Observation Points

Welcome to the heart of the Lagoon Nebula, as seen through the Hubble telescope and NASA's reconstruction lens.

Just gorgeous.

For some reason, I find these beautiful pictures of various points in space immensely comforting.  There are so many variations on the same theme of beauty combined with great destructive power, over and over again:  planets, galaxies, nebulae, you name it, all spinning out there together in some sort of random yet not so random harmony.

As Ellie's father in Contact says, if there isn't other life out there in the vast cosmos that surrounds us, "it would be an awful waste of space."  And somehow?  I find that comforting in that hopefully life goes on, even if we manage to muck things up with abandon.

It's back to the school library for me today.  Last week I managed to get all of the shelves up and put together and even got a few books moved over to the new space and shelved.

But there are a LOT of books to yet be moved, sorted and shelved.  Lots of decor to finish putting up all over the library, and two bench seats to put together today along with another floor lamp to finish out the decor.

And I have two weeks in which to get it all done.  Better get moving...

(Photo via NASA Goddard Photo and Video.  Gorgeous stuff -- click through to see a larger version.)