Hubble snaps stunning baby pic of cosmos Galactic whirls from 12 billion years ago

http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/space/06/19/bigbang.view.reut/index.html ^ | Thursday, June 19, 2003 Posted: 2:19 PM EDT (1819 GMT)

[DannyTN]

"If the velocity of light were "wrong" by more than a tiny tiny amount (< .000000001 or so) the stars wouldn't shine and fusion and fission bombs wouldn't work. e=mc2."

Granted the formula E=MC2 might not work anymore, but how do you know the stars wouldn't shine and fission wouldn't work. Couldn't there be an alternative set of physics rules where light is a little slower but the nuclear physics is appropriately adjusted and still allows starlight and fission?

[US_MilitaryRules]

It looks to me like 11 3/4 billion years.
What a bunch of marrrooons!!!

[John Valentine]

A hoot!

You need to spend a year or so in a truly relativistic environemt, then you would see your remarks for what they are - riscible.

[Puddleglum]

Hooray - very beautiful - I now have a new desktop image for work.

Also, I have already placed dibs on three particular galaxies I intend to claim and begin making improvements on. I suggest you do the same before the rush is on. They are toward the middle right. One will be called 'Glum Heights, one 'Glum Ranch Estates, and one 'Glum Crestview Manors.

[Dataman]

or how the other side of the universe that we're looking at - warp-drove away from us at many times the speed of light right after the Big Bang - and then deigned to slow down to show us what it was doing at 1 billion years old.

I've wondered about that myself. How could matter and light travel faster than the known speed of light (which supposedly takes infinite energy) yet slow down to "current" speeds? If it continued to slow down that would be easier to believe but now we are told that there is a sudden acceleration in the expansion of the universe and no one can tell us why. Dark Matter is invented to explain the acceleration but how does DM explain fast-slow-fast?

[Dataman]

You've just redefined the meaning of a "light year".

This whole thread is messing with it. For consistent measurement of a light year, please use this device:

[Lazamataz]

There are definitely no other intelligent life forms out there. I mean, if you see all those tens of 1000's of galaxies (in just a tiny arc of space) and know that there are billions of stars in each one, well, it's clear that we are the only intelligent life form.

[Dataman]

So what is reality? Can reality ever be different than what we perceive it to be? Is reality subjective?

Just as truth exists without regard to our perception of it, so does reality. Reality is not subjective though our limited ability to perceive it would make it seem so.

[Lazamataz]

Also, I have already placed dibs on three particular galaxies I intend to claim and begin making improvements on. I suggest you do the same before the rush is on. They are toward the middle right. One will be called 'Glum Heights, one 'Glum Ranch Estates, and one 'Glum Crestview Manors.

You will have to take that up with a race called the Xenglobulans. They are 12 feet tall, green, have vast spaceship armadas, and the deadly deadly Blasto Ray^(tm).

They do, however, have a wonderful sense of humor, so they are more likely to laugh at you, "pants" you, and send you scampering in the sand dunes then they are to kill you.

[Lazamataz]

The speed of light is what Congress decrees it to be. No less; no more.

[Diva]

If I remember right, the Bible does not tell how God created the earth and Heavens, it just says that he did....whats to say he didn't make a BIG bang to do it?????

Besides, the Big Bang serves a "point of creation" better than a static universe, I think.

[Lazamataz]

"there is no gravity.

Then what caused the apple hit Newton's noodle?

Simple. The world sucks.

[Dataman]

Hmmmm? God said, "Let there be light" and light was. That could have been the "big bang".

Interestingly, Moses recorded what happened in Genesis about 3500 years before "science" finally admitted the universe had a beginning.

[oceanperch]

unbelievable that on a thread of this kind there would be personal attacks and posts removed....that said this is way over my brain/knowledge but it awesome to see all these great minds here agree and disagree about such a wonderful subject.

I just love looking up when I get in late and the awe of all the stars.

I am hoping we get some great showers this year in the PNW for the last five years I have camped out in the back at the estimated times wrapped up in my comfortor and dissapointed.

[Eternal_Bear]

Scientifically challenged? Hardly. Just because I don't hold that people spontaneously evolved from mud and rocks doesn't mean that I am unable to effectively deal with science. I am an electrical engineer and deal with scientific principles every single day.

Do you consult the Bible for electrical engineering? Why should a cosmologist or an anthropologist consult the Bible then? Do you agree with scientific methodology or does it have to adhere to some dogma?

[oceanperch]

Great movie.

[oceanperch]

I feel like the blonde in a joke reading these posts...you guys are amazing and I am getting dizzy...time for me to go to bed or crawl back down to a lower thead. : )

[The Shootist]

Granted the formula E=MC2 might not work anymore, but how do you know the stars wouldn't shine and fission wouldn't work. Couldn't there be an alternative set of physics rules where light is a little slower but the nuclear physics is appropriately adjusted and still allows starlight and fission?

Sure one can postulate that the laws of physics have changed over time. The problem I have with that is that it violates Occam's Razor. The simplest explanation is often the correct one.

[DannyTN]

"Also, I have already placed dibs on three particular galaxies I intend to claim and begin making improvements on."

You better get there quick and stake your claim. After 12 billion years, no telling what sort of rift-raft has moved in.

[DannyTN]

"there is no gravity"

So does that mean a black hole...really is a hole?