For more detail go to the link and click on the image for a high definition image. You can then move the magnifying glass cursor then click to zoom in and click again to zoom out. When zoomed in you can scan by moving the side bars on the bottom and right side of the image.
♪ Don’t know much about ‘stro-no-my ♪ ... but I’m struck by how big that galaxy is. It’s width is about the same as the distance from Earth to the nearest galaxy-like mass near us, the Magellanic Clouds ... or one could say as wide as the distance between galaxies in our neck of the woods. Galactic!
In 1995, the Hubble Space Telescope was used to investigate a tiny, ‘empty’ part of the night sky. A small section of the night sky, smaller than a dime, that appeared to have no stars, was investigated by the Hubble Space Telescope over many days. What Hubble discovered changed everything. In this tiny portion of the night sky were thousands of previously unknown galaxies. It is called the Hubble Deep Field. Before this, the questimate of the total number of galaxies was about 200 million. We now know there are trillions. Sometimes, we get to see a spiral galaxy in all its glory. Other galaxy images are from the edge. (just search for the “Sombrero Galaxy” for some fun).
With the new James Webb Space Telescope, we are able to ‘see’ even farther into the universe (infrared). What is beyond what Webb can detect.......? Who knows. Maybe some day the Webb Space Telescope will perform a similar examination in a small portion of the cosmos, and find even more galaxies.
We are amused when scientists tell us the age and the edge of the universe. God has blessed us with curiosity and the ability to develop tools to investigate and discover worlds and galaxies. I hope that future textbooks will use the term ‘known universe.’
For it is certain that, in the end, we do not control the vertical, nor do we control the horizontal. We can, today, sharpen some images into crystal clarity. Other images and information, not so much.