According to my software, this blog post you are reading is the 7000th article I have published on the Bad Astronomy Blog. Wow. That's a lot of words. It's also a lot of astronomy, geekery, science, antiscience, web comics, puns, embiggenates, and "Holy Haleakala!"s (61, to be exact, plus this one to make 62). I am generally not one to wade into maudlin celebrations of arbitrary numbers, so instead I'll celebrate this milestone by showing you something appropriate: the North America Nebula, taken by Mexican astronomer César Cantú.
[Click to encontinentenate.] Why is this appropriate? Because the New General Catalog of astronomical objects - familiar to and used by astronomers across the planet - lists it as entry number 7000. And it should be obvious why it's named as it is. Of course, I can't leave you with just a pretty picture. This nebula is something of a mystery; we ...
