Posted on 09/26/2012 7:22:19 PM PDT by lbryce
Like photographers assembling a portfolio of best shots, astronomers have assembled a new, improved portrait of mankind's deepest-ever view of the universe.
Called the eXtreme Deep Field, or XDF, the photo was assembled by combining 10 years of NASA Hubble Space Telescope photographs taken of a patch of sky at the center of the original Hubble Ultra Deep Field. The XDF is a small fraction of the angular diameter of the full moon.
The Hubble Ultra Deep Field is an image of a small area of space in the constellation Fornax, created using Hubble Space Telescope data from 2003 and 2004. By collecting faint light over many hours of observation, it revealed thousands of galaxies, both nearby and very distant, making it the deepest image of the universe ever taken at that time.
The new full-color XDF image is even more sensitive, and contains about 5,500 galaxies even within its smaller field of view. The faintest galaxies are one ten-billionth the brightness of what the human eye can see.
Reminds me of one or two classic Twilight Zone episodes. :)
Yea, that's probably the best example of what I was trying to say....
Yours was a kind compliment. Am as unknowing as the next. Thank You. Your words were kind.
Thank you. Fascinating erudition.
Thank you. Fascinating erudition.
And to think that succession of time-based squares begins with a square so tiny it can be blocked by a grain of sand held at arm’s length, and ends with a region of space likely hundreds of millions of light years across.
I’m a Monty Python fan too - one of my first posts here at FR trying to end a rather meaningless debate...
Just remember that you’re standing on a planet that’s evolving
And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour,
That’s orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it’s reckoned,
A sun that is the source of all our power.
The sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see
Are moving at a million miles a day
In an outer spiral arm, at forty thousand miles an hour,
Of the galaxy we call the ‘Milky Way’.
Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars.
It’s a hundred thousand light years side to side.
It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light years thick,
But out by us, it’s just three thousand light years wide.
We’re thirty thousand light years from galactic central point.
We go ‘round every two hundred million years,
And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe.
The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
In all of the directions it can whizz
As fast as it can go, at the speed of light, you know,
Twelve million miles a minute, and that’s the fastest speed there is.
So remember, when you’re feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth,
And pray that there’s intelligent life somewhere up in space,
‘Cause there’s bugger all down here on Earth.
Lol. Thanks for the lyrics.
Ah, yes, the rare crumpet bird - from the planet Algon - with the most unobtainium...lol
Monty Python - Prices On Planet Algon:
(you can skip past the ad after about 5 seconds)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXEgRGvfOwE
Try getting your head around the 3.5 trillion dollars the US government spends every year.
I don't feel the slightest amount of humility about man's ability to pick apart the mysteries of the physical universe. Frankly, I'm continually amazed by it. Our capacity for learning, deduction, analysis, cognition, intuition, realization, imagination, etc., is actually pretty astonishing.
We've even gone a long way toward picking apart the mysteries of our own existence, though admittedly, that aspect of our learning lags behind our discoveries in the physical realm.
If we can somehow hold on long enough for discoveries in the mental/spiritual realm to enable us to overcome our brutish, animalistic tendencies, we will conquer the stars. I truly hope that we make it this time.
Yes, but it is conceivable that nature could have been constructed in such a way for it to have been impossible to extract any clues whatsoever about its history and origins. For example, we can tell the dates of rocks by the rate of radioactive decay. We can know a remote star’s chemical composition and other characteristics by its light signature, via spectroscopy.
HIS perfect WILL, will be done, and there is NOTHING, no kings, no rulers, no politician who will be able to stand against HIM.
Our Father, who art in heaven.....THANK YOU for being there
Hallowed be THY name.......the "I AM", and creator of ALL things that are.
THY kingdom come...........HE has, and we are grateful,thank YOU.
THY will be done...........THY perfect will, will be done, again we thank YOU.
On earth as it is in Heaven....There is nothing that will stand against YOUR perfect will. NOTHING
Give us this day, our daily bread......Thank YOU for providing for ALL our needs.
Forgive us our Debts, as we forgive our debtors....Forgive me LORD, as I am not worthy of YOUR forgiveness, nevertherless I accept it through Faith in Jesus Christ.
Lead us not into temptation, but deliever us from EVIL....we acknowledge we need YOUR help LORD, and pray always YOU will deliever us from EVIL. Amen.
LORD, we ask that hear us on the matter of Evil in this Election.
I would love to have the quote that goes something like: If you eliminated 99 percent of the stars, and then 99 percent of the planets around that 1 percent, you’d still have about a billion planets that might support life.
OK, I know the numbers are totally wrong, but that’s the general thought. It was an amazing comment on the probability of life existing on another planet.
Anybody?
I recall some prominent cosmologist many years ago on some science special saying: “We are the universe trying to understand itself”
Perhaps there is some underlying aspect of reality that wants us to figure it out and understand it.
The Drake equation states that:
where: N = the number of civilizations in our galaxy with which communication might be possible; and R* = the average rate of star formation per year in our galaxy fp = the fraction of those stars that have planets ne = the average number of planets that can potentially support life per star that has planets fℓ = the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop life at some point fi = the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop intelligent life fc = the fraction of civilizations that develop a technology that releases detectable signs of their existence into space L = the length of time for which such civilizations release detectable signals into space[5]See Drake Equation
An impenetrable, insoluble mystery? I suppose such a thing is possible, but mankind hasn't encountered a single mystery in the physical realm that it hasn't eventually unlocked.
The human race is still on a path of discovery. I think most would agree that we're still a very long way off from understanding it all, though we are making steady progress. If I manage to live to 100, I know that I'll be living in a world that I could scarcely even dream of when I was a kid. I can't even begin to imagine the miracles my children and grandchildren will witness in their elder years.
I believe that we are that underlying aspect of reality.
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