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Narly, dude.
I’ve always wondered what was in our space when those photons left so many billions of years ago.
If we had a camera at the time those photons left to hit our camera, what would we see, from the photons perspective, as they are traveling toward us?
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DU scooped by Cagematch again. Ken in Berkeley posted this video on cagematch two days ago. Thanks Ken.
And, for DU readers, don’t forget to stay more current by checking out the cagematch forum as well as the DU blog.
Readers, if you have news to share, you can also post your own topics over on Cagematch.
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@Misanthropic Scott
I can’t go to that site. It makes my eyes bleed.
IMNSHO We need to spend more on NASA.
about 56 cents a year goes to their budget per person in the US.
Space exploration is worth a whole lot more than that, per person, per year.
I’ll second that Rabble. We should be pouring $$ in hand over fist. (We saw via TARP its available) It would flow back many times over to us! 🙂
NASA should completely stop throwing expensive resources at MARS and send robots on the Moon.
At least the Moon can be harvested for exotic materials, it’s cheaper to get to, requires less fuel for landing.
They could easily build a solar powered slingshot electromagnetic catapult to send capsules up into orbit for building & fuel.
They Have The Technology.
Also I wonder, could the Moon or the Earth be used as a gravity lens?
Assuming a second hubble-like telescope is flow to the right spot.
@Mark Derail
I don’t think there is nearly enough density in those bodies for that to work. You need something seriously massive (like a black hole) to do gravitational lensing.
Maned space flight is what consumes the budget. I know the shuttle missions improved the Hubble, but without manned flight drain and damn silly ISS, we could have had numerous and better orbital scopes. It’s time NASA admits that only International efforts will produce extended lunar and Mars expeditions. Will it be easy, hell no. An international charter could make it doable. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to look at Orion and see a souped up Apollo. That’s the best they can offer, another tin can to drop in the ocean?
“It’s full of stars… and there’s an Interwebtubbie…”
At 2:23: “…in some cases, faster than the speed of light.”
Somebody explain, please.
Get it yet?
@ #12
Light travels @ 299,792,458 miles per second.
Just at at least 1 mile per second to the above 🙂
@12 pfkad
You are in a car doing 60MPH and pass a car going the opposite way at 60MPH.
If our galaxy is moving in the opposite direction of another galaxy, the combined speed difference can exceed the speed of light, meaning, we cannot see that galaxy.
It astounds me that some religious nutters can see this, yet still obsess about who their neighbor is having sex with, or a cartoon printed in Demark, or that someone might has mishandled a Koran. The universe is a big place, and has been around an unimaginable long time. How can think that every little thing or thought here in earth has significance?
#15, Mark, sure we can see the other galaxy. Its light is just blus shifted. Galaxies moving away from us ie., most of them, are red shifted hence the discovery of the Hubble constant.
#12,14,15
The problem I have is, according to relativity physics, nothing can go faster than the speed of light – including objects travelling in opposite directions (each at the speed of light).
#15 your example of the 60mph car is fine using simple Newtonian physics – but those equations don’t work when applied to the vast distances and speeds of stars. Einstein’s relativistic physics use far more complex math to show that 2 objects either approaching the speed of light (C), or at the speed of light (C) going in opposite directions still have a relative speed of 1C.
So I have the same problem with the narrator’s claim the some of these galaxies are moving away faster than the speed of light.
The sheer vastname of the universe is amazing. I think it explains (to me) why it is possible there could be 1000s of other forms of life in the universe, but we will never be in contact with them.
Imagine if each of the 100s of billions of galaxies contains at least 1 civilization with sufficiently advanced technology to generate complex (artificial) radio signals. The problem is, the distance between thoese galaxies and our own is so enormous it will take billions of years for those signals to reach us. Which means that those civiliations could disappear completely long before we’d know about it. And the radio (and TV) signals we broadcast into space will not be heard by another civiliation until we have been gone for billions of years.
So, the video has the speed of that galaxy wrong.
I was also struck by the “dark area of the sky the size of a grain of sand.”
What does “dark” mean when looking at an area the size of a grain of sand? I’m assuming the same deep field is “everywhere” but pics taken 1/10 the size of a grain of sand away from a given star or galaxy would “wash out” the deep field?
So, is dark anything more than the sensitivity of the capturing device?
#19, Bobbo, it’s the angle of arc subtended by a grain of sand held at arms length.
Bubba, the question asked is “What does dark mean.”
Arc, arc, arc. (Hands Clapping In front.)
And if they had a telescope that was only 5 times more powerful they would have seen one hundred billion more galaxies in what they thought was more black area.
Even the scientists can’t grasp how much real estate there is in the universe.
Also The Speed of Light is now measured at 299,792,458 METRES per second, not miles. It was previously slower than that in the early years of the universe. And probably is not accurately measured even in today’s standards. But this is the best we can do with what we have to measure light.
The Speed of Light can also be greater under certain circumstances.
Bearing that in mind there is a whole host of what we consider constants that are only noted as such because we have yet to develop tools and techniques to see these constants in an other light.
Cursor_
# 21 bobbo,
By “dark” I think they mean an area of the sky where no light is observable above the noise on previously taken images.
It’s not possible to take measurements (of light or anything else) without there being some noise or inaccuracy, so I can’t see that you would ever know if something is completely dark or not. The best you would be able to say is “this is dark within my ability to measure darkness”.
I’m pretty sure there is real darkness out there though – even though quatum theory says we can’t measure it absolutely.
I read somewhere that the Universe has a finite number of stars. If there was an infinite number of stars you would ultimately end at the surface of a star in every direction you pointed in the sky – the night sky would appear completely white! The real night sky appears mostly black, so there must be a finite number of stars and gaps between them.
#23–pecker==interesting definition of dark. Are you sure you are not anthropomorphizing the universe just a little bit?
“Dark” as defined by what humans can see or including what moths can “see” in the infra red?
I do like the notion of every direction ending on a star. I don’t think that would define an infinite number.
But, if the universe isn’t infinite, whats on the other side?
Down right mystical.
Interesting..
and the idea of DARK matter being everywhere??
Has anyone taken a pic in a Scattered fog?
The farther you VIEW, the more fog you get..
After a point you cant get past all the fog to view PAST..
So, what happened to all the Dark matter?
To see a pic This bright had to be augmented.
What are the odds that they used IR, and saw specks of light and inserted the galaxies THEY THINK were there??
It’s a matter of opinion of course; but I disagree with the statement that it is the most important picture ever taken.
My vote goes to the famous first picture of the entire earth, from space – the one known as the “blue marble” picture. If there is one picture that should teach us a multitude of important lessons, that would be it. If the world would only learn those lessons, then . . . . .
But…but…but… all this stuff is only 4 thousand years old. Would Jesus lie to you?
#26–Get Real==both good pics. But which “told us more?” I’d have to say Deep Field over Marble Earth. Very Large Context over Very Small Context. Place Mother Earth in Context, not making Mother Earth the center of the Universe.
Maybe Marble Earth is more “beautiful” from a picture standpoint—who doesn’t like Blue? Maybe it is more comforting—who doesn’t like water on a hot summer/s day?
Are you for “knowledge” or emotions?
“To Infinity and BEYOND!!!!” Looks OUTWARD. Self involved to look inward.
As we found a lot of (100s of billions..) of light matter on a place we considered devoid of matter… and that’s what probably happens all around us, and we can’t see it because there’s a brighter object nearer…Do we still need the existence of dark matter??? The Higgs Boson?
And, by the way:
#9
“@Mark Derail
I don’t think there is nearly enough density in those bodies for that to work. You need something seriously massive (like a black hole) to do gravitational lensing.
”
That’s what the collider is for… and they’re turning it ON again… run for your lives…
#24–rethinking myself/pecker===”I do like the notion of every direction ending on a star. I don’t think that would define an infinite number. /// If every direction is every “point” and there are an infinite number of points along any line/surface, then YES, there would be an infinite number of planets==rethinking X2==but each star consumes many trillions or even an infinite number of points itself–“so” the notion of star and point is inconsistent.
I think that is correct, but who can understand infinity anyway?