Amazing

[Dave]

National Geographic


Hubble Telescope


Image courtesy NASA

For the Hubble telescope's "sweet 16" in 2006, NASA released the sharpest wide-angle view yet of M82, aka the Cigar galaxy.

Known as a starburst galaxy, M82 is a cosmic nursery in which stars are being created ten times faster than in our own Milky Way. Each of the starlike objects seen in the image is actually a cluster of up to a million stars. These clusters produce strong streams of charged particles, which compress the gases around them and begin the star creation process anew.

The idea of an orbiting telescope free from Earth's atmospheric distortions originated in the 1920s. Many decades later, Hubble has helped answer many longstanding questions about the numerous objects seen in the night sky.

Other discoveries were unexpected: Because of the time it takes light to travel, "very deep observations of the universe now reveal galaxies to us as they looked when the universe was only 600 million years old," said the Space Telescope Science Institute's Livio. "Today it's 13.75 billion years old. Nobody thought that we would see galaxies [of that age].

"Nobody anticipated that Hubble would discover the host galaxies of gamma ray bursts or the atmospheric composition of extrasolar planets," Livio added. "Yet Hubble did all these things and more."

The picture is among those that best highlight the Hubble telescope's scientific and societal impacts, according to astronomers on the 20th anniversary of Hubble.

Published April 24, 2010

More pix at:

news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/04/photogalleries/100424-hubble-telescope-20th-anniversary-pictures/#hubble-frisbee-m82-cigar-galaxy_19428_600x450.jpg

[Dave]

I remember when NASA first sent up the Hubble and realized the mirror had a flaw in it, making the telescope practically useless for the tasks that had been planned. Not long after, a shuttle crew performed a repair that most had thought would be impossible. But it worked and the Hubble has gone on to discover so much over the past 20 years.

How astronomers judge the distance of stellar objects has always fascinated me, and twenty years ago when I was more active in astronomy as a hobby, I loved to read of the various metrics scientists had developed for these measurements. Analysis of a star's composition and movement is also pretty clever. When you think that no star in the sky is close enough to resolve itself into a disk, each being trillions and trillions of miles away and appearing to us as just a pinpoint of light, it's amazing to read of the techniques used to analyze them.

[fiona]

You know, I wish I could comment more intelligently on this subject. I believe in Karma and the laws of action and interaction. I think that the universe has an intelligence all it's own, that, if we as humans ever really understood it, our whole way of being, our cultural imperitives, would change in a split second. The universe understands us, but I don't think it "cares" in the way that we as humans form caring attachments. Mabye I'm wrong. I am probebly wrong. I am sure I am wrong, but then...who knows? I was always fascinated by the stars as a young child, and still am awed, but I have grown somewhat jaded I guess. The stars were more new to me because I was new to the Earth. I was odd. I was convinced that I was from the galaxy or star Aldebaron. I spent hundreds and hundreds of hours in the yard with a binaculors, and later a telescope. if someone asked me what I was doing I was "just looking." I have seen the stars from the high peaks of the Adirondacks, from Malibu Beach, from the high desert country, where they look so big you could gather them like grapes in your hand. I have seen the moon come up over the Garden Of The Gods in Colorado Springs, where all the red stones and spires were washed with silver light. But I still don't understand it.

[Dave]

Maybe it isn't to understand, just to appreciate. And not appreciate via a standard vocabulary, but with one's heart and soul.

When I was young I wanted to understand everything. Now that I am getting old I feel it's enough to simply be a witness to creation.

I wrote in "Boys" that wisdom was"where we found it, by the wayside on the journey. It appeared to have no purpose, and seemingly nothing to reveal, except to awaken our wonder, and certainly our delight. ... Wisdom made us boys again." I used "boys" as a synonym for the idea of openness and spontaneity, because boys are "not interested in creeds, as men would be, (but) are at home with uncertainty and surprise, and so more likely to find (their) own guidance."

[keith]

So many of Hubble's discoveries fall into the classification of "stuff we didn't know that we didn't know." It has opened up many new lines of inquiry & inspitred at least a generation of interest.

[fiona]

Right you are Dave. Now I understand the meaning of the gift. But, Dave, ponder this: What if the Universe really had our best interests at heart and we knew it, there was no questioning the concept. It was a given and bred into us from the bone and we all just moved like cattle, never questioning, because there was need to; and... there was nothing to question. Would a person still have a unique destiny?

[Dave]

Apr 25, 2010 17:40:02 GMT -5 fiona said:

Right you are Dave. Now I understand the meaning of the gift. But, Dave, ponder this: What if the Universe really had our best interests at heart and we knew it, there was no questioning the concept. It was a given and bred into us from the bone and we all just moved like cattle, never questioning, because there was need to; and... there was nothing to question. Would a person still have a unique destiny?

Well, the point there is "and we knew it." Some people believe that, although I think the folks I'm referring to more often call God what you called "the universe." In a sense, we are indeed taken care of, given our ultimate destination, death. Or heaven if you like.

I've always had this feeling of having been taken care of, and I have no reason to believe that would ever change.