Hubble Goes to the eXtreme to Assemble Farthest-Ever View of the Universe

NASA ^ | September 26, 2012 | Staff

[no-to-illegals]

Can a state of equilibrium be attained and maintained? Wonder if we will ever know the answer.

[ETL]

Nice ... but I prefer natural with one just slightly larger than the other...

Yeah, I'm not too crazy about phony ones either. Not a thing wrong with the rest though.

[Windflier]

...just perhaps, as the evidence seems to indicate, we are alone...

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

...and it’s up to us to spread life throughout the Universe. If that’s the case then we hard better stop all this control-freak fighting amongst ourselves and get about our real work.

Wonderful statement. That's a beautiful thought, my friend. I highly doubt, though, that it's up to us to populate the galaxies. I happen to think that we'll never find a single one that's devoid of life.

[21twelve]

“The future disappears into memory
With only a moment between.
Forever dwells in that moment
Hope is what remains to be seen.”

Recent lyrics from the band RUSH.

[Gator113]

It is all so wondrous.

[Windflier]

I followed that math as far as cooks are allowed to. I can't go further. I'm ok with counter-intuitive, but some math... Hey! Want fries with that?

Heh....yeah, what the heck. Hold the mayo. I need a good burger after all this mind boggling ;-)

[ETL]

How about an image of Obama being born from some world 51 light years away. He’s currently 51 years old. If they can somehow manage to e-mail it to us instantaneously, we may be able to finally prove the case beyond a doubt.

[no-to-illegals]

One certainly cannot blame God for dropping any of the balls. Guess we can only blame ourselves. There is a whole solar system with more energy than mankind could ever use, and that energy is ignored because the technology does not currently exist to mine our solar system. Did God say, here is what is there, I gave you the technology to discover what I created? Go mine it, use it, relish it, be fruitful and multiply, and yet here we go and forget it? Wonder if this is part of our past, of which we have no knowledge? Has mankind been here before?

[lbryce]

This is my favorite APOD. It is one of a female astronaut taking refuge in what I assume is the ISS observation deck, intense pondering, contemplating the population below of a planet in turmoil, the struggles of the collective dreams, desires, aspirations for the people,societies,civilizations and their quest to struggle, transcend the struggles, burdens they must deal with to make the most of the meager, measly lives from high up above. Home from Above Credit: Expedition 24 Crew, NASA Explanation: There's no place like home. Peering out of the windows of the International Space Station (ISS), astronaut Tracy Caldwell Dyson takes in the planet on which we were all born, and to which she would soon return. About 350 kilometers up, the ISS is high enough so that the Earth's horizon appears clearly curved. Astronaut Dyson's windows show some of Earth's complex clouds, in white, and life giving atmosphere and oceans, in blue. The space station orbits the Earth about once every 90 minutes. It is not difficult for people living below to look back toward the ISS. The ISS can frequently be seen as a bright point of light drifting overhead just after sunset. Telescopes can even resolve the overall structure of the space station. The above image was taken in late September from the ISS's Cupola window bay. Dr. Dyson is a lead vocalist in the band Max Q. Challenge: Can you identify which part of Earth is visible in the background?

[YHAOS]

And 0bama thinks he is in control?

[lbryce]

ping

[Windflier]

We're on this 8,000 mile wide ball-shaped rock zipping around our star at approximately 66,000 miles per hour (over 18 miles per second). Our speed around the galaxy is much faster than that. Include our galaxy's motion within the Local Group, etc, etc...

Yep. We home school, and my kids and I got onto that very subject a few weeks back. I think we lost track of all the potential directions and speeds before we even got to considering the Local Group. LOL

What's really interesting, is that the Andromeda galaxy and the Milky Way are headed toward collision (in billions of years). They're traveling toward each other at 250,000 miles an hour, and when they meet, scientists don't expect a single collision between their individual stars.

That's one helluva lotta space!

[Windflier]

The universe is infinite. The past is infinite. The future is infinite. The past is the future. Head is starting to hurt.

I heard that. What'll you have? Coors Light, or Heineken?

[JRandomFreeper]

That... it was big. Wowza.

/johnny

[ETL]

one could only connect with the past.

Perhaps someday they'll find a way to communicate instantaneously. Maybe through Belle's Theorem/non-local/EPR/"spooky action at a distance"-type quantum communication. Then those distant aliens with snapshots of our past can send them to us immediately. :)

[Lancey Howard]

It’s a great big universe and we’re all really puny,
just tiny little specks about the size of Mickey Rooney.

[Tuanedge]

In my fantasy world, the whole world at least agrees that God is Love, whatever else we may disagree about... in the unity that arises from that one simple realization, lets us work together well enough so that we do solve most of our societal ills and that we do populate the stars.

It’s a fantasy I have a lot.

[no-to-illegals]

Took two aspirin, and decided to not decide. Better already, and thanks for the offer.

[Windflier]

But the current evidence points to a universe that is *accelerating* in its expansion.

That one really makes my head hurt.

If I compress the whole event into a humanoid scale, I can picture the individual particles momentarily speeding up in their initial flight away from the center, then eventually slowing down to the point where gravity overcomes their outward momentum. They then slowly come to a momentary point of stasis or equilibrium, then reverse course towards the center again.

That's the only scenario that makes sense to this puny human.

[Windflier]

I wish I could tell them that there might be. Just not here. ;)

Oh, hell yeah! Tell 'em to take a right at Alpha Centauri, then head for the Pleiades! LOL