the formation of particles into our functioning bodies with awareness and consciousness. Mr. Morris has a nice hypothesis that avoids any other explanations. This statement by Mr Morris is the equivalent of comparing green cheese to Alice's looking glass. Also wonder how a magnetic force of that magnitude can be determined from a infrared image seen in a Spitzer telescope? Does Mr. Morris believe in wind, water, fire and water as the basis for all things in the cosmos? |
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