A recent Hi-Def photo by NASA demonstrates how vast the Universe really is, and how small our part of it is. One wonders, then, where the grandiose ideas about our being masters or even the chosen, come from, in the face of such magnitude. The complete image would require more than 600 HD TVs, to display it at full resolution! Some of the stars you see in the image are part of the Milky Ways companion, the Andromeda Galaxy, once called the Andomeda Nebula, when many of us were young. Many of those stars are between us, and Andromeda, part of the Milky Way. In the distance are countless other galaxies, reduced to pinpoints of light, and globular clusters, star clusters, and more. When the magnification comes to an end, in the center of the screen will be a star formation that might be a galaxy, but it appears to be square. To me, this is the most interesting sight of all, a collection of stars incalculably, unimaginably distant, pulsing out light into the impossibly large Universe, a brave, lonely beam of light, now probably ten billion, or more, years old. Civilizations could have risen, fallen and turned to dust, dozens of times over, since that light began its voyage in our direction. Puts a different face on the size of things, and our importance, in the general scheme of things, doesnt it? The video at the bottom of the page offers a breathtaking magnification, closing in on a small section of Andromeda. Take a couple of minutes to watch it. It is well worth your time. In the comments below, I have added another page, with its own video, showing the latest map locating the Milky Way in relation to the galaxies around it. Its also very worthy of your interest.
Posted on: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 00:34:42 +0000
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