Sunday, December 27, 2009

The Heavens Declare


"The new Wide Field Camera 3 aboard the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has taken the deepest image yet of the Universe in near-infrared light. The faintest and reddest objects in the image are likely the oldest galaxies ever identified, having formed between only 600–900 million years after the Big Bang. The image shows thousands of galaxies, some more than 12 billion years old. The field view of this image would fit behind a grain of sand held at arm's length against the sky. Almost every dot in this photo is an entire galaxy of stars and who knows what fascinating undiscovered mysteries.

Astronomers use this photo to estimate the number of galaxies in the known universe by counting the visible galaxies shown and multiplying the number of such photos it would take to make a composite of the entire sky. Their calculations estimate that the observable universe contains about 100 billion galaxies."
Source

"The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. -- Psalm 19:1

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