This picture for Astronomy.com's "Picture of the day" feature (future readers, select March 10, 2012 in the archive) is interesting not so much for what it shows, but for the name of what it shows.
The Whale Galaxy (officially NGC 4631) in the picture is so called because it looks a little like a whale. Its other name is the Herring Galaxy, which has got to be one of the weirdest nicknames in modern astronomy. No word on what any inhabitants of the Herring Galaxy might think of the name, although a strange transmission from that region of space was recently received: "Ni, peng, nee-wom, ekke ekke ekke ekke ptangya ziiinnggggggg ni!" There are as yet no clues to deciphering this mysterious message.
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