Breathtaking Hubble pic: Eagle Nebula (slip the surly bonds of earth & touch the face of God)

NASA photo via Yahoo ^ | 4/26/05

[Wolfstar]

A new view of the Eagle Nebula, one of the two largest and sharpest images Hubble Space Telescope has ever taken, is released by NASA for Hubble's 15th anniversary April 25, 2005. The new Eagle Nebula image reveals a tall, dense tower of gas being sculpted by ultraviolet light from a group of massive, hot stars. During the 15 years Hubble has orbited the Earth, it has taken more than 700,000 photos of the cosmos.

[RadioAstronomer]

see 60 and 61

[RadioAstronomer]

I will look :-)

[queenkathy]

Thank you for the explanation. It's so hard to wrap my mind around this! To think of how insignificant we are in the realm of the whole creation!

[add925]

[BikerNYC]

To think of how insignificant we are in the realm of the whole creation!

Or to think how insignificant all of creation is. If you spread everything out to a uniform density, you would only have a few hydrogen atoms per cubic meter.

Indeed, inflationary cosmology calculates that the universe could have started with about 20 pounds of matter and a Higgs field in a very small space. When the field finally settled into its lowest possible non-zero value, it released its pent-up energy to create the matter we see today.

[iceskater]

Maybe NASA should sell the DVD's and use the money to keep the Hubble going? If they marketed it right, Hubble could pay for itself!

[Realism]

So we are looking at the Eagle Nebula circa 4500 BC huh? The Hubble telescope is a time machine

Yep, Kinda like seeing a flash of lightning, hearing the thunder 5 seconds later. Even though the sound is older than the actual event it doesn't make it less spectacular.

[swamp40]

Here's the original image, with the inverted/cropped portion highlighted:



changes to:


Amazing, huh!

[aShepard]

I thought that Hubble was kept in its orbit by small gas jets, and a gyro, maybe nuc powered. Perhaps it needs some more fuel??

And I thought that a revised shuttle is due to take off very soon, even with a female commander! Hubble should be its first mission

[Lekker 1]

I heard they were gonna fly some more gasoline to Hubble, but the price was prohibitive. (/sarc)

[Publius6961]

BUMP!

[RadioAstronomer]

I thought that Hubble was kept in its orbit by small gas jets, and a gyro, maybe nuc powered. Perhaps it needs some more fuel??

Nope. Attitude pointing for hubble uses reaction wheels (spin a wheel in one direction and the spacecraft spins in the opposite), gyros (determines how far you moved), and torque rods (electromagnets that interact with Earth's magnetic field to unload momentum off the reaction wheels). Power is from solar arrays and batteries. No fuel of any kind and no nuclear power.

[Publius6961]

Maybe NASA should sell the DVD's and use the money to keep the Hubble going? If they marketed it right, Hubble could pay for itself!

Hear! Hear!

The can have dozens of different sets, depending on interests. I think that would work.

[ARridgerunner]

Thanks. I've seen the pic.

I rather like the caption.

[petitfour]

Wow

[iceskater]

Who at NASA can we suggest this to?

[queenkathy]

This is probably a really technical question here. But you seem up to it! "They" say that our universe is expanding all the time. How fast? and How far?

[mombonn]

Staggeringly beautiful! Thanks!

[jerri]

Thankfully we have an eternity in Paradise to look forward to. Space travel may happen.

[RadioAstronomer]

Here ya go. :-)

(I can post more when I get out of the lab)

http://astron.berkeley.edu/~mwhite/darkmatter/hubble.html

http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/physics/HubbleConstant.html

http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/cosmo_02.htm