You hear that sound?
That’s the sound of my brain melting.
Smells kinda good, doesn’t it?
Giant Mystery Blob Discovered Near Dawn of Time
A newly found primordial blob may represent the most massive object ever discovered in the early universe, researchers announced today.
The gas cloud, spotted from 12.9 billion light-years away, could signal the earliest stages of galaxy formation back when the universe was just 800 million years old.
Ah, yes. Of course. NOW I remember when this happened...
A light-year is the distance light travels in a year, about 6 trillion miles (10 trillion kilometers). An object 12.9 billion light-years away is seen as it existed 12.9 billion years ago, and the light is just now arriving.
The cloud predates similar blobs, known as Lyman-Alpha blobs, which existed when the universe was 2 billion to 3 billion years old. Researchers named their new find Himiko, after an ancient Japanese queen with an equally murky past.
Himiko holds more than 10 times as much mass as the next largest object found in the early universe, or roughly the equivalent mass of 40 billion suns. At 55,000 light years across, it spans about half the diameter of our Milky Way Galaxy.
Lyman-Alpha blobs remain a mystery because existing telescopes have a hard time peering so far back to nearly the dawn of the universe.
Himiko sits right on the doorstep of an era called the reionization epoch, which lasted between 200 million and 1 billion years after the Big Bang. That’s when the universe had just emerged from its cosmic dark ages and had begun brightening through the formation of stars and galaxies. Hot, energized hydrogen gas from that time period has allowed astronomers to begin seeing some objects — as much good as it does to squint at such fuzzy blobs.
Okay, so wha…?
what?
WHAT?
They can see the dawn of time through a telescope!?
WHAT!?!?
Did the rest of you know this!?
Are you all just walking around, “La la la the beginning of time is over thataways, but I’m here so it’s all good.”
Seriously? Did you know this!?
Because I didn’t know this, and I, for one, am unsettled by it.
Add this to the list of recent phenomena entering my brain and providing rich fodder for nightmares: Daisy of Love, flourescent puppies, swine flu, blobs at the beginning of time, and Maude.
In other news, I’ve decided to start randomly giving you advice. Maybe I’ll start distributing it through high-priced homemade fortune cookies? For now, it’s typed on this blog. Ignore my wisdom at your own peril.
Never trust anyone that owns a python of their own free will.
Tags: blob at the dawn of time, funny news in a crappy world, funny random stories, God good I really don't want to get swine flu, Himiko, Humor, humorous blog, Humorous but ultimately stupid news, humorous musings, humorous random musings, humorous take on the news, I am so not happy about this swine flu hysteria, If I have to die young can it be of something less lame-sounding of swine flu?, Life, on a clear day you can see the dawn of time, on a clear day you can see the start of the universe, pointless random observations, Pythons are scary, Pythons eat big things live, pythons make bad pets, Pythons should not be in your basement, random, random humorous observations, random musings, random sh*t floating around in my head, random stuff I find on the web, science scares me, Sometimes a little bit of knowledge is a bad thing, swine flu, swine flu hysteria', Why in gods name would you want a python?, wild random observations
I didn’t see the blob at the time……must have been washing my hair that evening……
…and the glow in the dark puppies, like wtf ?? hound of the baskervilles, it’s all coming true…..