Always nice to check back in with Needle Galaxy, so named because, well, you know... It's on edge, its thin, and it's cool. It even has its own entrourage of other galaxies following behind. Rather resembles a fleet of incoming UFOs. Or maybe even a mid century poster image (it often was). Cataloged as NGC4565, the galaxy presents itself on-edge. Many galaxies do, of course, but this one seems nicely framed with fewer of our own stars and followed by a dozen other galaxies. It's a distant 40 million light years a way.

This is where I mention again the stuff that's hard to grasp—Being 40 million light years away means the light my telescope is seeing is that old. That means this image is how Needle appeared 39 million years before humans first appeared on Earth. An excellent example of the space-time continuum.

Yes, brings to mind that famous conversation in Animal House...

"This is nuts! That means that one tiny atom in my fingernail could be...could be one tiny little universe!"

To be so visible at such a distance suggests Needle is big. Really big. Astronomers have determined that it is brighter and bigger than our close neighbor Andromeda, which is, in turn, thought to be bigger than our own Milky Way. Needle's shape is a common one with two spiral arms. Special instruments show the supermassive black hole in the center may be spinning more slowly than what is common.

Needle looks perfectly semetrical here, but a close examination shows the outer disk is slightly warped in the middle. One of the outer spirals is lifted up out of the rotational plane, allowing us to get a glimpse of the bright nucleus. It is thought that it is bent by the gravity from other nearby galaxies. Remember that all of the galaxies seen here are bigger and closer to each other than they seem. We can only see the brightest stuff near the nucleus Each of these is really three times wider. The dimmer spirals just get lost in the blackness of space.

Which is all well and good, but I can't help hearing the rippling sound of terrestrial flying saucers along with the theme from the Jetsons

Perhaps I'll add that cartoon's' title song to tonight's playlist—after finishing the more calming ditty by jazz pianist Brad Mehldau, The Folks Who Live on the Hill.