Contemplating NGC 4258

An anomalous galaxy — NGC 4258 is a spiral galaxy well known to astronomers for having two “anomalous” arms that glow in X-ray, optical, and radio light. Rather than being aligned with the plane of the galaxy, they intersect with it at an angle. This composite image of NGC 4258 shows the galaxy in X-rays from Chandra (blue), radio waves from the VLA (purple), optical data from Hubble (yellow and blue), and infrared with Spitzer (red). Researchers are using all of these telescopes to better understand how the supermassive black hole is affecting the galaxy and its anomalous arms.
(Chandra X-Ray Observatory/Caltech/NASA public domain) Click to enlarge.

It seems to me that it’s appropriate, on the Sabbath, to consider the sheer grandeur of the cosmos.

O Lord, our Lord,
    how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens.
2     Out of the mouth of babies and infants,
you have established strength because of your foes,
    to still the enemy and the avenger.

3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
4 what is man that you are mindful of him,
and the son of man that you care for him?

5 Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings[b]
    and crowned him with glory and honor.
6 You have given him dominion over the works of your hands;
    you have put all things under his feet,
7 all sheep and oxen,
    and also the beasts of the field,
8 the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea,
    whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

9 O Lord, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!

Posted from Monterey, California