Space Tornado! Danger Will Robinson...

Something beautiful to make up for all of the ugliness chimpy has brought into the world:



Via Space.com, Space Tornado! Cosmic Front Packs a Punch

WASHINGTON, D.C.—High-energy particles spewing out of a young star in a nearby stellar nursery are plowing through interstellar clouds and creating a giant spiral structure in space that looks like a glowing, rainbow-colored tornado, scientists said today.

The star spewing the particle jet lies 480 light-years away in a star-forming region known as Chamaeleon I.

In a photograph taken with NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, that star is actually not visible because it is located off the upper edge of the image.

The luminous tornado-shaped structure is known as a Herbig-Haro object and estimated to be about 0.3 light years, or nearly 2 trillion miles, long and shows up in the infrared.

Go read the rest, it's quite fascinating.