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To grasp a billion stars
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Using the VISTA telescope in Chile and the UKIRT telescope in Hawaii, astronomers have made an incredibly detailed map of the sky in infrared. This map will help understand our own galaxy, more distant galaxies, quasars, nebulae, and much more.
This is just too good. http://djer.roe.ac.uk/vsa/vvv/iipmooview...vgps5.html 
I zoomed in about 10 times or so. Once you're in close it's kinda mind blowing, the amount of stars you're actually looking at.
![[Image: Evolution.png]](https://images.weserv.nl/?url=i1118.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fk619%2Fjcincain%2FPublic%2FEvolution.png)  
When you consider that each of those specks is a place, every bit as real as the room you're sitting in and the world through your window, it's enough to make you simultaneously humble before the sheer scale of the Universe and honoured that we are part of a race sufficiently advanced to reach out and touch it.
At the age of five, Skagra decided emphatically that God did not exist. This revelation tends to make most people in the universe who have it react in one of two ways - with relief or with despair. Only Skagra responded to it by thinking, 'Wait a second. That means there's a situation vacant.'
Looking at that sort of stuff gives me this feeling that I call reverse vertigo. Instead of being so high up I'm instead surrounded by never-ending space above me.. creeps me out.
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it" ~ Aristotle
RE: To grasp a billion stars
April 10, 2012 at 7:16 am
(This post was last modified: April 10, 2012 at 7:17 am by Cyberman.)
Don't forget that there's equally as much space just one small planet's diameter away beneath your feet...
At the age of five, Skagra decided emphatically that God did not exist. This revelation tends to make most people in the universe who have it react in one of two ways - with relief or with despair. Only Skagra responded to it by thinking, 'Wait a second. That means there's a situation vacant.'
 (April 10, 2012 at 12:16 am)Forsaken Wrote: Using the VISTA telescope in Chile and the UKIRT telescope in Hawaii, astronomers have made an incredibly detailed map of the sky in infrared. This map will help understand our own galaxy, more distant galaxies, quasars, nebulae, and much more. And remember! We are the purpose of all that. 
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence - Carl Sagan
Mankind's intelligence walks hand in hand with it's stupidity. Being an atheist says nothing about your overall intelligence, it just means you don't believe in god. Atheists can be as bright as any scientist and as stupid as any creationist. You never really know just how stupid someone is, until you've argued with them. (April 10, 2012 at 7:16 am)Stimbo Wrote: Don't forget that there's equally as much space just one small planet's diameter away beneath your feet... This is true. Thinking about the mass below me reminds me that it's actually not stationary but we're hurtling at however many thousands of km/s. The universe is such an untamed beast. So brutal in nature but yet so grand.. "It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it" ~ Aristotle
 (April 10, 2012 at 7:16 am)Stimbo Wrote: Don't forget that there's equally as much space just one small planet's diameter away beneath your feet... Minor nitpick Stimbo, there is plenty of empty space in the small planet beneath your feet also. The only reason you don't fall through is the electromagnetic repulsion. 
One billion stars, and this universe was made for us, what piffle. Great site Forsaken.
Odds of life 1 in a billion. ET could be looking straight back at you. |
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