Star Wars: 10 Things You Didn't Know About The Imperial TIE Fighter
2. Its Cousin, The TIE Advanced, Resembles A Real Galaxy
Star Wars might be nothing more than science fantasy, but in a perfect example of truth being stranger than fiction there is a real-life galaxy that strongly resembles a TIE Fighter, or more specifically, Darth Vader’s TIE Advanced.
Located 500 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation Cassiopeia lies the active Galaxy TXS 0128+554. The galaxy is blasting out jets of material spanning 35 light-years across at nearly the speed of light. The jets billow out into immense lobes and at the right frequency, in this case 6.6 gigahertz, it is these that produce the familiar outline.
Professor of physics Matthew Lister, once again proving that many an academic is a closet nerd, recalled: "The first time I saw the results, I immediately thought it looked like Darth Vader's TIE fighter spacecraft from 'Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope.'"
TXS 0128+544 joins Saturn’s moon Mimas, which is a dead ringer for the Death Star, and a Jabba The Hutt shaped rock on Mars, as a little bit of Star Wars found in our own universe.