To my eye, this is one of the most beautiful patches of the night sky. CLICK on IMAGE above to view full-screen
A Stellar Nursery Next Door
At about 460 light-years away, Rho Ophiuchi is one of the closest star-forming regions to Earth — practically in our backyard, cosmically speaking. It’s dense with young stars still wrapped in the gas and dust they formed from, some barely a hundred thousand years old. A few of the youngest already have their own circumstellar disks — the raw material for future planets — which is part of why this region turns up in professional astronomy too.
I’ve wanted to post this since we entered 2010 – so I’m not too far behind. The image above, created at Wordle.com – creates a beautiful rendering of a source text – in this case, my 2009 ramblings on Twitter – and creates an image giving greater prominence to more frequently used words. Read on for some other examples. Or head over to Wordle and try it for yourself.
