Edge-On NGC 891
Image Credit & Copyright: Alessandro Falesiedi

Explanation: Large spiral galaxy NGC 891 spans about 100 thousand light-years and is seen almost exactly edge-on from our perspective. In fact, about 30 million light-years distant in the constellation Andromeda, NGC 891 looks a lot like our Milky Way. At first glance, it has a flat, thin, galactic disk of stars and a central bulge cut along the middle by regions of dark obscuring dust. But remarkably apparent in NGC 891's edge-on presentation are filaments of dust that extend hundreds of light-years above and below the center line. The dust has likely been blown out of the disk by supernova explosions or intense star formation activity. Fainter galaxies can also be seen near the edge-on disk in this deep portrait of NGC 891.

The ability to routinely look at the NASA Astronomy pics of the day is absolutely a gift.  Amazing what we have available to see.  This is gorgeous, magnificent.  Amazing.  Most of the days have pictures that are equally ... epically amazing.  I am reminded of the phrase significantly insignificant.

I guess everyone who thinks, or wonders, about what an eternity in Heaven would be like reaches a unique conclusion, or takes a unique route towards conclusions.  One of the things that I think, or naively hope is probably more accurate, is that there will be opportunities to actually see things like this.  I like to float, on my back or on a tube, just relaxing and reviewing in my mind's eye cool things I've seen.  When I reflect on a picture like this I wonder how it would feel to approach this ... to have the experience of circling around it ... to understand the complexity of this evolving phenomena.  I think about being "smart enough, and knowledgeable enough" to truly comprehend the majesty of this.  I imagine coming closer and closer to this until it is unseeable because of the smaller parts of it becoming larger - more in view as trees in a forrest, as birds in those trees.  I wonder if God put other lives on even one of those planets housed within this system.  I wonder what it would be like to see a world similar to ours which was immune to the ravages of our inherently compromised tendencies.  I wonder about the possibility of stories being told by lives within that galaxy.

Pictures like this "feel" like a peek at possibilities for what to do during forever.