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Subscribe to RSSNASA released a dazzling image from the Hubble Space Telescope today, showing spiral galaxy NGC 2841.
According to their release, the image was taken in 2010 through four different filters on Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3. Wavelengths range from ultraviolet light through visible light to near-infrared light. NGC 2841 lies 46 million light-years away in the constellation of Ursa Major (The Great Bear).
NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope reveals a majestic disk of stars and dust lanes in this view of the spiral galaxy NGC 2841 released Thursday, Feb. 17, 2010.
A bright cusp of starlight marks the galaxy's center. Spiraling outward are dust lanes that are silhouetted against the population of whitish middle-aged stars. Much younger blue stars trace the spiral arms.
Notably missing are pinkish emission nebulae indicative of new star birth. It is likely that the radiation and supersonic winds from fiery, super-hot, young blue stars cleared out the remaining gas (which glows pink), and hence shut down further star formation in the regions in which they were born. NGC 2841 currently has a relatively low star formation rate compared to other spirals that are ablaze with emission nebulae.
Related content: The Month in Space | Today's best pictures
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"supersonic" stellar winds??
"Beam Me Up Scotty!, There's No Intelligent Life Here!"
Amazingly beautiful....
It's size can't truly be grasped by casually thinking about it, but it's out there... as are billions upon billions more of them...
46 million lys away and 130,000 lys diameter. Our milky way is 100,000 lys.
What's amazing is that there are so many scientists that are atheists!
Sigh.... Why Ned.... Why do you have to taint something so beautiful with your petty religious crap?
What's amazing is that you conclude that so many scientists are.
V...I don't thing he said anything about religion. You've tainted it all by yourself. I believe Creationism was his point and I stand by that. It's too beautiful to be an accident. Let science and math explain it all you want but we will never know it all and we will never be able to recreate everything. To think that life stops for us after this is to think that space just stops somewhere and thats it.
You think some god made this? NOT
Creationism implies creator which implies religion... just because you happen to share his point of view doesn't mean my point was wrong... which was that he released the religious/creationism fart in the science lab....
Opinion.
For hundreds of thousands of years man had little to no progress.... hunt, gather, rinse, repeat.... and that was it... that was the majority of Earth history... and then some agriculture... but then BOOM... we suddenly have gained an amazing amount of momentum and inertia... as recently as just over 100 years ago, we still rode horses everywhere... and now we have space stations, nuclear reactors, etc.... we are learning and growing exponentially... if we manage not to destroy ourselves (due to a petty mid-east land squabble based on religious bunk, creating conflict worldwide) and if we can last another 100 years... I think we would achieve most if not all those answers regarding the universe coming into being... heck we may figure it out in the next 10 or 20 years.
I never said I think consciousness ends when life ends... in fact I never said I was an atheist... I just reject religious nonsense, like the genesis MYTH being pushed as FACT, in a scientific discussion....
The fact that you latch on to YOUR God, and book of choice, and accept them as fact, carries the same weight as the scientologists and whatever they believe about aliens living in volcanos or whatever their theory is.... and the same goes for for all the other religions out there... it's all myth and fables written by primitive men who would've found an Ipod to have been a miraculous wonder of God, if I somehow could've show them one.
Pink...
Explore the Mandelbrot set. Neverending, everchanging beauty. Purely mathematical, Math is a human invention reflecting discovered and agreed upon relationships. You can say God created these relationships, if you want, but that would open the argument about Man discovering Gods' methods, which would elevate Man to the level of God. That, I think, eliminates the need for God since Man can replicate or mathematically describe the forces that form and evolve the universe.
If you have Faith in God, good, but there is no need, and it is not apreciated, bringing theological bias into a scientific discussion. Go preach to the choir, where it is appreciated.
Big Bang / Evolution is a proposed model of the universe
Creationism / Intelligent Design is a proposed model of the universe
In both cases, one looks for supporting evidence and decides which model has the most support
He was talking about the sheer wonder of the image, as well as the majesty of it. How many of you utter "God!" or some variation when seeing something wondrous, or terrible? In other words, a somewhat-clever turn-of-phrase.
Besides, keep the religious debates off here.
True. But such things naturally cause us to wonder where these fantastically beautiful galaxies came from and what the true nature of the universe is, so it's a legitimate discussion.
Watch the discovery channel.
Funny how touchy everyone gets when anyone mentions something remotely connected to a god?
Truth: The universe is too massive for mankind to ever know more then a pebble of information about it complexity. Mathmatics is a poor definition of this complexity. The largest supercomputer can only suggest the formation of a star much less the Galaxy in this picture. Physics has yet to explain the first 10 seconds of the universe, much less what was before this universe. Anything that is a theory is just mans supposition of what could be an explanation. To place all your hopes in a theory is no better then placing your hope in a god. But a theory rejects god and places your hope in mankind which then becomes your god.
But you know what? We will all find out who is right and wrong when we die. I hope you are all right cause it would suck to be wrong.
Well, it's kind of like the kid who gets beaten by his parents... all you have to do is move your hand and he flinches...
Speaking for myself, I am just completely fed up with organized religion being the ball and chain that slows down our evolution as a species, and tries to box up what is possible, and unknown, and just says... don't go there... trust in God... well... no, I WANT to go there...
Not a truth... an opinion... perhaps true, perhaps not... only time will tell...
Your thinking is static... you neglect the factor of evolving... in the 1960's - 1970's, computers ran on massive reels of tape (??!!?) and would take hours to do simple tasks... 40 years of progress later, and we can run simulations of galaxies colliding in seconds... or control, and analyze particles in that Hadron Collider... do think we've reached a plateau? That we won't keep growing and learning exponentially? Science is a process of unfolding understanding... correcting, and adjusting... where as religion is an immovable stubborn rock... if not for science, they would still be teaching you the sun revolves around the earth...
That sentence works both ways ya know...
To place all your hopes in a god is no better then placing your hope in a theory.
I like the 2nd part.... "places your hope in mankind which then becomes your god."
But I don't HAVE TO reject God, when I reject religion... I simply reject what religion tells me God is, wants, and does... I mean you yourself said ..."Truth: The universe is too massive for mankind to ever know more then a pebble of information about it complexity.".... Are you saying the universe is too complex to fathom, but the omnipotent creator of that complexity, HIM, we understand?? We have a book that explains everything he is and wants of us??? C'mon... Did you ever consider that maybe by exploring and understanding what you consider to be his creation, the universe, we may discover what God truly is? Because it sure as hell ain't what the religions are selling you.
What if we don't find out? The only reason you THINK we will find out, is from the same book that tells you what to think about God... Well....
What if we just die, and enter a new body without judgement or explanation?
What if we just enter a different dimensional plane, and have another lifetime there?
What if all time exists simultaneously, and is only EXPERIENCED by consciousness in a linear way?
What if the universe is God's body, and we are all cells and tiny organisms that function to keep him alive?
My point is.... WE DON'T KNOW.... Let's wait and see what we find out...
Science and Religion--both have preachers of their false religion.
SUPER COMPUTERS--who wrote the programs and how long did it take?
Are we the only ones in space? With all those worlds being destroyed (renewed) dontcha think the people would have discovered (not invent) how to travel in space and would come moving in this direction? If you know the universe is falling apart and you can do space travel, would you not leave people on planets that are going to be destroyed maybe a billion years from that time? Why not write stories that support reality instead of dreams!
Our Galaxy is soon beautiful, I never seem it in that way before, except for in scifi movies. I
wish for the day when, people can travel to other worlds. My wish would be to go in space, and
see the earth like the moon. There must be some life out there, intelligent or not. We should
always look to the sky and the heaven.
when i see a picture like this one, and after reading some of the comments, it reminds me of why we are here on earth. "Is there life after death" of course, why? How do you know? Is there a God? which God? Is there a Heaven? Is there a Hell? ect. ect. Well I'm no expert on any of those ??? BUT That's the whole point of being on earth! It's the "not knowing" that makes life so interesting, it's the best ride in this universe, you get to taste, touch, and to know the feeling of Love, Sadness, Joy, Heartache and so many others. And it's only because of that we Don't Know! Life is about experiencing all those things and more. So think what you will, believe in what you want, but most of all enjoy the ride!
Perhaps intelligent life takes a LONG time to evolve/form....perhaps WE, humans, are the most intelligent life in this universe at this moment in time. It's just like saying that there are more intelligent forms of life out there....right now, neither can be proven nor disproved, so both are just as likely to be true. Religious types have the same answer for everything...if it's good, god did it...if it's bad...it's god's plan.
Personally....I was religious, my own rational mind showed me that this was utterly illogical...I am a proud atheist, which is NOT a belief system, it's a LACK of belief in a system that is losing more ground every day.
simply stunning! awesome to see all the little globular clusters in the arms!
What is amazing to me is that there are any scientists that are not atheists.
Give it a rest....
But why should he give it a rest? If evolutionists wish to believe that they come from a single organism, of which the simplest has at least 20,000 proteins; it would of had to be able to replicate itself; have a cell wall to excrete as well as take in food. It would also food source.
I think it is fantasy to believe if a lab where they control every environmental factor for life and they only make life from what is. To expect that in wide environment that like just happens is a joke. One cell is to complex to be made up randomly in stew of elements
Where in science is it shown where matter is spontaneously created?
Yes, chemistry was established a long, long, loong time ago to tackle that little troublesome issue.
No, really, give it a rest.
right now on Comcast On-Demand there is a pretty good episode of Nova Science Now with Niel DeGrasse Tyson that explores some scientists effort to create some building blocks of life. It goes into some good detail about RNA. If you are into that sort of thing I'd highly recommend that show. Besides, NOVA is an awesome program!
Breathtakingly spectacular, incredible beauty in the night skies! And to think NASA almost failed to repair this wonderful telescope that has given us so many new views into our universe, not to mention the short-sightedness of the Feds for trashing the space program.
Stunning.
well put. Much agreed.
kind of puts things in perspective, doesn't it.
Whats sad is Russia is planning and preparing along with actual mock landings to colonize or visit Mars. And America is just slacking away and are going to let Russia "Be the First to step foot on another planet"> Oh where o where could our American Standards have gone. I always thought the USA would be the first to go back to the moon and also put their feet on Martian soil first but now I think it will be Russkies. OBAMA is a big fat (muslim) liar looking way down upon all us infidels and allowing the rest of the world to bypass us on almost everything. Thought he was suppose to be more inspiring than J.F.K., but America is getting used to false promises.
m r not
Obama? Really? Revisiting the Moon; First feet on Mars; With what money?
Remember the tax cuts? How do you think rockets and other stuff like - oh i don't know - roads, electric grids, and schools get paid for?
Anyway. 46 million light years away. With the lack of 'new' star formation that would seem to mean it was 'aging' 46 million years ago, while we were still squirrel-like creatures in the trees and it's just one in a few hundred billion. Damn.
Yeah...racism really proves your point.
Wow! Where is Russia getting all that money. When someone does land on Mars, it will be an international collaboration. Ever hear of the international space station? It's all the rage.
Mr2kuhl, (is that to be pronounced mr too cool?)...
More than 6,000 people from 40 countries applied for the third stage, 520-day mission. The selected volunteers were three Russians, two Europeans and one Chinese. It is an international effort conducted at a facility in Russia.
I am all for American LEADERSHIP in space but what you suggest is some sort of nationalistic isolationist policy where America does everything alone. When we raced to the Moon against the communist Soviet Union it was "us against them". But that time is gone and we are witnessing a new era of combined effort and collaboration on the parts of many nations. We are in the very beginnings of working together as a HUMAN RACE.
Your idiotic views about Obama being a "big fat muslim liar" are nothing but uninformed slanderous hateful opinionated garbage and it is completely unacceptable that you would voice such crap in this science and technology forum. You can go ahead and regurgitate crap you've heard from other idiots, that's your prerogative. But you won't find anyone here that will lend an appreciative ear to such hateful ignorant comments.
"Boots down" on Mars will be an international effort. If you think America can do it alone you are deluding yourself. American Leadership in space does not mean we do things alone, it just means we use our talents and knowledge to help the mission succeed. We need to encourage collaboration between countries. All you are doing with comments like "I always thought the USA would be the first....but now I think it will be Russkies" is solidifying your own selfish nationalistic foolish isolationist agenda in your own mind and you are actively spreading your ignorance hoping someone will see your comment and comment in kind. Well I have news for you MR2KUHL, you are an idiot and anyone worth their salt knows that the future of space-faring belongs to humanity as one people, it is not an American frontier, It is there for all of us!
Mr2Kuhl:
Zealous Obama haters are even worse than the religious zealots. Stop! Oh, pleeeez stop. You are stupid and making me sick.
An incredible irony here is that we can behold this galaxy in its entirety, but can never visit it or any of its star systems. We're like house cats looking out the window gazing at the house across the street. Its there, we can see it (and not our own house), but it's completely disjoint from our "reality."
It would be uneventful even if you could. You would see much the same canvas of stars in
a sky complete with some form of milkyway. Perhaps more luminous and widespread and you could look back at our galaxy.
Nicely put nHuman. Maybe, sometime in the not too distant future, we'll simply warp out there and prove Mike-428331's theory. LOL
maybe we could explore it after we shed this body were currently trapped in
Beauty. So much beauty in science.
Well put. Agree 100%!
This and other pictures of this type are beautiful. I would like to see these pictures processed through some transform that would display the more intensely lit areas at a lower level, equalizing the intensity across the entire view. It would be nice to see more detail in the center and still see the overall view.
I agree with Ned, God exists! I am a NDE survivor and got almost to the light when a voice said go back you have work to do in this life. What is petty is people making comments about others beliefs. The universe is big enough for all views here. I just wonder how many other planets have elitists trying to ruin poor folks lives? Id hope they would advance far beyond that!
Yeah, but you religious and political nuts jump on every science article as a chance to preach. Or start an evolution debate. Or complain about Obama. The political forums too full of morons trying to outwit each other?
I agree with you in part. Many are simply in here trying to outwit one another. I personally would like to see a more respectful exchange of ideas. But I see nothing wrong with taking the opportunity of extending the discussions to related topics. The Intelligent Design viewpoint IS a related topic. Not so sure about the topic of Obama, though :)
There is nothing about creationism that ruins this moment. On the contrary. Creationism shows us there
is so much more in this universe than just us ego-centric human beings . . like for example . . a God.
It also invites the possibility of amazing things yet undiscovered .. . whereas your big bang leaves us with
only accidental order . . meaning we would actually run out of things to discover . . .BORING.
And you can't really be an atheist and believe in Star Trek at the same time. Think about it.
Confirms to me that we are not alone in this big universe.
To all, believers and non believers, in an Almighty : If what we see here today and what we have seen before today, is an example of "something that just happened", then who, here, can identify, what was permitted to happen, and by what means. And once that identity is established, who orchestrated it's beginning, which is beyond comprehension of the human mind, only one, far more superior to all mankind, comes to mind. Taking all this into account, the established conclusion is obvious. Either to accept it or not, is your choice, but the obvious is obvious.
" ... it's all myth and fables written by primitive men who would've found an Ipod to have been a miraculous wonder of God, if I somehow could've show them one."
But the Ipod IS a wonder of God. Steve Jobs is God. Didn't you know that you silly atheist?
Thank you God for providing us all the ability to think complexly and make choices for ourselves. A-men
I agree, leave the religious BS out of these discussions and concentrate on appreciating the beauty of a natural occurrence.
Man created religion to explain the world he couldn't comprehend, and to distance himself from others as an elite race that could purportedly speak to God and relay his messages to his people.
Of course, only men were the conduits for said revelations, as woman weren't fit for anything but gathering wood/water, cooking and making babies...
You'd have thought that people would look back on history and see how religion has spread (war, kill'm to save'm, etc...), and compare it to today's society and see that we haven't changed much (jihad, protestants, Catholics, etc...). Each is vying for their own little place in the sun, as of course, only their God is the true God, and he'll favor only those who espouse their idea's...
Guess some people never grow up, I'm sure they still believe in Gnomes, Santa Claus and the Tooth-Fairy too, as the church prefers their herd to be ignorant (after all, everyone knows the sun orbits the earth, and that if you sail too far you'll fall off one of its corners), and educated, intelligent people aren't as willing to tithe 10 - 20% of their earnings to keep the church's propaganda machine going...
So, keep praying to your God that all of us heathens will die, and you'll inherit the earth... what's left of it anyways with your petty wars, and mass consumerism that strips away everything in pursuit of the next Iphone, Ipod and other trash that you need to justify your existence...
AGREED!! Well said!
God bless you
This is an article about Science, exploration and knowledge. Would it be possible that we can stick to that instead of commenting about god. I do not want to sound disrespectful, that is not my intent. Why does there have to be a religious debate on this site which is about science. I wanted to leave a comment about the article but found myself to impelled to comment about GOD instead. That sucks! You guys ruined it for me.
Thank you. You expressed my feelings exactly. Bernard, possibly we could come up with a site for religious nuts to discuss reality as they see it and keep them away from here.
I was Nuclear Navy and have jaundiced view of anything or anyone or any group who have only one referance point in life.
I'm afraid that even if there was such a site(and there very well may be), they would still show up on here and spew their drivvle. We come here to enjoy the beauty and wonder of the universe, not hear/read a damn sermon.
Looking down across my screen at approx 70 degree angle the bright center goes black. Am I the first to see a Black Hole?
I don't see it. I think you need to clean the chili sauce off your monitor.
The size of our bodies would be just as incomprehensible to the atoms that make us up. Maybe the universe is a living being, and it doesn't have the answers either.
I like to think about that idea often. Even if it's not a living being, we should still love the Universe and treat all things with respect.
Creationism is the supreme argument from ignorance.
Now, back to the very real wonders of the universe. Despite Pencil's concerns, I think it most unlikely we will ever run out of questions. Is there a ste where civilians can view the various filtered photographs of the above galaxy? Even to the untutored eye, they are proably magnificent.