Our muse departed for a few days. While we await her return, we thought we should share these two recent photos from the newly repaired and updated Hubble Space Telescope.
That long stringing thing in the middle of the photo is actually one galaxy. It’s light was bent on its way to earth by a gravitational lens, a gravity source strong enough that it actually bends light passing through it. Relativity theory and gravitational lenses are beyond the scope of this blog and this blogger’s understanding, but at both ends of the string you can see the single galaxy appearing as it it were two.
Here is another photo from Hubble:
At least four galaxies appear in that photo, which means billions of stars, many of which probably have their own solar systems like our sun has its solar system of planets. If even a few of those planets have developed livable atmospheres, imagine how many birds are out there awaiting discovery!
September 14, 2009 at 11:37 am |
That will be the next birding challenge: to go out there and list them.