Bad Astronomy

Spirals out of control

Who doesn’t love a spiral galaxy? Majestic, sparkling, lovely to behold… I could go on and on about the marvelous and wondrous science behind them; how spiral arms form, why stars are born there, and how the passage of a nearby galaxy can disturb their graceful symmetry.

But instead, I’ll just point you to the European Southern Observatory collection of disturbed spiral galaxies and simply let you absorb their beauty.

Sigh.