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Nebula Quotes

Browse 19 quotes about Nebula.

Nebula Quotes

“The dark sky. A hundred million stars. More stars than I’ve ever seen before. My eyes let me see farther, but they don’t show me the one thing I want to see. I would trade all the stars in the universe if I could just have him back again. Wind whistles through the trees nearby. Birdsong weaves in and out of the sound. The hybrids emerge from the communication building, heads tilted to the sky. And then we see the end. Godspeed’s engine was nuclear; who knows what fueled the biological weapons. But they explode together. In space, they don’t make the familiar mushroom cloud. They don’t make the boom! of an exploding bomb. There is, against the dark sky, a brief flash of light. It is filled with colors, like a nebula or the aurora borealis, bursting like a popped bubble. Nothing else—no sound of an explosion, no tremors in the earth, no smell of smoke. Not here, on the surface of the planet. Nothing else to signify Elder’s death. Just light. And then it’s gone. And then he’s gone.”

DeathUniverseLostStarsGoneSkyDeadGalaxyAuroraAcross The UniverseElderNebulaShades Of EarthBurstAtu Series
Book:Shades of Earth
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“What caused me to undertake the catalog was the nebula I discovered above the southern horn of Taurus on September 12, 1758, while observing the comet of that year. ... This nebula had such a resemblance to a comet in its form and brightness that I endeavored to find others, so that astronomers would not confuse these same nebulae with comets just beginning to shine. I observed further with suitable refractors for the discovery of comets, and this is the purpose I had in mind in compiling the catalog. After me, the celebrated Herschel published a catalog of 2000 which he has observed. This unveiling the sky, made with instruments of great aperture, does not help in the perusal of the sky for faint comets. Thus my object is different from his, and I need only nebulae visible in a telescope of two feet [focal length].”

SciencePurposeSpaceSkyDiscoveryAstronomyTelescopeAstronomerNebulaTaurusCometWilliam HerschelFrederick William HerschelHerschelSir William HerschelCatalogCatalog Of Stars
Author:Charles Messier
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“On the most usual assumption, the universe is homogeneous on the large scale, i.e. down to regions containing each an appreciable number of nebulae. The homogeneity assumption may then be put in the form: An observer situated in a nebula and moving with the nebula will observe the same properties of the universe as any other similarly situated observer at any time.”

MayMovingFormScienceUniverseNumbersPropertyScalesObservationAssumptionRegionsUsualObserversContainingLarge ScaleHomogeneousHomogeneityNebula
Author:Hermann Bondi
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“The relationship between science and the humanities is two-way. Science changes our view of the world and our place in it. In the other direction, the humanities provide the store of ideas and images and language available to us in understanding the world. The exploding star of A.D. 1054, the Crab Nebula, was sighted and documented by the Chinese, but nowhere mentioned in the West, where the Aristotelian notion of the immortality of stars still held sway. We often do not see what we do not expect to see.”

WorldWayStillsTwoIdeasHumanityLanguageStarsUnderstandingViewsWestNotionAvailableStoresChineseImmortalityTwo WaysExplodingCrabsUnderstanding The WorldNebula
Book:Great Ideas in Physics
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“The destruction of this planet would have no significance on a cosmic scale: to an observer in the Andromeda nebula, the sign of our extinction would be no more than a match flaring for a second in the heavens: and if that match does blaze in the darkness there will be none to mourn a race that used a power that could have lit a beacon in the stars to light its funeral pyre. The choice is ours.”

IfsDoeLightWould BeUsedChoicesHeavenStarsRaceDarknessPlanetsDestructionAstronomyScalesSignificanceFuneralCosmicLitObserversExtinctionMournBeaconsAndromedaNebula
Author:Stanley Kubrick
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“I've got a telescope in my garden and one of the things I love to do is go out and let the sky, the night sky, the galaxies, the Orion nebula, have an impact on my mind. I find that awe inspiring. And just to contemplate on what the astronomers have revealed to us about the immense size and so on of the universe. I find that very healthy. And it's a good thing to do.”

MindNightUniverseSkyHealthyGardenImpactGood ThingsSizeThings To DoAweContemplatingImmenseGalaxyNight SkyTelescopesThings I LoveAstronomersAwe InspiringOrionNebula
Author:John Lennox
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“Picture yourself during the early 1920's inside the dome of the Mount Wilson Observatory. ... Humason is showing Shapley stars he had found in the Andromeda Nebula that appeared and disappeared on photographs of that object. The famous astronomer very patiently explains that these objects could not be stars because the Nebula was a nearby gaseous cloud within our own Milky Way system. Shapley takes his handkerchief from his pocket and wipes the identifying marks off the back of the photographic plate.”

WayScienceFoundStarsObjectsEvidenceMarkPhotographCloudsPocketsPlatesWipeIdentifyingWilsonAstronomersDomesMilky WayHandkerchiefsAndromedaNebula
Author:Halton Arp
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“Captain John Sheridan: I wish I had your faith in the universe. I just don't see it. Delenn: Then I will tell you a great secret, Captain. Perhaps the greatest of them all. The molecules of your body are the same molecules that make up this station , and the nebula outside, that burn inside the stars themselves. We are starstuff. We are the universe made manifest, trying to figure itself out. And as we have both learned, sometimes the universe requires a change of perspective.”

TryingMadeSometimesBodyUniverseWishStarsSecretFiguresPerspectiveYour BodyStationsManifestCaptainsMoleculesNebulaBabylon 5
Author:J. Michael Straczynski
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