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

[smudge]

I believe there is another planet almost the same as ours, where things are happening in real time, but different fates are being decided by human decisions.
Right now, a billion light years away, Gus Poyet is still managing Brighton in the PL, after banishing Palace in "that game".
Palace have just fired Sami Hyppia & are struggling near the drop zone of the Championship.
The big difference is nobody is watching them.

 

[OzMike]

Even though I agree with you, A/ Don't derail the thread, and B/ Lot's of religious, agnostic and some atheists get annoyed when other atheists defend their beliefs in an almost religious or faith like fashion.

The fact is, we can never disprove the theory of God, just like you can never prove it. Even if you 'believe' science it still takes a conscription to that thesis. You have to say to yourself - I am going to believe the theory of science and its results. Even if it can be 'scientifically proved' you still are subscribing to the laws of science, just as some people rightly or wrongly choose to subscribe to the laws and theory of God.

There are many highly regarded scientists who actually do believe in the 'God' like theory.
Not the Adam and Eve etc. and normal bible stuff, but their studies leave them believing that all this couldn't 'just happen' and that there must be a plan.
Which just leaves the rest of us plebs to believe that it can.

 

[AlbionPics&SouthCoastTwit]

Perhaps their is a parallell world out there where Smith DOES get his second goal?

How do you spell the same word two different ways in the same sentence?

Two different meanings but the same word.

 

[Goldstone1976]

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

Hmmm. That would include Brian Cox himself then. In his latest short series he talked about the Drake equation and, just when I thought Cox was going to conclude that there probably is intelligent life out there with whom we could conceivably communicate, he concluded the opposite.

It is one thing to think that there might be life out there - the Philae results tentatively show that the comet does have complex hydrocarbons on it, but quite another to conclude that intelligent life must necessarily evolve. Even if it does, in order for us to be able to communicate with it, that life has to firstly sufficiently develop technically to build radio telescopes (the most likely way we'd communicate) and, critically, be alive and communicating now (as opposed to previously or after we're all dead).

Yes, the universe is huge, but there are massively non-trivial issues to overcome if we're ever to communicate with an alien species.

Perhaps the closest we've ever come to evidence of an alien species with communicating power is the receipt of a strong signal in 1977 at the Big Ear telescope. Check out the first part of my signature for further details!

 

[slartibartfast]

Great pic ... and it clearly shows that CMS is just offside ... again

 

[MattBackHome]

IMO people who believe life elsewhere is inevitable just because the universe is unimaginably big, simply haven't given the subject enough thought.

Not inevitable. Just extremely likely.

 

[Grombleton]

I believe there is another planet almost the same as ours, where things are happening in real time, but different fates are being decided by human decisions.
Right now, a billion light years away, Gus Poyet is still managing Brighton in the PL, after banishing Palace in "that game".
Palace have just fired Sami Hyppia & are struggling near the drop zone of the Championship.
The big difference is nobody is watching them.

That's pretty much the concept of Everett's Multiverse theory, which is rather fascinating.

It's also the best support act for a gig I've ever seen (Eels in Brighton a few years back, his dad was Hugh Everett, a noted physicist.)

 

[symyjym]

I believe there is another planet almost the same as ours, where things are happening in real time, but different fates are being decided by human decisions.
Right now, a billion light years away, Gus Poyet is still managing Brighton in the PL, after banishing Palace in "that game".
Palace have just fired Sami Hyppia & are struggling near the drop zone of the Championship.
The big difference is nobody is watching them.

I must admit that I don't buy into that theory because if Hitler won the war, none of us would be here today. Not because our grand or great grand parents may have been killed, but because they probably would not have even met each other. And again if there was another equal and opposite universe, Hitler he would have been a nice person. Different fates produce different people, and different sperms would have won the different egg races.

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

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.

We're literally seeing into the past. That galaxy might not even exist anymore, it might have ceased to exist 2.4 million years ago and the light's only just reaching us from before that happened. Cosmic!

 

[Tricky Dicky]

There are many highly regarded scientists who actually do believe in the 'God' like theory.
Not the Adam and Eve etc. and normal bible stuff, but their studies leave them believing that all this couldn't 'just happen' and that there must be a plan.
Which just leaves the rest of us plebs to believe that it can.

Name one

 

[vegster]

" Eeee, we're all made from stardust........"

 

[TomandJerry]

Must be other life forms in that surely!

 

[Goldstone1976]

Name one

A wiki list of living physicists and astronomers, including Nobel Prize winners, who don't just believe in a God-like theory, but are Christians. Sure, Wiki will have got some wrong, but it's a very long list, so at least some must be, shirley?

Physics and Astronomy[edit]

• Peter Bussey: British particle physicist and Emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of Glasgow. Educated at Cambridge University (MA, PhD, ScD), Doctor Bussey is involved in the search for the Higgs boson, and works at major international particle accelerators such as the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, DESY in Hamburg. He has given many lectures about issues concerning Christian faith and cosmology.
• Charles Hard Townes (born 1915): In 1964 he won the Nobel Prize in Physics and in 1966 he wrote The Convergence of Science and Religion.[SUP][312][/SUP][SUP][313][/SUP]
• Antony Hewish (born 1924): Antony Hewish is a British Radio Astronomer who won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1974 (together with Martin Ryle) for his work on the development of radio aperture synthesis and its role in the discovery of pulsars. He was also awarded the Eddington Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1969. Hewish is a Christian.[SUP][314][/SUP] Hewish also wrote in his introduction to John Polkinghorne's 2009 Questions of Truth, "The ghostly presence of virtual particles defies rational common sense and is non-intuitive for those unacquainted with physics. Religious belief in God, and Christian belief ... may seem strange to common-sense thinking. But when the most elementary physical things behave in this way, we should be prepared to accept that the deepest aspects of our existence go beyond our common-sense understanding."[SUP][315][/SUP]
• Walter Thirring (born 1927): Austrian physicist after whom the Thirring model in quantum field theory is named. He is the son of the physicist Hans Thirring, co-discoverer of the Lense-Thirring frame dragging effect in general relativity. He also wrote Cosmic Impressions: Traces of God in the Laws of Nature.[SUP][316][/SUP]
• Antonino Zichichi (born 1929): Italian nuclear physicist and former President of the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare. He has worked with the Vatican on relations between the Church and Science.[SUP][317][/SUP][SUP][318][/SUP]
• George Coyne, born in 1933, Jesuit astronomer and former director of the Vatican Observatory.
• Guy Consolmagno, born in 1952, American Jesuit astronomer who works at the Vatican Observatory.
• John Polkinghorne (born 1930): British particle physicist and Anglican priest who wrote Science and the Trinity (2004) ISBN 0-300-10445-6. Winner of the 2002 Templeton Prize.[SUP][319][/SUP]
• Owen Gingerich (born 1930): Mennonite astronomer who went to Goshen College and Harvard. Mr. Gingerich has written about people of faith in science history.[SUP][320][/SUP][SUP][321][/SUP]
• Russell Stannard (born 1931): British particle physicist who has written several books on the relationship between religion and science, such as Science and the Renewal of Belief,Grounds for Reasonable Belief and Doing Away With God?.[SUP][322][/SUP]
• Michał Heller (born 1936): He is a Catholic priest, a member of the Pontifical Academy of Theology, a founding member of the International Society for Science and Religion. He also is a mathematical physicist who has written articles on relativistic physics and Noncommutative geometry. His cross-disciplinary book Creative Tension: Essays on Science and Religion came out in 2003. For this work he won a Templeton Prize. [SUP][note 9][/SUP][SUP][323][/SUP]
• Robert Griffiths (born 1937): A noted American physicist at Carnegie Mellon University. He has written on matters of science and religion.[SUP][324][/SUP]
• George Francis Rayner Ellis (born 1939): Professor of Complex Systems in the Department of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. He co-authored The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time with University of Cambridge physicist Stephen Hawking, published in 1973, and is considered one of the world's leading theorists in cosmology. He is an active Quaker and in 2004 he won the Templeton Prize.
• Joseph H. Taylor, Jr. (born 1941): American astrophysicist and Nobel Prize in Physics laureate for his discovery with Russell Alan Hulse of a "new type of pulsar, a discovery that has opened up new possibilities for the study of gravitation."[SUP][325][/SUP]
• Colin Humphreys (born 1941): He is a British physicist. He is the former Goldsmiths’ Professor of Materials Science and a current Director of Research at Cambridge University, Professor of Experimental Physics at the Royal Institution in London and a Fellow of Selwyn College, Cambridge. Humphreys also "studies the Bible when not pursuing his day-job as a materials scientist."[SUP][326][/SUP]
• Christopher Isham (born 1944): Theoretical physicist who developed HPO formalism. He teaches at Imperial College London. In addition to being a physicist, he is a philosopher and theologian.[SUP][327][/SUP][SUP][328][/SUP]
• Frank J. Tipler (born 1947): Frank Tipler is a mathematical physicist and cosmologist, holding a joint appointment in the Departments of Mathematics and Physics at Tulane University. Tipler has authored books and papers on the Omega Point, which he claims is a mechanism for the resurrection of the dead. His theological and scientific theorizing are not without controversy, but he has some supporters; for instance, Christian theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg has defended his theology,[SUP][329][/SUP] and physicist David Deutsch has incorporated Tipler's idea of an Omega Point.[SUP][330][/SUP]
• J. Richard Gott (born 1947): Gott is a professor of astrophysical sciences at Princeton University. He is known for developing and advocating two cosmological theories with the flavor ofscience fiction: Time travel and the Doomsday argument. When asked of his religious views in relation to his science, Gott responded that "I’m a Presbyterian. I believe in God; I always thought that was the humble position to take. I like what Einstein said: “God is subtle but not malicious.” I think if you want to know how the universe started, that’s a legitimate question for physics. But if you want to know why it’s here, then you may have to know—to borrow Stephen Hawking’s phrase—the mind of God."[SUP][331][/SUP]
• William Daniel Phillips (born 1948): 1997 Nobel laureate in Physics (1997) who is a founding member of The International Society for Science and Religion.[SUP][332][/SUP]
• John D. Barrow (born 1952): English cosmologist who did notable writing on the implications of the Anthropic principle. He is a United Reformed Church member and Christian deist. He won the Templeton Prize in 2006. He once held the position of Gresham Professor of Astronomy.[SUP][333][/SUP][SUP][334][/SUP]
• John Hartnett (born 1952): Australian Young Earth Creationist who has a PhD and whose research interests include ultra low-noise radar and ultra high stability cryogenic microwaveoscillators.[SUP][335][/SUP][SUP][336][/SUP][SUP][337][/SUP]
• Stephen Barr (born 1953): Physicist who worked at Brookhaven National Laboratory and contributed papers to Physical Review as well as Physics Today. He also is a Catholic who writes for First Things and wrote Modern Physics and Ancient Faith. He teaches at the University of Delaware.[SUP][338][/SUP]
• Karl W. Giberson (born 1957): Canadian physicist and evangelical, who has published several books on the relationship between science and religion, such as The Language of Science and Faith: Straight Answers to Genuine Questions and Saving Darwin: How to be a Christian and Believe in Evolution.
• Andrew Pinsent (born 1966): Fr. Andrew Pinsent, a Catholic priest, is the Research Director of the Ian Ramsey Centre for Science and Religion at Oxford University.[SUP][339][/SUP] He is also a particle physicist, whose previous work contributed to the DELPHI experiment at CERN.[SUP][340][/SUP]
• Juan Maldacena (born 1968): Argentine theoretical physicist and string theorist, best known for the most reliable realization of the holographic principle - the AdS/CFTcorrespondence.[SUP][341][/SUP]
• Jennifer Wiseman: She is Chief of the Laboratory for Exoplanets and Stellar Astrophysics at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. An aerial of the Center is shown. In addition she is a co-discoverer of 114P/Wiseman-Skiff. In religion is a Fellow of the American Scientific Affiliation and on June 16, 2010 became the new director for the American Association for the Advancement of Science's Dialogue on Science, Ethics, and Religion.[SUP][342][/SUP]
• Pamela Gay (born 1973): An American astronomer, educator and writer, best known for her work in astronomical podcasting. Doctor Gay received her PhD from the University of Texas, Austin, in 2002.
• Ard Louis: A reader in Theoretical Physics at the University of Oxford. Prior to his post at Oxford he taught Theoretical Chemistry at Cambridge University where he was also director of studies in Natural Sciences at Hughes Hall. He has written for The BioLogos Forum.[SUP][343][/SUP]
• Don Page (born ?): Canadian theoretical physicist and practicing Evangelical Christian, Dr. Page is known for having published several journal articles with Stephen Hawking.[SUP][344][/SUP]
• Gerald B. Cleaver (born ?): Professor in the Department of Physics at Baylor University and head of the Early Universe Cosmology and Strings (EUCOS) division of Baylor's Center for Astrophysics, Space Physics & Engineering Research (CASPER). His research specialty is string phenomenology and string model building.[SUP][345][/SUP]
• Manuel García Doncel, born in 1930, Spanish Jesuit physicist, formerly Professor of Physics at Universidad de Barcelona.
• Ian H. Hutchinson (born ?): Professor of nuclear science and engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His primary research interest is plasma physics and its practical applications. He and his MIT team designed, built and operate the Alcator C-Mod tokamak, an international experimental facility whose magnetically confined plasmas are prototypical of a future fusion reactor.[SUP][346][/SUP] He has spoken with the American Scientific Affiliation on the intersections of Christianity and science,[SUP][347][/SUP] and with The Veritas Forum as well.[SUP][348][/SUP]

 

[sydney]

It would be fascinating to know the scale of that image, as in how far apart in light years are each of the stars which appear so densely packed together. The distances involved are simply mind numbing.

i think the andromeda galaxy is something like 30 million light years across, the entire known galaxy as recorded by hubble is 167 billion light years across.......

 

[clippedgull]

“Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.”

― Arthur C. Clarke

 

[poidy]

We're literally seeing into the past. That galaxy might not even exist anymore, it might have ceased to exist 2.4 million years ago and the light's only just reaching us from before that happened. Cosmic!

Good point

I find the universe utterly fascinating.

Interstellar was like a wet dream for me until is got a bit silly at the end. It needs to be kept relatively simple for me otherwise I do tend to lose interest

 

[Jimmy Come Lately]

It would be fascinating to know the scale of that image, as in how far apart in light years are each of the stars which appear so densely packed together. The distances involved are simply mind numbing.

The caption on the video says that the image is just under 70,000 pixels on its long edge; Wikipedia says that the radius of the galaxy is approximately 110,000 light years, so from eyeballing it I'd say the image covers slightly over 70,000 light years from end to end. That's nothing like a scientific measurement, of course, but I think you could do worse than assume that each pixel represents a light year.

 

[Jimmy Come Lately]

We're literally seeing into the past. That galaxy might not even exist anymore, it might have ceased to exist 2.4 million years ago and the light's only just reaching us from before that happened. Cosmic!

You're right that technically we can't tell what might have happened in the intervening time, but so far we haven't seen anything in the universe that could destroy a galaxy. I'd be willing to bet all my remaining vCash -- indeed actual cash -- that Andromeda is still there.

 

[ThePompousPaladin]

Name one

Strange comment, there are loads, and have been loads throughout history.

 

[OzMike]

Name one

Albert Einstein.
Arther Compton.
Francis Collins.
John Eccles.
Max Plank.
Ernest Rutherford.
Michael Hulme.
The list is endless.