December Darkness Across the Universe

During the darkest days of December, it makes me feel better to think about all the other, more profound darknesses out there in the universe. A little dose of the old perspective, you know. And boy, there are a lot of them--not just a lot of dark places, but a lot of different forms of darkness out there. In fact, there's a lot more darkness than most of us realize, for an obvious if easily overlooked reason: Space images are calibrated to highlight faint or even invisible detail, making the un