When humanity first broke the bonds of gravity and overcame the limits of our planet’s atmosphere, we saw the Universe in its present splendor, which was never seen. Now we are no longer limited to our place of stay on the Ground and no longer doomed to fight interference kilometers of the atmosphere above us. We finally discovered the cosmic truth that have eluded us for centuries. Thanks to space flight and not least the work of specialists NASA, our research growth has provided us the most spectacular images ever to appear on Earth. Before you are five iconic images from five different areas that have changed our view of the world.
Extreme Deep Field Hubble
More than 20 years ago were first made the Hubble Deep Field. Scientists pointed the telescope at a blank patch of sky to the collected photons within a few days, and he was able to discover that was in a large void space: billions and billions of galaxies. Since then, the Hubble’s equipment has been updated several times, allowing better use of each background, penetrating deeper into the ultraviolet and infrared radiation and expanding as the field of view and its depth.
Extreme Deep Field (XDF) of the Universe — this is the coolest view of the Universe that we have ever had the opportunity to witness, consisting of the sum of the 23 days of observations and area in 1/32 000 000 of the entire sky. Astronomers have found not only over five thousand galaxies, but also incredible examples of the evolution of galaxies because we were able to look back at those times when the Universe was only 4% of its current age. We learned how the universe grew and how galaxies emerged from the tiny germ of the structure to the modern giants. More importantly, we were able for the first time to accurately count the total number of galaxies within our observable Universe: two trillion. Remarkably, all of this information was encoded in a single shot.
Photo of “rising Land” taken “Apollo-8”
First glance through the eyes of a man on the Earth rising above the Moon. This image has caused a huge excitement among the people since the first landing on the moon
Everything we have ever learned from NASA, in varying degrees, was a fruit of the enlightenment of society, the elimination of cosmic ignorance and even propaganda. The photo above is called “sunrise Earth” (Earthrise), and look at it, people first saw the Earth rise over the Moon. The did astronaut bill Anders, when the “Apollo 8” has completed the last passage the far side of the moon. He first showed humanity how precious, fragile and tiny is our Earth. Sam Anders who said: “We came all this way to explore the moon, but the most important thing is that we discovered the Earth.”
And here’s another interesting case: when sister Mary Jucunda wrote to NASA to stop spending money on space exploration, while on Earth, so much suffering, Deputy Director for science, NASA, Ernst Stuhlinger wrote her a long letter, put this picture and said the following (briefly):
“The picture I attach to this letter shows a view of our Earth “Apollo 8,” which circled around the moon on Christmas in 1968. Among the numerous great results of the space program, this photo may be the most important. He has opened our eyes to the fact that our Earth is a beautiful and most precious island in an unlimited void, and there are no other places where we could live, except for a thin surface of our planet, limited the gaping void of space. Never before people do not realize how limited our Earth really is and how dangerous it would be interference in its ecological balance. Since then, as this picture was first published, voices louder and louder talked about the problems that impinge on people in our times: pollution, hunger, poverty, urban life, food production, water control, overpopulation. We, of course, no coincidence that we begin to consider the cumbersome problems that face us, at a time when the young space age has allowed us for the first time to see our planet.
Fortunately, I note, the space age not only holds before us the mirror in which we can see but also provides us with technology, challenge, motivation and even the confident optimism to attack these tasks. What we explore in the framework of the program, I believe, fully supports the statement of albert Schweitzer when he said, “I look to the future with concern, but with hope.”
Like millions of others, Jucunda was touched. Thanks to this picture we can confidently answer the question of why investment in science is so important, even with all the suffering in the modern world. Future generations will never have to worry about being the first, the sufferings that affect us today.
Detection of fluctuations in the afterglow of the Big Bang to the scale of less than 1 degree was a great achievement for NASA WMAP, showing us the first accurate “baby picture” of the Universe
“Baby picture” of the Universe, WMAP made
One of the greatest discoveries of the 20th century was the afterglow of the Big Bang: the cosmic microwave background (CMB). The big Bang spawned a Universe filled with matter, antimatter and radiation, and the radiation moves in a straight line to our eyes since as formed neutral atoms. Today, due to the expansion of the Universe radiation are very cool, but earlier when it was emitted, he had to get out of the gravity wells defined by excessively dense and underdeveloped areas, which at that time existed.
Hyperdense, normal, and raspletanie region that existed when the Universe was only 380,000 years old, now meet the cold, middle and hot spots CMB
These areas have grown into galaxies, clusters and large void space, but it is a children’s picture WMAP first revealed details of the Universe with such accuracy. The magnitude and distribution of these regions of increased and reduced density are manifested as temperature fluctuations in the CMB tell us what was the universe. Picture our Universe as a mixture of dark matter, normal matter and dark energy, was first definitely shown by WMAP and changed our perception of the Universe as we know it.
Pale blue dot
This color image of Earth, dubbed “pale blue dot” (Pale Blue Dot) is the first part of the first ever “portrait” of the Solar system made by the “Voyager 1 spacecraft”. The spacecraft has collected a total of 60 frames for a mosaic of the Solar system from a distance of more than 6 billion kilometers from Earth and about 32 degrees above the Ecliptic. With huge distances to Voyager Earth was only a point of light, a Crescent of 0.12 pixel in size
On 14 February 1990, after more than a decade journey away from Earth, on the way from the Solar system, “Voyager 1” turned his gaze back to the house. He was able to make images of six planets, including the Earth above, from six billion kilometers. This is the most distant picture of Earth we have.
Although this picture was not part of the original plan of the mission, the idea of Carl Sagan, have let him be:
“Here. This house. We. Here all whom we love, who know who heard where all the people who ever lived, lived their lives. Perhaps there is no better way to demonstrate the stupidity of the human squabbles than this distant shot of our tiny world.”
Now, “Voyager 1” at 20 billion kilometers from us, and he continues to travel in interstellar space as the farthest spacecraft from Earth.
The Pillars of creation taken by Hubble
Initially, the Pillars of creation was a mosaic of different images and filters
Many of the nebulae visible in our galaxy and beyond, are zvezdoobrazovaniya areas where the cold molecular gas is compressed under the action of gravity, forming new stars deep inside their hearts collapserow. In 1995, the first time we were able to peer into the heart of one of these regions, the eagle nebula, and find the column of gas among the stars. These columns contain a protostar in the process of formation and evaporation inside and outside under the action of ultraviolet light emitted by hot young star who had just appeared.
In other words, the “Pillars of creation” were also pillars of destruction. Infrared and x-ray light showed the stars inside with a difference in 20 years, and found that the inside of the pillars is slow evaporation and changes. Few hundreds of thousands or millions of years, they will completely evaporate.
A hundred years ago we didn’t even know whether there is in the Universe one galaxy besides our milky Way. We didn’t know how we started our Universe was eternal, and if not, how old and what was. We had no idea what the ultimate fate of the Universe or how long will the stars glow. Today we know the answers to all these questions and more. When we invest in space, benefits, and consequences resonate around the world. Studies have shown that not only scientists but we, the interested public and taxpayers for a major space agencies make it possible. We can explore, study and understand the Universe like we never dreamed of before. You just need to be bolder.
Five NASA photos that changed the world
Ilya Hel