Some days the universe seems to give you the finger

The above picture is a tiny detail from the massive Carina Nebula, a star-forming area more than 8,000 light years away from Earth.

The feature in the photo, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope in 1999, shows what is known as a molecular cloud, composed of dust and gas, that has broken away from the nebula and is slowly being dissipated by the intense radiation activity from young, bright stars “nearby”.

Although NASA describes the image as being one that “stimulates the human imagination”, suggesting that it “could be perceived as a superhero flying through a cloud, arm up, with a saved person in tow below”, we think it more closely resembles what you see extended out of a car window when you cut somebody off in traffic.

Anyone offended by the depiction can take solace in the fact that it will probably not exist a few million years from now.

As National Lampoon stated in "Deteriorata", its 1972 musical version (written by Christopher Guest) of the famous 1927 prose poem "Desiderata": 

"You are a fluke of the universe.
You have no right to be here.
And whether you can hear it or not,
The universe is laughing behind your back."