Originally Posted by X Onasis View Post Earth, 1996. A group of NASA astronomers decide to point the Hubble Space Telescope at what seemingly looked like an empty crumb of sky close to the “Big Dipper” and devoid of anything except darkness. Given the demand for the use of this mighty piece of equipment, many felt this to be a massive waste of time. Worse still, others felt it was a waste of taxpayer’s money. However, in the face of criticism, the pioneering team pushed forward with the experiment and maneuvered the giant camera into position. Once fixed on this random black piece of the universe, the team opened the camera’s shutter and exposed the telescope’s CCD camera sensor to darkness for a full ten days. And just as well they did. The resulting photograph taken in 1996 (see below) has become one of the most beautiful, bewildering and humbling images of the twentieth century. In poignant explosions of orange, purple, red, white and blue, the beautiful picture developed by photographing quite literally a “stab in the dark”, depicted the existence of over three thousand superb galaxies, each one more unique in its appearance, colour and shape than the next. Above all else, what this image, now known as the “Hubble Deep Field” photograph, really showed us, is that our universal “back yard” is as enourmous as it is stunning. Since 1996, the experiment has been repeated twice. In 2004, scientists aimed the by then “pimped up” glass toward a speck of black near constellation “Orion”. This time they opened the shutter for eleven days and the subsequent image didn’t disappoint. In what has become known as the “Hubble Ultra Deep Field” photograph, astronomers captured the 13 billion year old light of over 10,000 spectacular galaxies. Furthermore, the team then used redshift calculations of the galaxies photographed to turn the image into a mind-bending “fly-thru” 3-D video (see link). And as if that wasn’t enough perspective for the 21st century, NASA’s latest foray into deep space photography (last year) saw the production of the “Hubble Extreme Deep Field”. This mesmorising photograph, in which Hubble’s sensor was exposed to darkness for a whopping twenty-three days, depicts the “deepest image of the sky ever obtained” and reveals the “faintest and most distant galaxies ever seen” by mankind. These pictures serve as testament to scientific enquiry and human creativity. Here’s to the 1996 NASA astronomers who, despite criticism, boldly went looking where no one looked before! - ANB Video: facebook/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2FLxXOY5&h=DAQH0F6aJ&s=1 Source and Picture: facebook/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2F11kGQ4Y&h=tAQGOS76I&s=1
Posted on: Sat, 08 Jun 2013 22:19:28 +0000
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