Firefox in Space

If you often watch The Big Bang Theory(the tv sitcom), you will notice this is poster hanging on the wall of Raj's office.

It's the V838 Monocerotis or  V838 Mon which is a red variable star(or should i say now the remnant after the outburst) in the constellation Monoceros some 20,000 light years away. The remnant is still expanding and evolving rapidly as you can see the progress in this Hubble poster.

If you look closely you might also notice a resemblance, that some people see, to the logo of Mozilla Firefox like here below. Perhaps its just imagination or projection, but I have to admit the resemblance here is uncanny that even and if it was photoshoped to match, it only requires very little change. In fact, if the photo publish by HST in February 2004 is rotated, it will be easier to see.

Checking on the history of the Firefox logo, there was no mention that it was ever inspired by the V838 Mon. In fact, it the introduction of the Firefox logo that we know today is cutting it close as it was also introduced February 2004 adding a queer coincidence.

This projection gives us clue how early sky gazers looked up at the night sky and imagined to form pictures they have in their minds by connecting the (star as) dots which we now call constellations.

I'm not exactly a Firefox fan as I use Google Chrome more. But even the google chrome logo has resemblance to the December 2002 photo of this very same star. But no, I think I know where chrome logo came from. Let me give you a hint.