10 Mar 2004 | Brad Hurley said...

What especially blows my mind (apart from the sheer number of galaxies and all that they imply) is that we're looking so far back in time.

When I look at the night sky I'm always struck by the fact that I'm looking at how those stars and galaxies were thousands or millions of years ago (depending on how many light-years away they are), and in the case of Hubble, billions of years ago, rather than how they are now. Many of those stars don't even exist anymore, but their light is just reaching us now. That's awesome to contemplate.

10 Mar 2004 | Mark Fusco said...

Reminds me of one of my favorite songs I used to sing as a youngster in church choir -

When I gaze into the night skies, and see the work of your fingers, the moon and stars, suspended in place, what is man that you are mindful of him?

Awesome.

10 Mar 2004 | Hagbard Celine said...

The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
In all of the directions it can whiz
As fast as it can go, 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

Awesome pics, thanks for the link. Too bad NASA is planning to abandon the Hubble Space Telescope program.

10 Mar 2004 | ~bc said...

Too bad we'll see no more of this, so that someone can look JFK-esque by saying we're going to Mars in 40 years, and abandoning good, productive projects for big political dreams.

10 Mar 2004 | Andrew said...

The scale in the second graphic actually makes this less impressive than it is. If the total distance on the x-axis is 13billion years, a normal scale would show that the Hubble sees basically all the way back; 700 million years from the Big Bang is effectively 0 years at this time scale.

The graphic makes the last 12 billion years take the same space as the first 1 billion years.

11 Mar 2004 | not the same Andrew said...

Eh, what's a few billion years between galaxies?

These photos are absolutely amazing. Mindboggling is right. I have no idea how to even begin to comprehend some of these figures and concepts. (The CNN graphic is nice.)

I took a single astronomy class in college, and that made my brain hurt a lot.

11 Mar 2004 | Arne G said...

The sense of scale these pictures evoke is awesome, and Im equally in awe of the men and women who work so hard to measure and test the world around us.

Its the fact that I do nothing to contribute to this kind of effort that makes me feel truly insignificant (that...and that I really cant spell very well).

12 Mar 2004 | Kevin said...

The Bible teaches that: God created the universe approximately 6,000 years ago, ex nihilo (out of nothing) in six literal, twenty-four hour days.

The oldest living coral reef is less than 4,200 years old. The oldest living tree in the world is about 4,300 years old.

http://www.drdino.com/cse.asp?pg=articles&specific=2

12 Mar 2004 | Darrel said...

The Bible teaches

Oh...duh...of course! Obviously, that's why we're killing the Hubble. Who needs astronomy with this handy bible thing explaining it all!

12 Mar 2004 | Don Schenck said...

Come on, Darrel, you can do better than that! Give the Bible a REAL put-down.

Do it so I can tell you how you can *never* win the argument. Come on ... do it ... do it ... make my day!

:)

12 Mar 2004 | Darrel said...

I'm not knocking the bible. It's just a book. ;o)

16 Mar 2004 | Don Schenck said...

Heck Darrel ... you know me too well to take my bait. You're no fun.

:-)

16 Mar 2004 | Kevin said...

Studying astronomy, science, etc. is fine and noble. I do NOT want Hubble, space shuttle, moon base, Mars exploration, etc. to be canceled. That is all very, very cool stuff.

Can't one believe in God and that the Bible is His inspired word, and still be for the advancement of science?