I was led to this video through a tw**t by Sam Harris (yes, I do occasionally look at tw**ts):
The religion link goes here—a list of empirical claims about Christianity.
The science link goes to this stunning video of Andromeda (make sure you’ve put it on full screen). You may have seen it given that it’s received over 8 million views since it was posted on January 6.
This was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, and the page with the information about this photo says this (among other things):
This image, captured with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, is the largest and sharpest image ever taken of the Andromeda galaxy — otherwise known as M31.
This is a cropped version of the full image and has 1.5 billion pixels. You would need more than 600 HD television screens to display the whole image.
It is the biggest Hubble image ever released and shows over 100 million stars and thousands of star clusters embedded in a section of the galaxy’s pancake-shaped disc stretching across over 40 000 light-years.
This image is too large to be easily displayed at full resolution and is best appreciated using the zoom tool.
If you have half an hour (or more) to spare, go to the Hubble’s Image page and just click around for fun. You’ll have all these choices of things to see:
For example, here’s a cool one:
What is it? Something amazing:
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope picture may trick you into thinking that the galaxy in it — known as UZC J224030.2+032131 — has not one but five different nuclei. In fact, the core of the galaxy is only the faint and diffuse object seen at the centre of the cross-like structure formed by the other four dots, which are images of a distant quasar located in the background of the galaxy.
The picture shows a famous cosmic mirage known as the Einstein Cross, and is a direct visual confirmation of the theory of general relativity. It is one of the best examples of the phenomenon of gravitational lensing — the bending of light by gravity as predicted by Einstein in the early 20th century. In this case, the galaxy’s powerful gravity acts as a lens that bends and amplifies the light from the quasar behind it, producing four images of the distant object.
The quasar is seen as it was around 11 billion light-years ago, in the direction of the constellation of Pegasus, while the galaxy that works as a lens is some ten times closer. The alignment between the two objects is remarkable (within 0.05 arcseconds), which is in part why such a special type of gravitational lensing is observed.
This image is likely the sharpest image of the Einstein Cross ever made, and was produced by Hubble’s Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2, and has a field of view of 26 by 26 arcseconds.
I love that video, I’ve been sending it all over the place. So much Awe!
Thanks for mentioning to put it on the big screen. My 27inch iMac and I were blown away.
Ditto!
/@
Anything I can say in the face of that would be trite.
Yup. Words can’t do it justice….
Astonishing.
The religious response link is supposed to go here, I think.
Thank you Sastra! 🙂 I’d forgotten all about that wee gem.
A shot of this was the APoD (Astronomy Picture of the Day) on 6 January. Their tagline is “Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. “You can fine the daily picture at http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/, and today’s amazing shot is at http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap150126.html.
P.S.: The APoD shot of the Andromeda array is at http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap150106.html
I visit APOD daily. Always stunning and educational.
APOD is in my line-up of posts to see every day. I like to keep an eye on whats going on up there, and that web site is essential, imo.
Make a print of that at 300 PPI, which is the gold standard for photographic sharpness, and you’d need a piece of paper six feet by nineteen feet in size…as in, you could make a mural the size of an entire wall from it and still be able to stick your nose up against it and it’d be perfectly sharp.
b&
Wow! 🙂
Just the thing for my bedroom walls.
….or ceiling!
That, my friends, is effing cool.
And: Einstein figured it out and predicted it; and the world’s scientists showed it using an amazingly engineered spacecraft, great telemetry, etc.
Beats the crap out of:
God did it.
Religion seem mighty lame compared to science.
Einstein’s abilities as a prophet were truly astonishing, and first demonstrated in full by Arthur Eddington during that eclipse.
That one minor little prediction was so much more than any religious prophet or soothsayer or other such shaman has or ever will dream of accomplishing.
b&
Notwithstanding Nostrodamus’s prediction of “Hisler” and Napolean III’s victory – AND defeat – in the Franco-Prussian War, of course.
Of course, there’s the minor little problem of nobody being able to recognize any of the predictions until after the events in question have already occurred….
b&
Absolutely awesome video! Not trying to nitpick but the quasar is seen as it was 11 billion years ago because it is 11 billion light years distant from us.
It’s funny that even (presumably) well-versed astronomical writers can make that same frequent slip-up. 🙂
I did not know Hubble could resolve individual stars in Andromeda. If that view of Andromeda does not explain the Creator’s fascination with the dietary practices and mating rituals of beings on a tiny planet orbiting an unremarkable star in a somewhat smaller adjacent galaxy, I don’t know what does.
“I did not know Hubble could resolve individual stars in Andromeda.”
I can’t wait to see what the telescopes on this list will be able to resolve…
http://xkcd.com/1294/
🙂
That’s it. I’m going to name my telescope, “The Oppressingly Colossal Mind-Numbingly Vast Telescope of Cataclysmic Despair.” Anybody want to rent observation time on TOCMNVTCD?
b&
Hubble can resolve individual stars at distances well beyond M31. Its observations of Cepheid variables in galaxies in the Perseus cluster made a major contribution to determining the Hubble constant and thus the age of the universe.
“The quasar is seen as it was around 11 billion light-years ago…”
Oops!
I recently bought a 28″ 4k monitor, and have been quite blown away by the visuals it can produce, although you need a very healthy computer/video card and internet speed to make any real use out of it. I can’t wait until more media becomes available for it, it is definitely the future of all video.
I nearly bought a 4K, 50″, that was priced stupid low on a !SUPERSALE! I was starting to get that feeling you get when you chance upon a rare truly good steal. Then I read the fine print. Low refresh rate and none of the software features that the more expensive 4Ks have to make viewing lower resolution sources tolerable. I’ll wait a couple years for the prices to drop.
But, no doubt, 4K is spectacular. An image like this one must be stunning on a 4K monitor.
Andromeda is a naked eye object (though you need dark sides to see it) & with the naked eye, it appears as a greyish smudge. You need to look away from it a bit to see it due to our rods & cones & how they work.
I’ve also looked at it through my telescope & it is lovely to see.
sides=skies (no idea how that happened).
Thanks for the clarification…I wasn’t sure if you were referring to a thick non-blonde cheek beard, or beans and collards as opposed to cornbread and deviled eggs, or….
b&
Yes. I just looked at the Andromeda Galaxy a few nights ago while I was also having a look at the comet that happened to be in our dark new-moon sky. I’m really happy to see the Hubble images! I love also seeing the fuzzy smudge, the way I usually see the Andromeda Galaxy with the naked eye, or as a slightly larger smudge with binoculars or scope. It is easy to learn how to find the Andromeda Galaxy in relation to constellations. An astronomer friend told me it is the most distant object that can be seen with the naked eye. I often feel awe at seeing it and being able to see it, light that began the journey to my eyes a few million(?) years ago.
Don’t forget supernova! They can be seen from many times farther away, momentarily.
Looks like 2.5 billion years ago. When your only neighbors were bacteria/archaeans.
(Someone correct me if I’m wrong.)
Ahem, let me correct myself. 2.5 million, not billion. Just a slight difference. As someone has mentioned below, your neighbors then might have been Homo erectus.
(I wish I would sometimes heed that small voice in my head that’s saying, “that doesn’t sound right…”)
Anyone that thinks one of the various fine-tuning arguments for the specialness of our planet or place in the universe is a convincing argument for anything should spend some time studying that pic of Andromeda.
As awesome as it is it can’t compare to the human ego, or the human ability to deceive one’s self.
Woa. You can see distant galaxies through and beyond Andromeda.
I want to point out that any of you can see the Andromeda galaxy right now, with a basic pair of binoculars and moderately dark skies. A suburban back yard will be fine. It is easy to get a star chart online, or with a phone app to help you find it in Pegasus. You will not see a spiral structure, but only the surprisingly large bright center of the galaxy. It will look like a fuzzy oval, but will be plenty big enough. Though not spectacular like a time lapse image it will still be profound b/c you will see 3 million year old light. When that light left Andromeda, Homo erectus was walking in Africa.
For comparison, how does the link to empirical claims of Christianity stack up?
Bwaa ha ha ha!!
The USCCB link certainly inspires some sort emotion, but I think awe is pretty far down the list.
“You would need more than 600 HD television screens to display the whole image”–best use I can think of for 600 televisions…Maybe one of these screens could do the image justice: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_video_screens
Thank you very much for posting this. It’s one of the most wonderful videos I’ve ever watched. I got a feeling of peace as I watched it without even thinking about it. Now I’m going to explore Hubble’s Image page. I could probably spend the rest of my life there.