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Hubble Telescope’s 20th anniversary
The Hubble Telescope celebrates its 20th anniversary this Saturday as it has been in orbit since April 24, 1990, taking awe-inspiring pictures deep in space. BBC created an audio slideshow to look at some of the pictures it has taken with commentary by Professor Alex Bokenberg from the Institute of Astronomy in Cambridge, who helped build Hubble.
National Geographic also put together some of the most stunning photographs from the telescope.
The images bring to mind two verses:
When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
what is man that you are mindful of him,
and the son of man that you care for him? (Psalm 8:3-4)The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
Day to day pours out speech,
and night to night reveals knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there words,
whose voice is not heard.
Their voice goes out through all the earth,
and their words to the end of the world. (Psalm 19:1-4)
back to top8 Comments to “Hubble Telescope’s 20th anniversary”
Rev: 8:10 And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters;
8:11 And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.
8:12 And the fourth angel sounded, and the third part of the sun was smitten, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars; so as the third part of them was darkened.
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I went to 6 high schools. At the last high school I attended I knew slightly a very bright young woman. She never missed a question on a math test. The boys didn’t like her because she was smarter than they were. She told me once she wanted to be a cosmologist. Her very supportive father said, “You are too smart for the boys. They will always be jealous and give you a hard time. You should go to a woman’s college.”
She got a full scholarship to Wellesley. Years later, I looked her up on the Internet. After graduating from Wellesley, she went to Cal Tech (which is where people who are too smart for MIT go) and got a doctorate in Astrophysics, then taught at the University of Nevada, and worked on the Hubble Telescope research.
I wrote Donna a snail mail letter. I asked her if she had studied under Richard Feynman, the Nobel Laureate and polymath (talented musician and artist as well as genius physicist). Donna was the most intelligent person I have ever known. She said she had studied under him and that he had drawn a picture of her at a party. She said, “Unless you already knew most of what he was talking about, you would be completely lost in one of his classes.” This is an interesting comment on the wide range of human capabilities. The smartest person I ever knew personally, a person who graduated with a doctorate from the most difficult science/engineering school in the United States, found one of its top faculty members difficult to understand.
Donna also said there were only four women in her class at Cal Tech. One day a faculty member gathered all the women and told them they should not be there. “You are not serious. You will have babies and stop working in your field. You are just taking up slots that should go to men.”
It is said that the best revenge is living well. Donna said that after that experience she made sure to mentor young women in science. When I have time, I will look at your links and pictures.
I thought about asking Donna if her study of cosmology was a search for God and if she found him in the Heavens. But I figured it was none of my business. Some people believe in God and some people don’t. I don’t think it has anything to do one way or the other with intelligence. None of us know and there is no way to prove it or disprove it. Agnosticism is probably the smartest answer, but for many people it is less satisfying.
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God who created all things is an AWESOME God!!!
There is NO WAY the stuff in the heavens just happened.
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Barack Obama: “This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow, and our planet began to heal.”
In the spring 1998 – Al Gore called The Washington Post’s executive editor to tip him off on an ”error” in the paper. ”I decided I just had to call because you’ve printed a picture of the Earth upside down on the front page of the paper,” Gore said.
Danny Glover:
“I hope we seize this particular moment because the threat of what happened to Haiti is the threat that could happen anywhere in the Caribbean to these island nations, you know. They’re all in peril because of global warming, they’re all in peril because of climate change and all of this..”
Douglas Adams: “There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.”
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We’ve long been thankful for this telescope.
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There is NO WAY the stuff in the heavens just happened
Well, I agree something happened and here we are posting silly comments on a discussion forum.
I also agree that the pictures of the universe are quite beautiful.
The difference between us is that I have no idea how we got here and you apparently believe silly myths about it. Our mileage varies, in this case measured in light years, though I suspect for many people the burden of thinking is heavy indeed.
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#4 Drill
Love the Douglass Adams quote. Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy is definitely among the top scifi out there.
#6
How much more condescending can one be?
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Aliens are out there… and we need to stop trying to talk to them. That’s the advice of famed physicist Stephen Hawking.
Discovery Channel has been hawking this tripe all week. He says, “We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet,” saying that “aliens visiting Earth would likely be the same as when explorers first arrived in the New World.”
I can’t believe anyone listens to this politically correct garbage. The only good news here is that it flies in the face of another scientific charlatan and his SETI project, Carl Sagan who is currently comparing notes with his Creator.
People who refuse to believe the truth will believe anything.
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