Science is Hard

This morning I was looking at new pictures from the Hubble Space Telescope. The new photo was labeled "Butterfly Nebulous," which immediately sparked my attention. It is found in the Scorpius constellation.

I looked at the picture. The article then said this:

"The gas is tearing across space at more than 600,000 miles an hour -- fast enough to travel from Earth to the moon in 24 minutes," NASA's Web site says. The "butterfly" is more than 2 light-years across.

I don't understand. Two light-years across? Miles? Yes...I understand that. Light years? I still have no concept of what that means. I mean, I know what it means...I just don't know what it means. Light years are like telephone wires or microwaves. They are there and they happen, but I have no understanding of them at all. I also don't care that I don't know. I once read Stephen Hawking's "A Brief History of Time."

I read the words. That's about all that happened. There was no absoption of information. It's almost as if I read a book that said:

"Me are the ones of conventry pageant. Simple time is creates a dog bowl!" That's about as much sense as I could make of it. Why must astronomers be so brill? (I used "brill" to show that I am not "brill." Get it?) All I've ever wanted to do in my life is float through space, and yet, I was cursed with an easily nauseated stomach and a complete inability to comprehend the space/time continuum. Poop on that.

I'd also like to thank blogger.com for only allowing me to type in italics today. Thank you.

Back to my story:

If I could type the caption below the butterfly nebula, it would say:

This is called a butterfly nebula. It looks pretty. See the pretty colors? Parts of it look like they're spreading out into space! Neat, huh? Some of the nebula...wait...scratch that...parts of the bug sparkles look squishy, don't they? Do you like sparkles? I like sparkles! Maybe when you die, stuff looks like this! Wouldn't that be neat?

Anyway...that's what I'd put. I like to be asked questions like a 4 year-old and then reassured that my answers are okay.

One more thing: I would like to thank blogger.com for only allowing me to type in BOLD, italics now. What the hell?

Go Pokes.