NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE--Astronomers have peered deeper than ever into the chaos of a pair of colliding galaxies, revealing a nest of stars exploding like fireworks.
It includes pincushion, fishhook, snowball, bird's-nest, golden-star, thimble, old woman, coral, royal cross, feather, and lemon ball cacti, all of which are small plants suitable to indoor cultivation or outdoor cultivation in warmer climates.
He suspected that he had stumbled into a nest of lone-star ticks, the most abundant species of tick in the southeastern United States, named for a distinctive, Texas-shaped white splotch that forms on the backs of adult females.
The new research examines the Arches cluster, a stunning nest of bright stars near the galaxy's core.
In visible light, it's a black blob with hints of violent activity within, but the infrared view reveals a brilliant nest of newborn stars.
The white in the central region comes from a nest of hot, massive stars there.
More tchotchkes: a menu snatched from lunch with a foreign minister in Hanoi, circa 1985, featuring "steamed crap and flagrant rice"; a set of "Star Trek" nesting dolls; a talking Osama bin Laden action figure, smuggled out of Gaza.
Chandra's tight size constraint rules out other explanations, such as a nest of compact dead stars, says astrophysicist Fulvio Melia of the University of Arizona, Tucson.
Birds rushed for their nests and the stars were visible in the strange sudden darkness.
