The Speculist

When I was a kid, Saturn was the only planet with a ring and it was still possible to believe that Mars might have canals. A few probe fly-by's and landings in the 60's and 70's were able to clear up those (and countless other) misconceptions. For a while there, we went through this wonderful period when it seemed that, every few days, there something amazing and new to learn about the solar system.

The truth is, we're probably learning more about our local celestial neighborhood now than we were even then, what with more sophisticated instruments and a much more advanced body of knowledge to build on. But the big, dramatic discoveries within the solar system -- the kind that just required a decent view of objects we had never truly seen before -- have tapered off a bit. It may be a while before we have any more big ones. The discovery of liquid water on Mars notwithstanding; I'm talking about big stuff. Giant bacteria swimming in the Jovian atmosphere, ruined cities found on one of Saturn's moons, that kind of thing.

(By the way, don't forget that you read both of those here first.)

Meanwhile interstellar space has picked up the slack where big, Jerry Bruckheimeresque discoveries are concerned. We've been finding planets and things that may or may not be planets like they're going out of style. Sooner or later we're going to spot an earthlike planet out there, and then some corks are going to pop.

But we shouldn't let planetmania get the better of us. Planets aren't the only things out there that are interesting. If we bring our scale up one more order of magnitude and start talking about intergalactic space, we open ourselves up to some of the biggest discoveries being made.

Take Andromeda, our plucky little next door neighbor in the universe. It will be a while before we find that the entire core of that particular galaxy has been subsumed by a vast, Borg-like hivemind intent on swallowing everything in its path and that means us (once again, you read it here first), but that doesn't mean that Andromeda doesn't have a lot of secrets left to reveal. For example, the fact that it's actually three times bigger than we thought it was.

And just keep in mind, we're talking about a galaxy, here. Sure, if you get, say, a hamburger that's three times bigger than normal, you're going to think it's big. But when a galaxy is three times bigger than you thought it was, that's...big, folks.

Big.

Even so, size isn't the only surprise the galaxies have up their sleeve. Perhaps you will remember M104, after which this blog once named its posse of supporters. The name was an obvious choice, seeing as M104's other name is The Sombrero Galaxy (sombrero's being an excellent headgear choice for futuristic posses.) M104 came by the nickname honestly, as shown by the image below.

Looks like a sombrero, doesn't it?

Well, no. As spectacular as this breakthrough image is, it doesn't quite reveal the whole truth about M104. Via Jay Manifold, behold M104, now redubbed the Bullseye Galaxy:

Amazing. Just goes to show you. Even after we get the "definitve" image of an astronomical object, we still have plenty to learn about it.

But this new image of the Bullseye Galaxy should hold us until the day that we learn that the dot in the center houses a huge black hole, billions of times more massive than our sun. And remember, you read about it --

Oh.

Actually, you read about it here first.