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

NASA ^ | September 26, 2012 | Staff

[fella]

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

[no-to-illegals]

It is true, from every point in the universe, all one can see is the past. Since only the past is visible and we are relying on radio waves to make first contact, one could only connect with the past.

[JRandomFreeper]

Cool. Enjoy it.

/johnny

[TexasTransplant]

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

I get more thinking done when staring at the Hubble pic, but at this moment in time I’m not thinking anything but “dang she shore is purty”

TT

[no-to-illegals]

and mine our solar system.

[lbryce]

Yes, they have, and I want to warn you about the cheap, tacky comment I’m about to make, only because I loath the man so much I cannot in good conscience allow it to pass un-responded, one you’ve heard infinite times before and will continue to hear for as long as forever that they in fact did find Obama’s birth certificate deep within the frozen crevices found in the South Pole of Uranus.

[JRandomFreeper]

I just heard that theory expressed on a science show the other night. Frankly, I can't (or don't want to) wrap my mind around something so weirdly counter-intuitive as that.

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?

/johnny

[Windflier]

Each time I view this, I just cannot help thinking that we, the human race, is the highlight and the epitome of creation in the history of time.

Out of 100 billion galaxies, each containing at least 100 billion stars - and each of those with multiple planets likely orbiting around them - you think that we humans on this one little planet, circling an insignificant star in a mediocre galaxy, are the epitome of all creation?

I sorta doubt it. There's an unbelievably vast universe out there with wonders we can scarcely dream of.

[ETL]

The human mind simply doesn't the capacity to fully imagine the total scope of what we behold in the night sky.

Yet we're all part of it. 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... There may not be an end to it.

[Windflier]

And not a radio signal from any of those civilizations out there.

I think we're looking at the wrong carrier wave.

And who knows what Dezi and Lucy sound like 20 billion light years from earth anyway? Probably sounds like, "hissssssssss......"

[fella]

"and mine our solar system."

Isn't that just recycling on an accelerated and grand scale? After all the chemicals/minerals all come the stars and are there waiting to be used by living things.

[Windflier]

Who else is out there and are they as amazed... when looking back at us?

I'll bet they're just as amazed as we are. I'll bet they're also arguing over whether there's intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. Funny, when you think about it.

[no-to-illegals]

Reminds me of Twilight Zone. The universe is infinite. The past is infinite. The future is infinite. The past is the future. Head is starting to hurt. This always happens, when going there only to find the past, in the present.

[no-to-illegals]

Isn't that just recycling on an accelerated and grand scale?

Probably. Everything awaits discovery, nothing is truly an invention.

[JRandomFreeper]

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.

Honey? Where did we park the car?

That question takes on a whole new meaning.

The answer, of course, is "Back there".

/johnny

[ETL]

What makes more sense to me, is the alternate theory of successive Big Bangs, wherein the universe expands to a certain point, then contracts in a Big Implosion, which of course, sets off another Big Bang.

But the current evidence points to a universe that is *accelerating* in its expansion. Before that, it was believed the universe was expanding at a progressively slower rate --that it would go on decelerating forever, yet never collapse. Who knows.

[JRandomFreeper]

I'll bet they're also arguing over whether there's intelligent life elsewhere in the universe

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

/johnny

[Louis Foxwell]

No. Oh. Wow. Really?

[Windflier]

...it seems an impossible number of individual things to know, but it was also just one thing to know.

I love that vision, but I attribute that knowingness to the individual - not a supreme creator. 'Reality', space, matter, energy, time --- all of it created by the collective agreements of we spirits who drive these temporary bodies.

Thank you for the profound thoughts.

[Gator113]

Yes, interesting thoughts.