Posted on 10/07/2023 8:56:13 AM PDT by MtnClimber
Explanation: How big is our universe? This question, among others, was debated by two leading astronomers in 1920 in what has since become known as astronomy's Great Debate. Many astronomers then believed that our Milky Way Galaxy was the entire universe. Many others, though, believed that our galaxy was just one of many. In the Great Debate, each argument was detailed, but no consensus was reached. The answer came over three years later with the detected variation of single spot in the Andromeda Nebula, as shown on the original glass discovery plate digitally reproduced here. When Edwin Hubble compared images, he noticed that this spot varied, and on October 6, 1923 wrote "VAR!" on the plate. The best explanation, Hubble knew, was that this spot was the image of a variable star that was very far away. So M31 was really the Andromeda Galaxy -- a galaxy possibly similar to our own. Annotated 100 years ago, the featured image may not be pretty, but the variable spot on it opened a window through which humanity gazed knowingly, for the first time, into a surprisingly vast cosmos.
For more detail go to the link and click on the image for a high definition image. You can then move the magnifying glass cursor then click to zoom in and click again to zoom out. When zoomed in you can scan by moving the side bars on the bottom and right side of the image.
Catching up. This is from yesterday.
100 years ago yesterday. There are two things Edwin Hubble is most known for: discovering that the universe is expanding, and this.
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I'm not sure. But I do know that is SO very big that I will not accept the job of cleaning it.
Yeah! How cool is that!
In cosmology, it’s truly amazing what the last 100 years has, thru Edwin Hubble and others, shown us. I can’t imagine what the next 100 years will bring.
It would be wonderful to be here for it.
Yeah, there are so many things we know now that we didn’t know when I was a kid. And a lot of those discoveries, coincidentally, were a result of the Hubble telescope.
almost mistaked that pic of an ol’ ginger girlfriend I shared time with back in the day! ...she had cute freckles...
Just finished reading “The Day We Found the Universe” by Marcia Bartusiak. Very good read...recommended. Also just read “Einstein’s Unfinished Symphony” by the same author. Also recommended.
“In cosmology, it’s truly amazing what the last 100 years has, thru Edwin Hubble and others, shown us.”
I heard, however, that he had a politically incorrect thought at one time.
That explains all the frickin’ dust out there.
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