You've seen animal shapes in clouds or the man on the moon, but what about seeing images among the cosmos?
A stellar photo of what NASA dubs the "Hand of God" shows the mysterious and curious depths of space. (Via NASA)
The image was captured by astronomers using NASA space telescopes. They don't know if the "Hand of God" is just an optical illusion, but it is shedding some light on the nature of stars.
The mass, with a diameter of about 12 miles, is actually the remains of a star that exploded 17,000 light-years away. It spins nearly seven times a second. (Via USA Today)
As it spins, it emits what's called a pulsar wind nebula, which is the remnants of a star after it explodes — causing a blue glow as the particles interact with magnetic fields.
The Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, captured the blue glow using high-energy X-rays after NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory had imaged the green and red parts. (Via The Huffington Post)
The NuSTAR was launched in 2012 to observe black holes and dead and exploded stars. It's the first high-energy telescope that has the ability to focus.
Like the NuSTAR, the Chandra also observes black holes and dead stars but uses lower-energy X-rays than the NuSTAR. (Via Chandra X-Ray Observatory)
The "Hand of God" isn't the only space image resembling a human — or godly — body part.
NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer satellite captured an image resembling a human head in 2012. The head is actually an ultraviolet view of the Cygnus Loop Nebula, located 1,500 light-years from Earth. (Via Space.com)
