Open Thread – A Galaxy Far, Far Away…
In this season of madness, have you ever just wished that for a moment, you could be far, far away? Well, scientists have now determined the farthest away that you could possibly be, and still be in a galaxy somewhere. The farthest galaxy out there is located in the constellation Fornax. I’ll lay it out there right now and say that I never even knew there was a constellation Fornax. But nevertheless, there it lies. A tiny, tiny red speck of a galaxy.
It all started with the classic image called the Hubble “Deep Field.” The story of how the Deep Field image came to be is one of my favorite astronomical tales. It seems that someone applied for use of the Hubble, and said that they wanted to point it at the darkest, emptiest part of the sky that there was – a place where, if we were going to find nothing, there it would be. And then they wanted to take a very long exposure and see what there was to find in the nothingness. So, the Hubble people thought that would be a great idea, and they settled on the least populated area of the sky that they could find, and pointed the Hubble for a long, long time at that tiny darkest black spot in the sky.
When the image came back, it was anything but empty… There were galaxies upon galaxies upon other galaxies of all shapes and sizes and colors – white ones, yellow ones, spirals and globular ones. It was breathtaking – an iconic image that makes anyone who looks at it feel awed, amazed, and very very small. And the most amazing thing about this little black spot is this – imagine if you will, that you are holding a penny between your fingers, and that you extend your arm out straight and hold the penny as far from you as you can up against the backdrop of the night sky. Now look at the lincoln side of the penny. The entire Hubble Deep Field is the size not of the penny, but of Lincoln’s eye.
And now look at the spot taken from this Deep Field image, and then at the tiny red dot that is an entire galaxy, with millions of stars, and planets, and secrets that we will never know. It’s proper name is the hideously unromantic “UDFy-38135539” but until it gets some sort of name that it deserves, I’m going to call it the little red dot. The light that reaches us from that little red dot has been traveling since about 600 million years after the Big Bang, give or take. The Big Bang, from our best calculations happened more than 13 billion years ago. Our little red dot at the other end of the universe is actually quite different and much older than what we see now from Earth. We get the privilege of looking back in time billions of years to what a galaxy looked like when our universe was in its infancy and was busy transitioning from a mass of hydrogen gas into what we call home today, and when the rays of light from afar started their journey to our little corner of space, before its destination even existed.
It’s quite probable that there are many many more galaxies that are further away still, but since we’ve just started looking, the little red dot will hold the honor of being the oldest known galaxy until another is found.
I hate to leave you here all those billions of miles away, but in case you aren’t quite ready to return to Earth, enjoy this website with beautiful photos from the Hubble.
This is a fantastic column about the Constitutional intent for separation of church and state:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/21/AR2010102104858.html?hpid=opinionsbox1
Simply stunning. So many masterpieces. Just imagine what Newton, Da Vinci, Ben Franklin and other great and creative minds would have felt seeing these incredible images. Who knows, maybe they do see them, even move about and between them.
Big thank you AKM
We look up at the night sky in a truly dark place, where the air is clear and calm, and see perhaps a few thousand stars. Because our persistence of vision is so brief, without instruments we would never see more. With instruments we began to learn that the points of light, were sometimes discernable objects. Over the course of just a few centuries what we have learnt is astounding and most of that has come in the last century. We now know that we reside in an orbit around a very ordinary star that is about mid-way through its life cycle, among some hundred billion odd stars that make up the island universe which is our home and we call the Milky Way because of its vague glow to the unaided eye.
Less than a century ago we learnt that there are other island universes, in general similar to our own but also with a wide range of variations, some quite strange. We learnt that our home galaxy was about 100,000 light years in diameter, and that its nearest companion of similar size and form was about 25 times as far away as that already incredible distance. Astronomers refined their methods and machines. I say we, because scientific knowledge is the property of all humanity. The astronomers have an arguably difficult task, all they can do is observe the radiation that reaches us from such vast distances. By comparison biologists can lay hands upon their subject, but its astronomical complexity makes it even more daunting. Every direction in which we aim our curiosity throws up obstacles and difficulties. Just to obtain a more or less thorough grasp of the subject matter of any particular subset of scientific knowledge requires 2-3 decades of devoted effort.
I am not an astronomer, I chose to pursue a different field though it was a difficult choice. Still, there is a bit I can add in here. There is a reason the dot is red. It has to do with a discovery made by none other than Hubble, that distant objects, other galaxies, are receeding from our frame of reference. That is to say, the universe is expanding. It was this observation and the need to explain it that ultimately led to the more or less current “big bang theory”. Not only is the universe expanding, but the rate of expansion increases linearly with respect to distance. At first this seems like a trivial fact. Until the scale of the universe becomes apparent. Then it is noticed that the most distant objects are actually moving away from our frame of reference at velocities that are significant fractions of the speed of light. Because of a phenomenon known as the Doppler effect, an object moving away from us and emitting a pure black body spectrum will appear increasingly red as its velocity increases. Applied to astronomical objects this is known colloquially as the red-shift. The red dot is red because it is moving away from us at very high velocity.
I’ll leave it to the rest of the forum to discuss the broader implications of cosmology that can be inferred from this bit of basic knowledge.
The smart ass in my says: The entropy of the universe is expanding even faster with the introduction of $P and her personal chaotic style into the political discourse? That humans and dinosaurs might possibly have coexisted like she claims? Something reloaded and THAT’s why that galaxy is moving away so fast? It’s red because tea is hot and the GOP’s color is red?
I’m sure I could come up with more, but I need to pray to some deity now, because science is SOOO HARD!
All goofing aside, I’ve always liked physics on the astronomical as well as quantum scales. Thanks for posting the above. Now please explain how cats purr. 😉
nswfm – I can’t explain the cat’s purr. I don’t in fact think it falls within the purview of astrophysics.
Or igneous petrology.
But I think if you went among some of the biologists who are on the net you would find if not an answer, at least a selection of plausible explanations.
I appreciate your snark.
>>The red dot is red because it is moving away from us at very high velocity.
I’ll leave it to the rest of the forum to discuss the broader implications of cosmology that can be inferred from this bit of basic knowledge.<<
In some of the old mystical traditions it is said that the cosmos is breathed into being on the exhalation of the breath of God, and breathed out of being on the inhalation of the breath of God — over and over again, over unimaginable eons of time.
How's that for cosmological? 🙂
Just a note for anyone who doesn’t know yet..
Massive Washington Sanity rally Mudstock now has AKM attending!
https://themudflats.net/forum/index.php/topic,10670.msg121058.html#msg121058
The above thread has all the details you need to get in on the awesomeness. 🙂
Cheers!
Snoskred
Truly amazing stuff… thanks Mud…
It’s staggering how much we don’t know…. and that’s a GOOD thing … keeps our species curious!!!
AND, here’s a companion image (artist’s rendering) of that galaxy… AND, to quote the article that accompanied the rendering..
“This is the oldest object we’ve found yet in space. It’s a galaxy whose light traveled more than 13 billion light-years before it was visible to Hubble. And it’s only 600 million years younger than the universe itself.”
http://gizmodo.com/5669927/this-is-the-oldest-space-object-ever-found
TRULY astounding…..
“Democrats threaten to sue over write-in lists”
………….“One Chugiak voter, Rob Sterling, said Thursday that workers at the Chugiak Senior Center voting site behaved questionably when he went to vote early Thursday. He said he asked election workers for help on how to select a write-in candidate.
Sterling said an election worker showed and told him where on the ballot he could write in Lisa Miller’s name in the Senate race. Another election worker told him that he could provide a list of write-in candidates if Sterling needed it, he said.” (my sic)………….
http://www.adn.com/2010/10/21/1513138/democrats-threaten-to-sue-over.html#ixzz132ZywotJ
I’m stealing this and putting it on the transparency thread also. Thanks, Scout. No better reason to vote for Berkowitz/Benson. This kind of pucky. 🙂
need for any D.C. MUDPEEPS to check the forum thread.
please and also too there
Just saw my senator, Mary Landrieu walking to her plane at the New Orleans airport. Alone. Just wanted to point out that she was traveling alone. No bodyguards, no goons. Hooray for Sanity.
Why we do Christine O’Donnell
http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2010/1019/Christine-O-Donnell-and-the-rise-of-cable-TV-politics-Why-we-re-responsible
And, I don’t know if anyone else posted this yet or not, but for a daily dose of the heavens, try http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/
have Christine O’lDonnel. have.
Borough blasts Miller’s request for free legal help
Jill Burke | Oct 21, 2010
http://www.alaskadispatch.com/blogs/political-animal/7230-borough-blasts-millers-request-for-free-legal-help
………….”On Wednesday, Miller countersued the borough and former borough mayor Jim Whitaker for damages that, Miller claims, he suffered as a result of the “illegal” distribution of information from his file. He also asked the borough to pay his attorneys fees.
On Thursday the borough fired back.
“It is ridiculous to think that a lawsuit clearly arising from Mr. Miller’s ongoing U.S. Senate race ‘arises out of his employment with the borough,'” wrote borough attorney Rene Broker about Miller’s request to have taxpayers fund his legal efforts in the case.”…………
Here we go again. Sounds just like $P. And next he will be talking about “frivolous lawsuits” costing the taxpayers. What a load of dung. But Van Flea is his attorney and he’ll be making more bucks off yet another drama queen.
I had a visit to my business from a fire inspector this am. This inspector goes all over the state. The conversation turned towrds politics and discussion was had over the different races. Said inspector is a republican who fessed up to voting for Ethan and being very concerned that we do not “have another Palin”. Said Scott was a good guy but doesn’t have enough exposure to which I replied that he was the man I am voting for and why. not sure if I was able to turn inspector away from Leasa but I gave it an effort.
Good for you, LMD. I’m thinking $P’s joey-boy-grifter is feeling the dogs of disbarment snapping at his heels right about now. And Millerurcy’s so nervous that she’s trying to impersonate a moderate in the Anchorage Press today. sure, Ms Millerske, sure. (Wasn’t it just days ago that she told a different audience that she stood firmly on R-party-of-no ground?!)
“Better Way” Ben Harper
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOZj1Xyx354&feature=channel
Since this is the open thread – I so wanted to go to the rally for Patty Murray at the Univ of Washington today. What a great chance to see a senator I’ve voted for and supported and the President of the United States, all in one stop.
I even signed up to go and spent most of yesterday trying to figure out how to get there. My original plan was to drive, but that sounded like it would be a bad idea. I found a bus that would get me within a half-mile of the rally. But since my arthitis sometimes bothers me most when I do a lot of walking or standing, I went back to the idea of driving.
I ended up staying home and was able to watch the backyard visit and the rally on my laptop. But listening to the cheers and applause made me wish I had gone. That was, until I heard how long the line was (at one time 2 miles) and how long people stood in line – hours to get in. It was a missed opportunity, but life if full of those. I was heartened to see the positive reception President Obama got here in Seattle. And I was glad to see so many supporting Patty Murray, who has done many positive things for the state of Washington.
Patty Murray is first class. Good on Washington!
Right here is where we are, and right glad of it too.
Here’s a good one (from The Hill):
“It would be a “disaster” for Republicans to lose the Alaska Senate race, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said Thursday.
Cornyn, the chairman of the National Senatorial Campaign Committee (NRSC), said it’d be a poor sign for the GOP if a split field led to Democratic candidate Scott McAdams winning the state’s Senate race.
“Frankly, that would be a disaster for us, if the Democrats won Alaska,” Cornyn said during an appearance on MSNBC.
The Senate race has become a three-way contest between McAdams and two Republicans: Official nominee Joe Miller and Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who lost the GOP primary to Miller only to decide to wage a write-in for reelection….”
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/125165-cornyn-democratic-win-in-alaska-would-be-disaster-for-gop
Good! They need a little disaster of their own after inflicting theirs on me all these years. I have no sympathy or compassion for lock step, self serving Rs in this arena and I plan to be a big part of inflicting that very disaster on them! Go Scott!
Anything that is a disaster for the GOP must be good for the rest of us. Everything they have done has had dire implications for all of us. It’s just a shame that there are people who are too ill-informed to see it.
Gail Collins said she wants Scott McAdams to win but says he won’t – I really think she is wrong.
I, too, am a fan of Hubble imagery. Hubble wasn’t operating yet on the 23rd of February, 1987, when Supernova 1987a was detected simultaneously in New Zealand and Chile. I was on my way to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef at that time. I was the only person on the island who knew how to read a star map, which was brought by a couple from NZ, who had clipped it from their morning newspaper. We and other interested stargazers watched it growing every night (except during rainstorms), and there are a number of beautiful images from the Hubble. Read about it and see the images:
http://heritage.stsci.edu/1999/04/sn1987anino.html
I’ve had great good luck seeing celestial phenomena in my lifetime, especially considering that I live in a city where, as Bubbles noted above, we’re lucky we can still see the moon. I saw the Perseids while camped out on a plateau in NM, traveled south to see Halley’s Comet (which I’d waited for, for most of my life), and have seen Venus (again while camping) when it was as big as my face.
One of my dreams is to be able to watch the night sky from the big kiva in Chaco Canyon. I envy your star gazing from the NM plateau.
I love me some cosmos!
“”…considering that I live in a city where, as Bubbles noted above, we’re lucky we can still see the moon.””
Well, then, you may want to visit Alaska in the Fall or Winter (when nights are dark and clear) to see our stunningly beautiful night sky. The real Alaska is about a half-hour from Anchorage. But not in Wasilla.
Gotta say, the image of Limbaugh actually exploding, made me smile:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/norman-lear/post_1101_b_771132.html
Yeah, I remember UDFy-38135539. The inhabitants are nice, but the hotels are AWFUL, and you couldn’t find a decent dry martini to save your life.
LOL….yep. you are coming with me in the TARDIS with the Doctor and Rose Tyler. you bring the booze and i ‘ll bring the olives.
….and the one stop light in town is always red (nicely documented by Hubble, btw).
Corporations are people too!
http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/what-part-did-scalia-and-thomas-play-
Very interesting.
Big Pete..thank you. my question was not rhetorical so i appreciate you taking the time to point me in the right direction. i am very sad and disheartened by the Supreme Court’s lack of integrity and the Democratic Party’s inability to correct the Court’s behavior. by the end of the article my bright eyes had dimmed and my bushy tail had slumped:
*********************************************************************************************************************
So what’s our remedy? The standard for impeachment is very high and requires a supermajority of the Senate to convict (although if we were Republicans, we wouldn’t let a silly thing like that stop us!). And it’s not as if the President can call them into his office for a stern talking-to.
In other words, once again, the right-wing bully boys have hijacked one of our country’s institutions, show no signs of anything approaching ethical behavior, and the Democrats will simply wring their hands and say, “What do you want us to do about it?”
“what i want you to do is what i elected you to do. your job!”
this from Yahoo news—Brett Dykes (author)
[But some think that Ginni Thomas — who has adopted what the New York Times’ Jackie Calmes termed “the most partisan role ever for a spouse of a justice on the nation’s highest court” — could create some serious conflicts of interest for her jurist spouse down the road.
Liberty Central — which started with two anonymous gifts of $500,000 and $50,000 — is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, which means she does not have to disclose the names of donors. However, a federal law requires justices to recuse themselves from cases whenever potential conflicts of interest could arise — including cases where a justice’s spouse might possess a financial interest in the court’s decision.
“It’s shocking that you would have a Supreme Court justice sitting on a case that might implicate in a very fundamental way the interests of someone who might have contributed to his wife’s organization,” Stanford law professor Deborah L. Rhode told the Times earlier this month. “The fact that we can’t find that out is the first problem. And how can the public form a judgment about propriety if it doesn’t have the basic underlying facts?”]
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my question is this: how can ‘we the people’ get Clarence Thomas ,Alito and Scalia off the supreme court for their bad acts? there must be a way. is what they have done in declaring person-hood for corporations actionable?
Who do you appeal to when the Supreme Court does something wrong???
AKM, I’m sorry to burst your Hubble, er bubble, but every God-fearing, Bible-reading, rill American knows that humans and dinosaurs walked together on this earth 6,000 years ago and this gibberish about things happening 13 billion years ago is blasphemy. You must stop spreading this nonsense or face the consequences.
Science, schmience. If it’s in The Good Book it’s good enough for me. No wonder you closed your store! It was your only path to salvation.
(Fornax is a great word. Could be something you put out to kill ants or rub on to reduce unsightly age lines.)
AFFC – the first part of your post kept going through my mind as AKM took me on that wonderfully glorious voyage of exploration and discovery. I kept trying to imagine how Literalists would reconcile the incredible *scientific* knowledge with their concept of time and the Firmament. It made my brain hurt to think like them; I had to get back to the reality of the knowns and unknowns of science for my sanity. beth.
what a wonderful way to start my day. thanks AKM.
Action to stop Beck’s hate speech…Sign the Media Matters letter to advertisers:
http://mediamatters.org/action/dropfox/index
I hope I’m not being redundant. I hope I’m not being redundant, but did everyone read MoDo’s column yesterday?
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/20/opinion/20dowd.html?_r=1&ref=columnists
It’s one of her best!
Thank you, AKM. I love Hubble images, and use them as wallpaper. It is just amazing to me that there is so very, very much out there of which we will never learn. As a person who needs to learn, I am hoping that there is an afterlife for me filled with opportunities to learn about things like this. Wouldn’t it be neat to see up close?
Brilliant sign.
http://i.imgur.com/FG5vG.jpg
fly me to the moon!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eys5M7vlrXE
Hideously Unromantic? I’m certain we read an ode to UDFy-38135539 in classic lit. 😉
Might also be fun to adapt Jan & Dean’s (Beach Boys?) “Little Deuce Coupe” to “Little Red Dot.”
The Hubble Zone is one of my very favorite places to go. Puts everything in to perspective.
Here’s a nice collection of images on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pA06Ck0eVs&feature=related
ahhhh…so very peaceful….
So beautiful and refreshing! What a nice addition to this post. The music was so relaxing, I am having a hard time fighting the urge to go back to bed. Really appreciate the link!
Allows all the day to day stuff melt away for a short while, doesn’t it ? During the 2008 campaign blood pressure spikes, I used to get lost in Hubble videos to calm my nerves. Add a glass or two of wine and it works wonders!
just sending this off to friends and family. sooo peaceful.
i am, of course, expecting ‘the Doctor’ traveling on the TARDIS with Rose Tyler to drop in any day now to pick me up and take me far,far away. i understand that there is a lot of room aboard so we will be stopping to take on Mudpeeps who like to travel on long journeys.
Please stop by my place. I’ll bring some nice salads and sammiches.
And wine.
Lots of.
LOL
Wow – fantastic images and even better explanations! Thanks, AKM.
Proof that not everyone in Delaware is as stupid as Christine O’Donnell: http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,2026765,00.html
and that Joe Biden knows how to pick ’em!
What a pity someone like Kaufman cannot stay where he is. We need people with his intelligence and dedication.
Maybe he can start his own blog, in addition to exercising his engineering degree in his spare time. I suspect it would be fascinating reading from one of our smaller states.
Inspiring story.
It makes a case for Term Limits. If you know you’ll not be running for re-election, you are more willing to champion ‘the right thing’.
The Milky Way also , too.
http://i.imgur.com/2Ph5L.jpg
Gorgeous! Thanks for starting our day with another beautiful image.
gorgeous. we are lucky we can still see the moon in New York. i don’t even bother to look up in search of a star any more.
Now my screensaver – absolutely breath taking. Thank you!
Looks like a place between Glennallen and Tok – about a month ago, on my motorcycle, very late at night – I stopped for a few minutes and looked up. No artificial lighting to interfere with the cold clear night sky. OMG it was absolutely gorgeous – thick with stars.
austintx – how do you find these wonderful images. Don’t stop. I love it and really appreciate them all.
Bee-yoo-tee-full!
That was lovely ….thank you!
That does sound wonderful…traveling far, far away in search of intelligent life…heavy sigh…especially when you look at the political news. Of course, this column is a refreshing reminder that all things Palin might just come to an end:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1010/43936.html
That was a great read, although I did have trouble reading one passage that said her campaign tried to explain that Palin has trouble with scheduling because, unlike others, she has five kids to look after. Five – hmm, you mean Track and Bristol cannot take care of themselves and all other candidates are barren wastelands or don’t care about their kids? Gees, Sarah’s minions need to think about how what they say gets taken by people who can actually think. All in all, it was a great read.Thanks!
Good point.
By the way, they changed the name of the article to “Hurricane Sarah”
If she can’t handle five kids, three of whom are grown and able to take care of themselves, with the support of a husband who does not have a full-time job, and enough money to hire scads of nannies, how in hell do they think she can run the entire blooming country????
there are many times i want to be far, far away. Thanks for sharing .