Props to My Brother

So, my brother sent out this e-mail, and I absolutely love it. I wholeheartedly agree.
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So that big NASA announcement….the one where in they were to “announce the discovery of an object in our Galaxy astronomers have been hunting for more than 50 years.”

http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2008/may/HQ_M08089_Chandra_Advisory.html

Now this got all sorts of thoughts stirring in my head, What is it they found? What have they been looking for for 50 years?

I’ll admit that it’s probably my own fault for getting over excited by the expectant news.

Could it be a planet with life on it?
A planet capable of supporting life?
I meteor with a microbe?

Any of those would be exciting/mind altering news. I had imagined the press conference and what the possible announcement could be. I was so looking forward to it that I couldn’t even sleep that night in anticipation. I watched the news on every channel all morning for even a hint of it. I surfed the web, I sat eagerly for the said announcement and found nothing. When it did finally come to light and the press conference broke I along with many others across the globe were a little let down.

They found…a nebula.
A nebula, whoopty freakin’ doo. We have lots of those, I can only imagine the conversations around the NASA cafeteria after this discovery.

Phil comes running into the cafeteria all excited, papers flying everywhere as he’s too elated to hold onto any of them. A group of fellow scientists are all sitting around the circular table with their sack lunches and Phil slams his fists down on the table.

“I’ve found it!” he exclaims. “I’ve found what we’ve been looking for for fifty years!”
His fellow scientists look at him only half interested.
“What’d you find Phil?”
“A nebula!”
“A nebula? A nebula, we’ve found hundreds of those Phil, The universe is teaming with em. Spin the telescope in any direction, you can’t miss em.”
“Hell,” another scientist chimes in “have you seen our website? We’ve got enough pictures of nebulas to redecorate the Sistine Chapel”
“But It’s a NEW NEBULA!” Phil exclaimed
“..and? We’ve got lots of old ones that.”
“But, but, but?”
“Fuck you Phil!”

And it went to press anyway.

Now I have a hard time understanding how this is ‘news worthy’
I mean I do get the significance of it being a ‘young nebula’. It’s from a star that went nova during the civil war and that’s kinda cool. But I have a hard time believing that NASA has been looking for this since its inception 50 years ago. I don’t think that we went to the moon to find a nebula, don’t believe that we set up SETI to find a nebula. I can’t fathom that we’ve built numerous rockets, satellites and probes of all kinds to find a nebula. It boggles the mind that they would make such a big deal over A NEBULA!

I’ve got a nebula for ya NASA, and mine would bring much more attention than that of Caesar wearing lettuce leaves on his head.
I call it the ‘FA-que’ Nebula

~Mark
A.k.a. Marky