Posted on 06/21/2009 12:37:31 AM PDT by zeestephen
The European Space Agency's Herschel Infrared Telescope opened its 'eyes' on 14 June and the Photoconductor Array Camera and Spectrometer obtained images of M51, ‘the whirlpool galaxy’ for a first test observation. Scientists obtained images in three colours from the observation, which clearly demonstrate the excellence of Herschel, the largest infrared space telescope ever flown.
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencedaily.com ...
Three-colour far-infrared image of M51, the 'whirlpool galaxy'. Red, green and blue correspond to the 160-micron, 100-micron and 70-micron wavelength bands of the Herschel's Photoconductor Array Camera and Spectrometer, PACS. Glowing light from clouds of dust and gas around and between the stars is visible clearly. These clouds are a reservoir of raw material for ongoing star formation in this galaxy. Blue indicates regions of warm dust that is heated by young stars, while the colder dust shows up in red. The M51 Galaxy is about 35 million light years away. It was first observed by the French astronomer Charles Messier in 1773, but not until the 1920's did modern astronomers realize it was a distinct galaxy with a structure much like our own Milky Way.(Credit: ESA and the PACS Consortium)
This is very interesting and somewhat puzzling. This is not the usual encoding of degrees of temperature, or some other linear gradation, by a range of colors via a color key. This is the transposition of the color reception of the "cones" of the human eye onto the infrared spectrum, so that the colors in the image correspond to human color reception with the "cones" so modified. Note the yellow in the image which is presumably due to the "red" and "green" bands being detected, but not the "blue".
I'm not sure what this proves, or even indicates.
>>>M51 Galaxy is about 35 million light years away. It was first observed by the French astronomer Charles Messier in 1773, but not until the 1920’s did modern astronomers realize it was a distinct galaxy
35 million years? Didn’t you get the memo? It’s posted four or five times a day. The universe was created 6000 years ago. In the afternoon one day. Get thee behind me Santa.
Unless it was created already old.
In an infinite endless universe..... yadda yadda yadda..... a supreme being evolved, and created this universe.
Hey, it's just as probable, and likely, and provable, as the something from nothing theory, or do you believe that mankind is the most supreme intelligent being to evolve ever?
You can only explain what you can comprehend. That leaves a lot of splainin to do Lucy.
Oh Yeah
I was thinking much the same thing. I was thinking about the incredible distance 35 million light years is and 35 million years must be almost nothing to God. Then I remembered that some, with evidently more faith than I have, say that God could not possibly have created a universe older than 6,000 years old because -- well, God is just limited. And I have read that the speed of light is something the secular humanists faked to make the universe appear old. Or the speed of light is something God faked to make the universe appear old because this would somehow cause people to not believe in God and God wants people to not believe in Him and somehow you can't believe in God and an old universe. Or something like that. So God becomes a trickster trying to deceive people and we are supposed to accept that this is true Christianity. I think it is pretty ambitious to ruin religion and science at the same time!
Blue indicates regions of warm dust that is heated by young stars, while the colder dust shows up in red. seems odd since it seems everything else is red for warm/hot and blue for cold/freezing
>>>God faked to make the universe appear old because this would somehow cause people to not believe in God and God wants people to not believe in Him and somehow you can’t believe in God and an old universe. Or something like that. So God becomes a trickster trying to deceive people and we are supposed to accept that this is true Christianity.
Precisely. God the Jokester, with the Holy Whoopie Cushion his sacrament. At least per the 6000 year old creation theory that is SO repetitiously pushed on FR.
>>>You can only explain what you can comprehend
Render unto Science what is Science’s, and unto Philosophy what is Philosophy’s. Why a handful of people insist they are mutually exclusive is beyond me. Over time the physical world is better understood and more plainly explained. The significant spiritual issues remain for the philosophers and prophets to argue, merely shifted back further in time.
I'm a motivated amateur, so I may be wrong.
I think the infrared wavelength runs from 0.75 microns to 100 microns, so I just took the report as meaning that they scanned three particular wavelengths of IR spectrum, and then colorized the results.
I believe “visual light” starts around 0.75 microns, so perhaps your interpretation is correct.
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