The sky
I have been looking at the site, "Astronomy Picture of The Day", and I am amazed daily by what I see, or most days anyway. Part of it is what is shown, a part is the huge distances envolved, a part is what has been discovered over time, and a part is our ability to see so far into the past. As I have said before, much of what they discover out there they can use on earth. And sometimes what they discover in labs here leads to greater understanding out there.
Todays picture is of a five quasar gravitational lense, some 7 billion light years from us. A light year is the distance light travels in one year at approximately 186,000 miles per second, or nearly 6 trillion miles /10 trillion kilometers per year, now multiply that by 7 billion and you have the distance of what you see in the pic! I sure can't tell you how many miles that is.
I guess I could put it this way, the light of something that happened 7 billion years ago, is just now getting to earth. What we are seeing no longer may be there. It always amazes me to know that we won't live long enough, by billions of years, to see the end result of what we see now. As an example, by chance, astronomers have found an exploding star, very rare find, very far from here, aslo a chance to discover what really happens, rather than theory, to these stars. But even though we may see the beginning, we won't see the end. Weird huh!
On a clear night, and you are outside, star gazing, try to find the constellation Orion, then find the belt, on the verticle part of the belt you will see what looks like, a red star twinkling, actually it isn't a star per se, it is a super nova, or collapsing star, the red color is the nebulae, or remnants of this explosion, and you can see a little of it with the naked eye. If you go to the "astronomy pic of the day", and check the archives you can find it there.
Just thought I would give you something to look at on a clear night! Happy star watching.
Todays picture is of a five quasar gravitational lense, some 7 billion light years from us. A light year is the distance light travels in one year at approximately 186,000 miles per second, or nearly 6 trillion miles /10 trillion kilometers per year, now multiply that by 7 billion and you have the distance of what you see in the pic! I sure can't tell you how many miles that is.
I guess I could put it this way, the light of something that happened 7 billion years ago, is just now getting to earth. What we are seeing no longer may be there. It always amazes me to know that we won't live long enough, by billions of years, to see the end result of what we see now. As an example, by chance, astronomers have found an exploding star, very rare find, very far from here, aslo a chance to discover what really happens, rather than theory, to these stars. But even though we may see the beginning, we won't see the end. Weird huh!
On a clear night, and you are outside, star gazing, try to find the constellation Orion, then find the belt, on the verticle part of the belt you will see what looks like, a red star twinkling, actually it isn't a star per se, it is a super nova, or collapsing star, the red color is the nebulae, or remnants of this explosion, and you can see a little of it with the naked eye. If you go to the "astronomy pic of the day", and check the archives you can find it there.
Just thought I would give you something to look at on a clear night! Happy star watching.
posted by Reflections at 5:17 PM
1 Comments:
Those pictures of stars and space can sometimes be so beautiful. And as you mention, the thought of witnessing an event that took place a billion years or more ago boggles the mind.
Here is another site from the Radio telescope observatory in Socorro, New Mexico
http://www.nrao.edu/
I've been to this place a few times. They use radio telescopes to take "pictures" of the universe. Hope you enjoy it.
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