[Mrs V]

I have always loved pictures of space. It really does put things into perspective. It's magical to think of all that is out there, yet to be discovered by humans...

I remember an opinion column in the NYT, where the journalist was saying that science and scientists have ruined the mystery of life for us, because they can put a definition on things that we previously thought were unknowable...(i think he was talking about the big bang and evolution at the time). It is such a ridiculous statement, made even moreso when you see pictures like these. The universe is so vast that the reality of the situation is that the mysteries of the cosmos will probably outlive humanity...

[DONTEATUS]

Mrs V on Feb 22 2009, 12:36 AM, said:

I have always loved pictures of space. It really does put things into perspective. It's magical to think of all that is out there, yet to be discovered by humans...

I remember an opinion column in the NYT, where the journalist was saying that science and scientists have ruined the mystery of life for us, because they can put a definition on things that we previously thought were unknowable...(i think he was talking about the big bang and evolution at the time). It is such a ridiculous statement, made even moreso when you see pictures like these. The universe is so vast that the reality of the situation is that the mysteries of the cosmos will probably outlive humanity...

Ms V you are Oh! So Right! One but needs to gaze into the creations of the Universe and the Images that now we are privliaged to See because of Science,and the Scientist have built the tools to see these things.And too true the focus upon the details some time overshadows the wonders of tech we make.But I too Look into the Future and the Past everytime I see these images.I total auh!!"We are the Star Stuff ",as the Late Great "Carl Segan" once put it! Without Dreams and Wonder what would we need Science for? Looks up every nite!

[karl 12]

Had to post this one -the tiny section of sky featured in the Hubble image is shown at the bottom:

[karl 12]

Mrs V, on 22 February 2009 - 07:36 AM, said:

I remember an opinion column in the NYT, where the journalist was saying that science and scientists have ruined the mystery of life for us, because they can put a definition on things that we previously thought were unknowable.

Mrs V,thanks for the reply -that does indeed sound like a terrible opinion column - would the journalist prefer it if we were still wallowing around in ignorance,living in caves and cowering at thunder and lightning?

I think there will always be mystery in life yet that doesn't mean we shouldn't attempt to puzzle things out -in fact it seems criminal not to.
Cheers.

[MIB Agent X]

Our entire universe is just a dot to That which created it. It's finite in both size and age.

[karl 12]

MIB Agent X, on 09 September 2009 - 10:15 PM, said:

Our entire universe is just a dot to That which created it.

Trouble is , noone knows what created it.

These new Hubble pics show how beautiful it is though:
http://www.physorg.c...ebirthofani.jpg
Cheers

[MID]

karl 12, on 09 September 2009 - 06:03 PM, said:

These new Hubble pics show how beautiful it is though:
http://www.physorg.c...ebirthofani.jpg
Cheers

Astounding what a nice new wide field camera can do, isn't it?

Wow...

[MIB Agent X]

karl 12, on 09 September 2009 - 06:03 PM, said:

Trouble is , noone knows what created it.

These new Hubble pics show how beautiful it is though:
http://www.physorg.c...ebirthofani.jpg
Cheers

Something outside of time did.

[karl 12]

MID, on 10 September 2009 - 12:04 AM, said:

Astounding what a nice new wide field camera can do, isn't it?

Wow...

Certainly worth all the effort - amazing stuff

Remember this pic of them doing it:
http://www.unexplain...pic=154076&st=0

[MID]

karl 12, on 09 September 2009 - 08:27 PM, said:

Certainly worth all the effort - amazing stuff

Remember this pic of them doing it:
http://www.unexplain...pic=154076&st=0

Sure do, karl!

[Hazzard]

karl 12, on 17 February 2009 - 08:03 PM, said:

Photograph of planet Earth taken by Voyager 1 which was 4 billion miles away.

<<img src="http://www.bludot.biz/www/bludot/img/PaleBlueDot2.jpg" border='0' alt='linked-image'>

I simply love that photo... and Sagans comment.

Quote

"We succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives.

The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every 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 in 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 the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. 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.

It is up to us.

This post has been edited by Hazzard: 11 September 2009 - 03:31 PM

[karl 12]

MID, on 11 September 2009 - 12:02 AM, said:

Sure do, karl!

MID -I think the title is somewhat misleading but this is quite an interesting article from the Independant:

Quote

Planet found that defies the laws of physics

It's the planet that really shouldn't exist – or at least not for long. It is 10 times the size of Jupiter, orbits its own star in under 24 hours and should soon be spiralling into the surface of its searingly-hot sun.

Under the laws of physics, planet WASP-18b orbiting a star 1,000 light years from Earth is too big and too close to its sun for comfort. The tidal interactions between the two massive objects should be pulling them together in a deadly gravitational embrace.

British astronomers say they have made a highly unusual planetary discovery in finding WASP-18b. Either they just happened to have witnessed an exceptionally rare event that they have likened to winning the lottery, or they do not understand the tidal forces affecting distant planets beyond our own solar system.

"The problem with this planet is that it's very massive and very close to its star. It should be creating tidal bulging that makes it spiral into its star," said Professor Andrew Collier Cameron of St Andrew's University.

The planet is at least one billion years old, yet at this rate it should have no more than half a million years left before it crashes into its own star. The chances of finding it at this point in its life cycle is about 1 in 2,000.

Professor Cameron said: "This is another bizarre planet discovery. The situation is analogous to the way tidal friction is gradually causing the Earth's spin to slow down, and the Moon to spiral away from the Earth," he said. "In this case, however, the spin of the star is slower than the orbit of the planet, so the star should be spinning up, and the planet spiralling in," he said.

http://www.independe...cs-1777738.html

Don't know what to make of that one but I'm sure they'll figure it out.
Cheers.

[karl 12]

Hazzard, on 11 September 2009 - 04:30 PM, said:

I simply love that photo... and Sagans comment.

Hazard he certainly was a very wise man.
Theres also this interesting paragraph in his (great) book 'Cosmos' which deals with the photograph from a philosophical angle:

Quote

Ann Druyan suggest an experiment: Look back again at the pale blue dot of the preceding chapter. Take a good long look at it. Stare at the dot for any length of time and then try to convince yourself that God created the whole Universe for one of the 10 million or so species of life that inhabit that speck of dust. Now take it a step further: Imagine that everything was made just for a single shade of that species, or gender, or ethnic or religious subdivision. If this doesn't strike you as unlikely, pick another dot. Imagine it to be inhabited by a different form of intelligent life. They, too, cherish the notion of a God who has created everything for their benefit. How seriously do you take their claim?

Cheers.

[Hazzard]

karl 12, on 11 September 2009 - 05:59 PM, said:

Hazard he certainly was a very wise man.
Theres also this interesting paragraph in his (great) book 'Cosmos' which deals with the photograph from a philosophical angle:-------------------

Sagan was a wise man, that much is true, karl. As far as cration, belief and faith goes, well, Im probably the least religious person at this forum...

... Science is my God.

[karl 12]

Hazzard, on 11 September 2009 - 07:01 PM, said:

Sagan was a wise man, that much is true, karl. As far as cration, belief and faith goes, well, Im probably the least religious person at this forum...

... Science is my God.

Yes, I'm not particularly a fan of organised religion either
There are some interesting quotes here about the sheer size and scale of the cosmos,science and theistic opinion:

Quote

"It doesn't seem to me that this fantastically marvelous universe, this tremendous range of time and space and different kinds of animals, and all the different planets, and all these atoms with all their motions, and so on, all this complicated thing can merely be a stage so that God can watch human beings struggle for good and evil - which is the view that religion has. The stage is too big for the drama".
Richard Feynman


"In some respects, science has far surpassed religion in delivering awe. How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, "This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant. God must be even greater than we dreamed"? Instead they say, "No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way."
Carl Sagan


“The supreme arrogance of religious thinking: that a carbon-based bag of mostly water on a speck of iron-silicate dust around a boring dwarf star in a minor galaxy … would look up at the sky and declare, ‘It was all made just so that I could exist!’”
Physicist Peter Walker


"For most of human history we have searched for our place in the cosmos. Who are we? What are we? We find that we inhabit an insignificant planet of a hum-drum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people".
Carl Sagan


"God did it. He did not call it the universe -- that name is modern. His whole attention was upon this world. He constructed it in five days -- and then? It took him only one day to make twenty million suns and eighty million planets!
What were they for -- according to this idea? To furnish light for this little toy-world. That was his whole purpose; he had no other. One of the twenty million suns (the smallest one) was to light it in the daytime, the rest were to help one of the universe's countless moons modify the darkness of its nights".
Mark Twain

And this ones off topic but a great story by Carl Sagan anyway:

Quote

"A scientific colleague tells me about a recent trip to the New Guinea highlands where she visited a stone age culture hardly contacted by Western civilization. They were ignorant of wristwatches, soft drinks, and frozen food. But they knew about Apollo 11. They knew that humans had walked on the Moon. They knew the names of Armstrong and Aldrin and Collins. They wanted to know who was visiting the Moon these days".

Cheers.

This post has been edited by karl 12: 11 September 2009 - 07:51 PM