[ExI] blown mind

[spike]

>... On Behalf Of BillK
Subject: Re: [ExI] blown mind

On Fri, Sep 28, 2012 at 5:17 AM, spike wrote:
> Just take a few minutes and gaze at this picture:
>
http://www.spacetelescope.org/static/archives/images/large/heic1214a.jpg

>
> And while you are doing that, ponder this: the typical spacing between 
> galaxies is on the order of a million light years.  ...  Does that 
> blow your mind, or what?
>
>

Ethan has a post up now explaining how the photo was made and what it is
showing.

<http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2012/09/28/the-deepest-view-of-the-
universe-ever/>

Quote
If we apply these results to the entire sky, we find that there are more
like 200 billion galaxies in the entire Universe, around double what we got
from the HUDF.

But........

----------------------

>...Note. That's *galaxies* he's talking about! Not just stars. Scale up
again for stars!

Also, See the Hubble report
<http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2012/37/image/a/>


>...BillK

_______________________________________________


Thanks BillK.  From offlist questions I received from two different posters,
I need to explain something.  This mindblowing photo is about 2 arc minutes
on a side.  So if you took any of the approximately 30 million different but
similar pictures in any other direction, you would see skerjillions of
galaxies fading away into the unimaginably vast distance.  When I see these
deep space images, I dismiss all the compelling arguments about humans being
the first or the only intelligent life, and become overwhelmed by the firm
conviction, there is just no damn way we are the only ones.  There MUST be
others, lots of them.  We are just doing something fundamentally wrong, or
failing to grasp something here, we are.  I think it must be that postcards
to Australia thing, it must be something like that.  They are there, they
just aren't talking to us.

spike