Credit & Copyright: Adam Block, Mt. Lemmon SkyCenter, U. Arizona

Explanation: Charles Messier described the 88th entry in his 18th century catalog of Nebulae and Star Clusters as a spiral nebula without stars. Of course the gorgeous M88 is now understood to be a galaxy full of stars, gas, and dust, not unlike our own Milky Way. In fact, M88 is one of the brightest galaxies in the Virgo Galaxy Cluster some 50 million light-years away. M88′s beautiful spiral arms are easy to trace in this colorful cosmic portrait. The arms are lined with young blue star clusters, pink star-forming regions, and obscuring dust lanes extending from a yellowish core dominated by an older population of stars. Spiral galaxy M88 spans over 100,000 light-years.

Gratuitous Quote of the Day “To heal our country we need to get the arrogance out of the White House and the elitists out of the Congress. We need tough love. We need a real adult in the White House because we don’t have adults in the Congress.” (Peggy Noonan’s friend)

Now that isn’t what I wanted to say. I have been reading about our own galaxy, The Milky Way, and how our solar system seems specifically designed and placed in the galaxy at a point which affords mankind a view of the universe. How did that happen? By accident or by design? You can make up your own mind about that, but it has started me off on a new quest to better understand our solar system and the universe.

So it is back to the world of Copernicus and Galileo and Einstein and Bohrs and … . Stay tuned. I hope to share some questions and perhaps new insights from time to time here on the Orlop.

Dave, whose head is also spinning.