3D video of what you are seeing when you point the Hubble telescope at nothing

Check out this mind blowing 3D simulation of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field image. The context is all-important. The image was of a patch of empty sky as small as a grain of sand at arm’s length.  Also, this fantastic image was gathered in 1993, before the most recent upgrades to Hubble. This image is a big reason why I would be tempted to check the box for “spiritual but not religious.”

Here’s a bit of history of the deep field images.

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Erich Vieth

Erich Vieth is an attorney focusing on civil rights (including First Amendment), consumer law litigation and appellate practice. At this website often writes about censorship, corporate news media corruption and cognitive science. He is also a working musician, artist and a writer, having founded Dangerous Intersection in 2006. Erich lives in St. Louis, Missouri with his two daughters.

This Post Has 3 Comments

  1. Avatar of Dan Klarmann
    Dan Klarmann

    "Deep."

    Lessee what the numbers in the video mean: 100,000,000,000 known galaxies (so far) with about 100,000,000,000 stars in each galaxy and maybe 10 planets and big moons per star (this last number will probably be refined in the next decades).

    Mankind (after millenia of expansion) now occupies (living, farming, mining, fishing) about 1/30 of the surface of the second smallest planet in the solar system with enough atmosphere to notice.

    So the claim of the faithful is that all of the universe was created specifically for us that we may use less than <sup>1</sup>/<sub>3,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000</sub> of the available space.

  2. Avatar of grumpypilgrim
    grumpypilgrim

    Further to Dan's comment, I find it remarkable that virtually all known life in our universe lives within a thin shell of air and water that is only about twelve miles thick. The deepest part of the ocean is about 7 miles below sea level, and resident life (especially higher order life) becomes unknown above about 5 miles above sea level. (But see recent discovery of non-resident life in high altitude clouds:
    http://www.universetoday.com/2009/05/18/first-obs…. Of course, human life is even more limited. Unaided, our livable territory extends from the depths of the Dead Sea (about 0.25 miles below sea level) to the so-called high altitude "Death Zone" (about 5 miles above sea level). Run a 10K race and you will travel farther than the thickness of our livable environment.

  3. Avatar of Tim Hogan
    Tim Hogan

    Waaaaaaay cool! More reason not to allow Hubbel to just fritter away!

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