40 years ago tonight.

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North Shore
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40 years ago tonight.

Post by North Shore »

I had planned to put this in the "system after system" thread, but decided that it could stand on its own:

Image

One of the most beautiful (IMHO) pictures ever taken...

(Edited for image size)
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Re: 40 years ago tonight.

Post by ... »

North Shore wrote:I had planned to put this in the "system after system" thread, but decided that it could stand on its own:
You are correct Sir.
This is the best photo of the only home we have.

Very appropriate, I salute you.
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Re: 40 years ago tonight.

Post by 5x5 »

Thanks North Shore. :prayer: That is truly a magnificent picture. Particularly on this night of the year, it reaffirms for me at least that there's more at work than mere science in this vast and fantastic universe of ours.

Anyway, to all a Merry Christmas and I hope everyone has a fulfilling and rewarding 2009 regardless of where your flights take you!
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Re: 40 years ago tonight.

Post by Driving Rain »

Thanks North Shore,

That photo literally changed my life when I first saw it.
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Re: 40 years ago tonight.

Post by Rockie »

And this is just a photograph. Imagine the life altering impact being there had on the guy who took it.
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Re: 40 years ago tonight.

Post by Ludacris »

5X5, what exactly is it about that photograph that is not explained by science?
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Re: 40 years ago tonight.

Post by LAX »

Amazing Photo. Merry Christmas everyone.
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Re: 40 years ago tonight.

Post by F/O Crunch »

Back when the earth was only about half built.... We've come a long way folks!

All the best in the new year:)

foc
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Re: 40 years ago tonight.

Post by Beechball »

Ludacris wrote:5X5, what exactly is it about that photograph that is not explained by science?

Well, until somebody can answer the question of what existed prior to the "Big Bang" and what was it's catalyst, I'[ll believe in something beyond science....
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Re: 40 years ago tonight.

Post by yycflyguy »

... yeah but what the hell was he doing lying on his side to take a picture. For god´s sake man you can scratch your space suit.
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Tim
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Re: 40 years ago tonight.

Post by Tim »

link to the website for the pic please
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Re: 40 years ago tonight.

Post by North Shore »

Well, I initially wiki'd Apollo 8, then clicked on the picture itself (half-way down on the sidebar) and from there to here:http://grin.hq.nasa.gov/ABSTRACTS/GPN-2001-000009.html
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Re: 40 years ago tonight.

Post by grimey »

I am Birddog wrote: This is the best photo of the only home we have.

Very appropriate, I salute you.
Image
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known. -- Carl Sagan
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Re: 40 years ago tonight.

Post by Ludacris »

I think most religions now accept the big bang theory but say that the singularity was created by a higher power or god, and I think most scientists accept that as well. It's nice to see science and religion have reached somewhat of a consensus for the time being, and that we're far from the days of the persecution of Copernicus and Galileo.

But my question to 5X5 refers to the picture. Christianity even accepts the big bang theory. The Earth and Moon in that picture came from the big bang and so on and so on. God created the singularity and not the Earth and Moon. So I just don't understand what in that picture makes you think of a higher power...

Grimey, that's an amazing picture too. It's tough to think there's over a billion stars in our galaxy and billions of galaxies....There's been a few observations that may show past life on Mars. If life started twice just in our little solar system that means life is common in the universe. Imagine that...
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Re: 40 years ago tonight.

Post by North Shore »

What Carl said!
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Re: 40 years ago tonight.

Post by lucky37 »

I still can't get over this one...

Image

Hubble Ultra Deep Field image. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Ultra_Deep_Field
The Hubble Ultra Deep Field, or HUDF, is an image of a small region of space in the constellation Fornax, composited from Hubble Space Telescope data accumulated over a period from September 24, 2003 through January 16, 2004. It is the deepest image of the universe ever taken in visible light, looking back approximately 13 billion years, and it will be used to search for galaxies that existed between 400 and 800 million years after the Big Bang. [1]

The HUDF image was taken in a section of the sky with a low density of bright stars in the near-field, allowing much better viewing of dimmer, more distant objects. The image contains an estimated 10,000 galaxies[2]. Although most of the targets visible in the Hubble image can also be seen at infrared wavelengths by ground-based telescopes, Hubble is the only instrument which can make observations of these distant targets at visible wavelengths.

Located southwest of Orion in the Southern-Hemisphere constellation Fornax at right ascension 3h 32m 40.0s, declination -27° 47' 29" (J2000), the image covers 11.5 square arcminutes. This is just one-tenth the diameter of the full moon as viewed from Earth, smaller than a 1 mm by 1 mm square of paper held 1 meter away, and equal to roughly one thirteen-millionth of the total area of the sky. The image is oriented such that the upper left corner points toward north (-46.4°) on the celestial sphere. The star near the center of the field is USNO-A2.0 0600-01400432 with apparent magnitude of 18.95.

In total, the image required 800 exposures taken over the course of 400 Hubble orbits around Earth. The total amount of exposure time was 11.3 days for the ACS and 4.5 days for the NICMOS.
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Re: 40 years ago tonight.

Post by RFN »

The Ultra Deep Field shot is amazing.

I wonder how many planets exist around how many stars in all those galaxies.

I wonder how many intelligent life forms on those planets think that one of their citizens is/was God incarnate as one of them.



We should be careful about attributing things whose causal factors (ie. singularities) we don't yet completely understand to a supernatural power like god.

In that scenario, we leave ourselves open to the disproof of god. Better to leave the idea of god to some nebulous thought that can't be defined, proven, or quantified. Much safer.
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Re: 40 years ago tonight.

Post by Tim »

if anyone knows of a good spot with a large database of highquality images it would be great. i like to have space/planet shots as my comp background.

these are great!
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Re: 40 years ago tonight.

Post by grimey »

RFN wrote:We should be careful about attributing things whose causal factors (ie. singularities) we don't yet completely understand to a supernatural power like god.

In that scenario, we leave ourselves open to the disproof of god. Better to leave the idea of god to some nebulous thought that can't be defined, proven, or quantified. Much safer.
Never heard of the "god of the gaps"argument? It's widely used by young earth creationists when arguing against evolution (as well as other aspects of science), essentially to argue that any evidence contrary to their claims simply strengthens their claims by leaving more unexplained. If there are no transitional fossils between one species and its ancestor, that helps to disprove evolution, by their argument. If a transitional fossil is found, then that helps to disprove evolution, because there's now a gap between the ancestor and the transitional fossil, as well as a gap between the transitional fossil and the descendant, and two gaps are more than one. Science has a habit of prompting new questions by answering old ones, which is probably a result of how the scientific method works. I have little doubt that many (though not all, or even most) would simply redefine their concept of god to answer those new questions.

This isn't to say that you cannot be religious or spiritual and operate scientifically. Einstein, when asked if he believed in god, stated that he believed in the god of Spinoza. Martin Gardner and others have stated that they believe in god, while rejecting divine influence on the present universe or their day to day lives.

Ultimately, one's faith (or lack thereof) is their own though, and so long as it doesn't interfere with others, they should be left to do as they will. A scientific education is becoming more and more critical as our world becomes more technologically advanced. But for the most part, religion isn't interfering with that. The intelligent design "controversy" in the United States is a notable exception.

Tim: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/
Larger images than those on the main page are usually available by clicking on the image. Their archive is huge, as well.
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Re: 40 years ago tonight.

Post by Shiny Side Up »

It never gets old.

It kinda makes you want to...

break into song?
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Re: 40 years ago tonight.

Post by Changes in Latitudes »

Shiny Side Up wrote:It never gets old.

It kinda makes you want to...

break into song?
Boom de yada, boom de yada, boom de yada, boom de yada :)

I love this thread.
Grimey, I salute you for having the smarts to introduce the great Carl Sagan into the conversation.
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Re: 40 years ago tonight.

Post by planett »

"We are a way for the cosmos to know itself"-Carl Sagan
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Re: 40 years ago tonight.

Post by Hedley »

what existed prior to the "Big Bang"
You don't understand time. Do some reading about relativity -
time is not the steady, monotonic thing that you think it is
in your Newtonian world.

For example, a very accurate clock at the top of a tall tower
will run faster than a very accurate clock at the bottom of a
tall tower.

Time slows down in the presence of increasing gravity, and
you can bet that around the time of the big bang there was
immense gravity, so time was not clicking over very fast at
all!

Also, learning about calculus may help you comprehend
singularities a bit better.
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Re: 40 years ago tonight.

Post by dashx »

Yes. Break into song..........

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWVshkVF0SY
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Re: 40 years ago tonight.

Post by Tundra »

You can find the best images for your desktop here (and they are free, courtesy of NASA):

http://hubblesite.org/gallery/

For the highest res, browse the NEWSCENTER link.
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