Double Click on these pictures to see them in larger scale. Panoramic view of the entire near-infrared sky reveals the distribution of galaxies beyond the Milky Way. The image is derived from the 2MASS Extended Source Catalog (XSC)—more than 1.5 million galaxies, and the Point Source Catalog (PSC)--nearly 0.5 billion Milky Way stars.
The stars are color coded with the nearer galaxies in the violet and blue end of the spectrum and the farthest galaxies shifted to the red end. Because space and time are linked inextricably, the newest light from the galaxies is in the violet and blue end, while the oldest light is from the red end. In other words, we look back in time literally to look far away.
Point Of View
I am so large now.
I tread on stars as if stones
in the garden path
and my gaze reaches
to the end of things, the end
of all we can know.
Even now I can't
see beyond the first hinge point,
that dust mote before
the flash that started
everything expanding
faster than new light.
May 29, 2010 11:13 PM
Looking Into The Bang - artist's conception.
The Expansion Of The Universe - side view with the expression of time as the X-axis and the increase of area as the Y-axis. We cannot see beyond a certain point because the universe was so hot that it was an opaque plasma of primordial stuff and light cannot penetrate beyond the boundary. That was true for quite a long time, about 400 million years,though short on the scale of the universe itself. To the left of that mark is the Dark Ages. We can only theorize beyond that boundary, and yet the theory cannot be other than what we hold it to be or else what we see cannot be true as it is either. The exception, for which cosmologists are very grateful, is that radio astronomy can map the distribution of matter in the afterglow of the explosion, at about the 300,000 year mark, before the universe went opaque. The blue and green area at the far left is the time of the background radiation as we know it today.
In other words, if the big bang were a successful experiment we ran according to our theory it would display results indistinguishable if not identical to the universal display that we do see. This of course includes the fact that we are here to see it, but not necessarily. It is also necessarily totally circular and self referential. Oh well. At least it is consistent. At this level there is no other way to operate. Say stuff like this or tell the old myths or say nothing at all.
For what it's worth. Last night the debate showed Romney clearly flipping his opinions on many topics. He did not deny it when Obama complained about that. It also turned out that he and Obama saw eye to eye on many international matters. This means that if elected many things that Romney might do would not be distinguishable from what Obama might do. Also, Romney demonstrated his inexperience in international matters.
ReplyDeleteI am sure Romney has been the big favorite on Wall street. Today the Dow dropped 250 points. Is there a connection? Is it possible that people discovered they held out false hope for Romney? I kind of think so. Here's one bunch of people in the know who feel ill disposed about things at this moment.
Or let's do conspiracy...Romney did poorly so the Street is doing what it can to support him by blackening Obama at the last minute.
Still some time.