The Caliphate Concept

Posted on June 10, 2015 by Emmett

This new NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image presents the Arches Cluster, the densest known star cluster in the Milky Way. It is located about 25 000 light-years from Earth in the constellation of Sagittarius (The Archer), close to the heart of our galaxy, the Milky Way. It is, like its neighbour the Quintuplet Cluster, a fairly young astronomical object at between two and four million years old. The Arches cluster is so dense that in a region with a radius equal to the distance between the Sun and its nearest star there would be over 100 000 stars! At least 150 stars within the cluster are among the brightest ever discovered in the the Milky Way. These stars are so bright and massive, that they will burn their fuel within a short time, on a cosmological scale, just a few million years, and die in spectacular supernova explosions. Due to the short lifetime of the stars in the cluster, the gas between the stars contains an unusually high amount of heavier elements, which were produced by earlier generations of stars. Despite its brightness the Arches Cluster cannot be seen with the naked eye. The visible light from the cluster is completely obscured by gigantic clouds of dust in this region. To make the cluster visible astronomers have to use detectors which can collect light from the X-ray, infrared, and radio bands, as these wavelengths can pass through the dust clouds. This observation shows the Arches Cluster in the infrared and demonstrates the leap in Hubble’s performance since its 1999 image of same object.

What a load of bullshit, huh? Caliphates in the 21st Century. Well, they are a negation of nationalism; a denial of the direction of world politics for the last 1,000 years or so. What blows me away is the idea that those people in ISIS really believe that some Deity they have never seen nor heard — but which happens to be the RIGHT Deity, oh lucky they, born in just the right time and place to have access to the truth! — is behind their new/old way of governing themselves.

Although religion is not responsible for the tragedies of human nature, it sure doesn’t make things better.

About Emmett

I am a 1st grade teacher who loves reading, writing, hiking, corresponding, learning languages, and lots of other stuff fit for a person with mild ADD. I am married to the wonderful Angela Estes and I have two fabulous daughters, Margaret and Emily.
This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply