You might think this is a close-up snap-shot of.......

......................Kurt's grilling-ready charcoal, but actually it is a photo of the rarely-seen center of our very own Milky Way galaxy:

People, can you get your mind around the notion that, according to scientists' estimates, there are 100 billion galaxies in the observable universe - and,  "the Milky Way is a barred spiral galaxy some 100,000–120,000 light-years in diameter which contains 100–400 billion stars. It may contain at least as many planets as well."?  The mind reels.

larger photo and description is here