I stumbled across somebody talking about this a year or so ago and I'm still not sure what to make of it, I'd love to see if anyone here has thoughts. I've put two pictures here, the first is a picture of the Carina Nebula taken by the James Webb Space Telescope, the second is the coastline of Algeria near the eastern side, taken from Google Earth. I added the MS paint numbers myself to note points of interest, but nothing else has been changed and the pictures can easily be found on Google. Basically, the idea here is that the coastline and the edge of the nebula have an extremely similar line, to the point where it seems unlikely to be a coincidence. Additionally, space is black in the top left corner of the Carina Nebula, and that black corresponds very well with the ocean floor detail found in the second picture, even transitioning to blue as the detail lines fade out.
What I haven't been able to work out is why. I don't think it's pareidolia because the claim is that these two seemingly abstract shapes look similar to each other, not that they look like something we're familiar with like a face. So basically, the possibilities are:
1. They actually aren't that similar. I don't agree with this, though I've thought about figuring out how to mathematically plot the lines and run an actual comparison on them rather than just looking at them.
2. They do look similar, but it's just a coincidence. It's a possibility. If we accept that space is infinite, then it would certainly contain every shape of line we could possibly imagine. I'd say that the odds of finding one that matches a line on Earth that is large, naturally formed, and changes over time would be quite astronomical though, if you'll forgive the pun. I personally don't accept this explanation, but I do think it's plausible.
3. If we reject one and two, then I'm not sure where that leaves us. This line is the result of a recurring mathematical formula found throughout the universe? The two locations are somehow linked? NASA is putting out fake pictures of nebulas based on things found on Earth? Google Earth is using pictures of space to fabricate coastlines? NASA does doctor every photo they put out and Google Earth was caught copy/pasting cloud formations and such a while ago, but I'm not sure what the point of outright faking pictures using sources that could be discovered would be - a random drawing would be the sensible thing to do if they wanted to make some completely fake pictures for some reason.
Like I said at the start, I really don't have an explanation that I think makes sense. Tinfoil hat theories are my favorite pastime but unfortunately I don't think any of the ones I'm aware of fit the bill here. I do think it's very interesting though, which is why I'm sharing it here. At the very least, I guess it's evidence that there's still a lot of cool things out there. Anybody have thoughts?