NASA releases a 4.3GB image that shows a small portion of the Andromeda Galaxy!

[Sompting_Seagull]

my god, it's full of stars!

 

[severnside gull]

Religious people should take a look at this and question their sanity. Or maybe God did throw rocks over his shoulder or Adam bonked Eve.

Edit. Apologies for derailing thread.

Could you just clarify? Was He getting his rocks off WHILE they were shagging or was this a separate instance?

 

[Tony Towner's Fridge]

It's a big place!

TNBA

TTF

 

[Motogull]

The image if viewed at maximum resolution would need the equivalent of 600 HD screens!



http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/heic1502a/

Some guy has made a 'video' of the still image. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udAL48P5NJU

It just shows how incredibly big the Universe is!

Proper use of the word 'awesome' justified.

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

You'd have to be a bit bonkers not to believe that life is thriving on a huge number of these dots

 

[Scoffers]

We are not alone. We can't be.

 

[Fef]

So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth;
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere out in space,
'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth!

 

[Norman Potting]

Whenever you look up it just gets mind-boggling at the numbers and scale of things, fantastic.

Oh, and religionists are nutters, amen.

Worth visiting Herstmonceux observatory on one of their open evenings. My brain starts to hurt when they explain the inconceivable largeness of the whole thing and how tiny we are. Perhaps their is a parallell world out there where Smith DOES get his second goal?

 

[glasfryn]

We are not alone. We can't be.

we can't be the possiblities are endless .......litteraly

 

[TWOCHOICEStom]

Amazing. I wonder if there's a gigapixel version (one you can zoom in on like Google maps)

 

[Igzilla]

Worth visiting Herstmonceux observatory on one of their open evenings. My brain starts to hurt when they explain the inconceivable largeness of the whole thing and how tiny we are. Perhaps their is a parallell world out there where Smith DOES get his second goal?

In a Multiverse scenario (or an in an infinite Universe scenario) then yes, this DID happen. There is even a universe where Gus had a Plan B. Not sure yet if there is (in this infinite existence) a parallel universe where Hyypia managed more than 3 league wins...

 

[chucky1973]

Quite a lot of Christians agree that Genesis is made up. Rather unnecessary to drag religion into the thread.[/QUOTE


I read that as guiness first.

 

[virtual22]

Reminds me of Brian (things can only get better) cox saying there's more stars in the universe than there are grains of sand on planet earth!

 

[fat old seagull]

Worth visiting Herstmonceux observatory on one of their open evenings. My brain starts to hurt when they explain the inconceivable largeness of the whole thing and how tiny we are. Perhaps their is a parallell world out there where Smith DOES get his second goal?

That could easily be true, because with my luck I'd certainly have ended up on the wrong world !

 

[clippedgull]

Amazing. I wonder if there's a gigapixel version (one you can zoom in on like Google maps)

Yes! On the link in my first post.

 

[clippedgull]

Reminds me of Brian (things can only get better) cox saying there's more stars in the universe than there are grains of sand on planet earth!

Originally said by the great Dr Carl Sagan in the landmark Cosmos series

 

[Scoffers]

You look at the massiveness of the Universe, and then you look at the soil beneath our feet that harbours microbes that have today resulted in scientists discovering 25 new antibiotics, including one that is described as a 'game changer'

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-30657486

It's all mind-boggling to be honest

 

[poidy]

I find the distance to this neighbouring Galaxy alone mind boggling. 1 light year is approx 10 trillion KM in distance. This galaxy is 2.5 Million light years away. Astounding.

When you then consider the universe as a whole it is almost to large to even comprehend.

Anyone who thinks we are the only intelligent life form within something so vast and expansive, is frankly a little bit simple IMO

 

[Mowgli37]

Ok, so dredging up my degree courses, as I recall the Andromeda Galaxy, being the largest member of our Local Group of galaxies, is about twice as big as the Milky Way, and we are due to merge at some point in the far future (10 billion years?). The average density of stars in the Milky Way is actually not as large as you'd think - the best analogy I've heard is it's equivalent of half a dozen tennis balls (representing stars) scattered across North America. However, the density does increase towards the galactic centre, so typical separations would be in the order of tens of AU's (1AU = distance between the Earth and the Sun), but this would be very close to the central supermassive black hole (at the heart of nearly every galaxy). Globular clusters (groups of old stars that orbit larger galaxies, typically around 100k of them or so) can also attain this sort of density, However, most galaxies are quite "thin", so in the aforementioned merger, it is unlikely that any star would "crash" into another, the galaxies would just merge over a period of a few hundreds of millions of years.

I do remember reading about the merger once on wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andromeda–Milky_Way_collision

Should any stars actually hit one another that would be stellar collision right?

It's absolutely fascinating stuff, thank-you for taking the time to explain it all.

 

[JOLovegrove]

It really is a massive world out there, and I simply cannot see us being the only planet with life on it. When you see all those other moons, planets, suns, asteroids, chunks of rock, ect, there must be someone or something else out there.